I think my kids got Spank Spoon grips to freshen up their latest bikes.

Do they look as smartly dressed when they leave?

The HP debate has been going on for some time now. I’m even toying with fitting one myself, but……

The deal breaker is:

• All up Installation cost

I have ran my heating system at low flow all last winter with good success, so I’d be confident that i could install and achieve a COP of 3.

The problem to me is that electricity is 3 x the cost of gas, so the running costs would be the same. To get an improvement, the HP would need to use electricity that it’s cheap on a HP tariff. This would then need the HP to run at limited times and therefore require it’s heat storing for use in the day time. Then i think it would work for me.

But I’ve got my annual gas use for our 4 bed, 4 person house down to 8500kwh/yr.

It would take me a long time to get my install investment back. The gov needs a bigger grant before I’m likely to budge.

Wait a minute, looks like the Gov have realised they’ve made a dog’s dinner of heat pumps…….

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/25/gas-boilers-heath-pumps-gove-government-green-policies-ban-new-petrol-diesel-cars

The next Gov might get serious about the environment and roll a plan out…….

Until then, gas 😔

There must be a huge amount of over stock floating around in the bike industry!

I wonder if this is the fallout from orders made back in lockdown?

Thank you everyone. So i am over thinking the situation.

Effectively, pay should aspire to match inflation and the gross/net situation isn’t a stealth loss.

Fiscal drag is a problem, but is a separate issue to annual pay negations.

From memory, it is law in Scotland that you must be able to clean the upstairs windows from the inside. Good idea imo

Proper take away curry!

Tea bags

Daddies brown sauce + back bacon

We need a new thread.

Things that make a wife/partner high or low maintenance? 🙂

1. Won’t drive a Skoda

All the premium German cars have large sections of padding to improve the sound deadening. If you look in the boots a large proportion is taken away at the sides.

They also need large engine bays to accommodate the largest engine in the range.

Skoda do the opposite (limited engine bay size + reduced sound insulation), but manager to retain a good standard of car.

If you are biased to the driving experience, go premium German. If you are biased on the activities you enjoy when you get there, go Skoda.

1. Skoda Superb is my compromise.

I think this is the next emerging national scandal.

It seems that these smart meters have a major problem and none of the suppliers have any urgency to fix, whilst out standing charge is increasing to pay for them.

My personal issue at the moment is that I’m considering fitting a heat pump, but it will only be viable if I can use the variable tariffs for cheap electric. My smart meter has been dead since June 2022.

How are people who truly on variable tariffs (EV owners) being treat? Are the getting priority repairs?

Meanwhile the Gov sits back……

Whyte 403 is a 13″ frame. The OEM fork is rubbish and heavy, I swapped it for an old 26″ fox fork and it’s now the perfect size for for my 150cm tall 11yr old 👍

Same old Orange comments……

Love my Alpine! 😀

My oldest girls is 150cm, age 11. She rides a Whyte 403 and it fits her perfectly (imo). I’ve made a few upgrades, mainly the fork & brakes.

What about a tow bar rack? I switched to this style, it’s much easier and better for economy.

🤣 I was thinking the same!

Pros – 1x No front mech clutter

Neg – 1x The rear mech hangs a lot lower. It’s the only time I’ve ripped a rear mech off, riding through woodland.

At the very least they could remove vat on doing retro fit insulation in current housing.

Subsidising gas heating only passed the gov money to the energy companies which we pay for in taxes.

Anything about the green Revolution?
Housing, technology?

Public sector payrise that cancels out 10+ years of Tory austerity + inflation rise. That’s the real world budget that needs addressing….🙄

Office based with a strong Union here. This is perfect territory for Unions to make a difference 💪

Packers + blob of silicon if required

https://www.toolstation.com/broadfix-u-shims-kit/p24053

Working from home allows me to compress my 37hr week into 4 days.

Much to my industries annoyance as they are begging for people to work overtime, nobody will do this due to the tax threshold limits.

So, whilst the studies say that 4 day week is more productive, the chancellor says that there’s a massive shortfall of people at work…..

Most people I know enjoy working 4 day week. Long may it continue 🙂

All mine are stored in my BITWARDEN app along with all my other passwords.

Passwords can also be shared with my wife’s Bitwarden account in the family folder.

I’ve never tried one, but the description fits your requirements

Intasol Combi Diverter Valve

Really? You needed a smart meter to figure that out?

(Simple general rule – the things that use the most power also generate the most heat)

That was an example to illustrate a use. Good trolling 😩

What I would use it for are:
1. To see if my new weather compensation saves gas
2. Does changing my heating design to DHW priority make it more efficient.
I could go on…..

My energy bills are already very low, so I need data to see where the remaining waste may lie.

The point is, the energy companies aren’t providing the data to consumers.

Those apps (Loop, Hugo) need your smart meter to work and broadcast the data. They don’t when they don’t work.

I don’t really understand the angst over smart meters. I had to send meter readings in before it was fitted, it didn’t cost me anything to have it fitted, if it stops working, I’m in no worse position than I was prior to it being fitted.

