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looking at chopping in the runaround for an id3 as the Scalextric car market is on its arse at the moment so deals to be had. I see the VW ID platform supports vehicle to home turning the car into a massive house reserve. With 11.5kw possible via a wallbox2 car charger on single phase, the arbitrage possibilities on octopus agile would be very attractive especially come winter and more freqent negative energy costs. Anyone gone down this rabbit hole yet ?

After pondering battery storage for many years, and then the energy prices rocketing this last year, i finally decided to give energy storage a shot, working out how it would sit financially was extremely difficult, and a little bit of a finger in the wind, but as the batteries have a designed lifetime of 15years now, and energy prices rarely go down, I figured it would pay for itself with some profit over the long term, whilst also reducing my carbon emissions and reliance on the grid. As i'm just dipping my toe in, i've decided to just get a single US3000C Pylontech Battery for now, meaning that the max discharge W is around 1.8kW. I will see how this fits in, which will cover most of my loads, and if I see fit I can add a US2000C later on to give the full 3kW discharge. Went for a Solis AC Coupled 5th Generation Inverter, the graphs it produces are really informative. Will get round to taking the rackmount bits off at some point. Example of the graphs available: I will add bits to this thread over time about electric consumption. My annual consumption at the moment is looking to be around 1200-1300kWh before the battery, Export sitting around 2400kWh as excess from the solar farm, so be interesting to see what these figures do over the next 12 months. Cost so far £2450 including installation which was £650. An additional US2000C will be £748 if i decide to go ahead.

We have to store our windows for a short while. They are in a proper warehouse. The insurance cover that comes as part of the storage is poor. I can find lots of insurance quotes for self-storage: but this isn't. Its storage in a warehouse, pending further shipment. I have looked for insurance policies that are suited for this bit of the market: so far I have only found one and it looks to me like a colander. Has anyone faced this issue ? Did you insure your goods in a warehouse (not self-store). I'd be grateful to hear about it. Ian

I recently came across a Facebook article on kitchen design tends for 2018...well according to the article, there doesn't seem to be any new ideas. A larger sink was mooted, but the one illustrated was long but single...what? Surely that's pretty old thinking (You have a sink full of washing up and somebody waltzes into the kitchen with half full teacups, and err! I'm not a fan of dishwashers, especially for small loads...that's not my point: double sinks minimum please. I suppose there must be a good mark-up on kitchen fit-outs given the number of dedicated magazines, leaflets and dedicated shops (we have one in this tiny Yorkshire village). Generally they all seem to offer the same stuff, perhaps with different doors and handles. However, I'm not about to stun you with a "but have you thought of this?" type of article. But have you thought of this? Why do we have so many have wall cupboards and ghastly cooker extracts? Wall cupboards always make a room appear smaller and create a cascade effect. Picture any of the 'sexy' glossy images of a kitchen with two glasses of wine and a few carrots on a chopping board and imagine the space without wall cupboards...calm? So where do you handily store everything? In a dedicated stack or run of of full height cupboards, only 250-300mm deep along one wall...OK along with an inset 'coffee station'! (I think a coffee station was a potential ground breaking trend for 2018). That way you can lose everything and know where it is. If you (or SWMBO) insists on 'Away' then the doors can be opaque, or any combination of openness and opacity. Remember herbs and spices rather lose their flavour if exposed to light and heat, so they must be away, or in a larder. I'm a fan of larders, fitted with slate or granite shelving and good ventilation for storage of jams, pickles, vegetables, fruit, beer wine, cheese, eggs etc...many foods don't sit very well in a fridge, losing their flavour and absorbing the wrong flavours from other foods. Ideally a larder should be on a North East corner, vented high and low, and with a sealed door to warmer parts of the house. Is that potentially a 2018 trend...watch this space.

Hey there everyone, my name is Elliot Wilson and I am the current Technical Blog writer for Sunamp. I am with Sunamp for 12 weeks as part of an internship. During my research into the company I have found posts from the CEO (Andrew Bissell) on the predecessor to this forum, ebuild.com. I am hoping to start up discussions with people who were engaged with Andrew previously. Notable users include: jsharris, recoveringacademic, DamonHD, ProDavie, SteamyTea, notnickclegg and Nickfromwales, among others. I am also hoping to post articles that will be published on the Sunamp webpage. I have been talking to one of the moderators, have been informed of forum policy and have familiarised myself with the T and C's. If I still transgress any rules please let me know. Articles have already written and so it is just a matter of when I want to post them. Article details include: phase change material (SunampPV, latent heat) vs alternative thermal storage (water tanks, sensible heat), a case study of an employees house who has data analysis software which monitors things such as exported, stored and generated electricity amongst other things and (slightly unrelated to Sunamp) a comparison of the Tesla Powerwall 2 vs the Sonnen Eco 8. There will be more. Any questions people want to ask they can contact me through this. Cheers Elliot

During a build, inevitably there comes a time when SWMBO needs storage for her ball gown. And tutu. But self builders know that their lives are full of dust, damp, fumes, paint and swearwords. And Debbie wants her ball gown suitably protected. And I don't want to pay much. Oh, and by the way SPONS hasn't got a 'Store-Your-Ball-Gown' section. How (never mind how much) have you stored your precious clothes?

Light on details, but sounds something like a simpler version of zeolite storage: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/heating-vermiculite-potting-plants-heat-storage-summer-sun-winter-swansea-a7234406.html

What are friends for? They are the ones who come to your gate, ostensibly for a natter, and say "Well, yer not going to want to hear this, but......" Yes, I haven't lined my containers ... yet. Oh that most important little word. YET. And now's the time to prepare for winter. John's (my mate) absolutely right. I have to line it Off to the BM, and bought myself £81 quids worth of pure joy. And on the way back fell to wondering what to stick between the ply and the container, if anything at all. Bitpipe I remember bought a DampStick. And on his recommendation I bought one.... haven't used it yet. I've bought some 5.5mm ply and some 2 by 2. I've researched the issue on Tinternet (YooChube) here, here and here (the last of these YT vids is eye-opening for me anyway) and on Goooooogle and this article seems to be the most objective one of all. Lining it with mud is one option, I understand. Hmmm, that's got potential hasn't it? But there's nothing about lining a container for OUR needs. So, with luck I feel a checklist coming on. Anyone got any ideas, tips, please?

Fingers crossed we'll be breaking ground next month so I'm planning what I'll need on site. Electric and water supplies have been ordered and the groundworker is waiting for the nod, but what about site hut and/or storage? What is normally expected and what must I supply? We don't live on site and as it's an MBC timber frame I'm expecting it to go up very quickly, but I realise that at the moment I've not made provision for the guys to store anything nor make a brew. Thanks in advance www