I find the data they produce to be the best way of highlighting appliances with high energy usage. I can then do something about it (example – an electric use spike at night could only be the dish washer). I cannot see this by taking weekly meter readings.

Obviously, if energy was cheap I wouldn’t be bothered (I would as I also like to be environmentaly friendly). But they have managed to abandon their responsibility to take readings (somebodies job) and fail to give data to customers who want to reduce consumption whilst making records profits.

12 months+ to sort it during an energy/cost of living crisis isn’t good enough in my opinion.

The utility companies are the smart ones. They get the customer to fit these smart meters, then when they don’t work, they just get the customer to send in the readings.
Got you over a barrel!

After much fobbing off by B Gas, this is their response when I raised a complaint:
“Unfortunately, there is a now known fault with some smart meters currently and running diagnostics, shows your meters are unfortunately effected. We are very sorry for this, and can totally understand the frustration it is causing our customers. At the moment, our smart technical teams are working hard in order to fix the fault remotely with the aim being the first half of 2023.”

It has been off since June 2022…..

Study and lobbied action sponsored by Big Oil :-)

To date Hermes have ‘lost’ a pair of walking boots and a petrol lawn mower. I know they’ve changed to Evri, but I’d be amazed if their processes have changed.
I thought that I had a good idea about what was going on by looking at the tracking info until I spoke to the newsagent where I dropped the item off. She told me that the drivers don’t always scan the items that they collect, so ‘tracking’ isn’t really tracking.
Now, you would think that a petrol lawnmower would be able to be found…. No 🙁👎

Sadly, you need to be chasing the insurance. If it didn’t have any, you are wasting your time (IMO)

I’ve just logged a complaint and received a tracking number. Let’s see if that provides any motivation to fix the thing!

The BG ‘Contact us’ chat facility is useless!

Sounds like a great project! Have you considered MVHR?

If you get all that PIR sealed, you may get a big benefit from it.

Ignore the negative comments from people saying that reducing the flow temp will make little difference. I’ve changed my heating design (large rads) and it is running at low temps (weather compensation) with a large reduction in gas consumption. Crucially though, I’ve increased the temperature in the house this year as well.

Radiator size – If you go to the Stelrad website and look in the download (https://www.stelrad.com/downloads/) section, you’ll see the radiator ranges. If you download say the softline pdf you can see the rated outputs. These outputs are the standard figures printed, but are for a flow temp of 70degC (Delta 50). If you look at the bottom of each section you will see the conversion factor you need (P74) to do in order to size for a 30degC temp which is where you should be looking for low temp. Obviously the size increase should then match your calculated heat loss.

Why would the ‘UK Industry Standard’ be 70degC flow when it has been mandatory to fit condensing boilers since 2006? Because that’s the how much the UK care about environmental issues and efficiency….. :-(

Pipe type should be copper, avoid pushfit as the inserts reduce the pipe diameter. The sizes would depend on the radiators, but for a flat I would be surprised if 22/15mm wasn’t big enough.

Have you considered low profile wet UFH? Maybe a better solution if you are gutting the place?

Mine has been offline since June, which is very frustrating when I am trying to monitor my energy consumption…..

Sadly I’m with British Gas and their ‘message us’ in app feature is useless! I’ve requested an engineer to fix it, but I just get waffle.

I think it is a common issue. I refuse to give them my meter readings as they’ll never fix it if I do…

Turning the flow down has made a big difference here.

I agree. But here is the problem for System boilers.

Again, a problem in the UK is the antiquated system design (S or Y plan) . You may be able to get around this problem with a cylinder relay box which would tell the boiler to heat the Hot Water to a higher temp than C/heating (W or X plan). I run this setup.

Heating hot water is relatively low energy, heating the house is where the bulk of the energy is needed, hence the need to control it properly and have a comfortable efficient house.

We are 30 years behind Europe 🙁

For very portable I use Milwaukee L4FFL.

Not as bright as the sun, but magnets are good, you charge via USB & they last about 4hrs on medium.

Bit pricey now though…..

I also have the Dewalt DCL050 which Milwaukee do an equivalent of. Pretty good & portable.

@thisisnotaspoon Your reply is getting crazy and is pointless.

My point is. Measure your useage and inform yourself of your actual useage.

It’s the only way you will know if its worth sitting in a freezing room with an electric blanket, or living in a comfortably temp house.

Ps – I’m not about to test the electric blanket theory 😅

hmmm, think our boiler is a bit beefier than that & it doesn’t have weather comp as far as I’m aware (it’s not mentioned in the manual anyway. It’s fairly old) That said, I do use our gas boiler for heating the house – the IR heater is for the shed (like I said 😂). I was just commenting that it’s probably not particularly terrible vs gas costs. 😃

Weather comp just turns the flow temp down. You can do that manually 👍

Smart TRVs don’t necessarily mean that you turn the room off it can (and generally is) just set lower. You can’t actually be suggesting that having the entire house at (say) 20° when you’re literally only using one room is somehow more energy efficient? 🤔

You made a point of them being ‘smart’ which means the only think they do differently to a normal TRV is be able to turn off via an app. 🤔