so no need to change your radiators. Spend the money saved on a larger rated heat pump

Changing the radiators is fine as they are very old and likely a job I would have done myself at some point and the company are happy to install the larger HP for the same price as the smaller, although in a less convenient location then the smaller unit. We can live with the new location however and my main concern (and lots of food for thought about it on this thread) is just getting the most appropriate size. Too small and too large bring their own concerns.

floors, windows, detailling around window openings?

I suspect there is little to add their other than replacing current DG with newer or adding triple glazing which we won’t do. Solid floors on ground, again which we won’t disturb. TBF their survey was very thorough.

I’ve not mentioned efficiency. Kw are Kw irrespective of source. Its a measure of power, or ability to do work, not efficiency

But if something provides more work for less kW then doesn’t that make it more efficient?

For comparison, I have a 1980, 121m2 detached house with a gas boiler that can modulate almost as well as a heat pump. Its flow temp is 47° so is pretty close to a heat pump too, and it runs comfortably on 10kw peak (will go to 15kw if required)

I may be wrong but I didn’t think it was possible to compare efficiencies of GB and HP in this way. They claim to be 3-4 times more efficient.

Do you know your most recent annual gas bill? Someone has come up with a “rule of thumb” of dividing your annual gas use in kWh by 2900 to come up with a heat pump size in kw. I don’t understand it but it’s based on “degree days” and seems to check out fairly well from what I’ve read

Interesting. Our Gas use last year was 16184kW. Using that calculation suggests a HP size of 5.58kW. Which indicates that an 8kW unit may be a good fit.

Don’t installers look at more than just EPC?

The installer does appear to have a very structured process, there is no indication that they rely on the EPC, I posted that in response to a question on the thread.

Lots of helpful information, thanks. I suspect some of it may help others as well.

Our house has an epc rating of C.

Another thing to mention although the boiler is ancient I installed a Tado unit some years ago and I have found setting it around 16-17C during the day and around 18C evenings the house feels generally quite comfortable. It really does seem to retain the warmth. During cold spells we increase a couple of degrees but how people have their homes above 20C is beyond me.

We are fortunate that our roof seems to be very well placed to generate solar and we do feed a lot in even after using a solar diverter to heat our water. As I mentioned above I am not looking for savings although I would hope the running costs would be similar. I also understand that they don’t run all the time and this is another myth.

what’s the floor area of your house?

151 sqm

but it’s possible if you roll in HW you may need that large?

Yes, needs to provide HW

@nbt thats interesting. BTW Octopus dont install a unit big enough for us yet apparently. We are with them for our Elec/Gas.

Mine is the final quote and they did spent hours here doing the detailed survey. They are also happy to suck up the extra cost for the larger pump however it is not available until September. I am happy to wait, its more important that its sized correctly and they are not just trying to bring the work forward to avoid losing the order.

Yes I am eligible. The price is above is what I pay so total before grant circa £15k

If this is the case, I hope for your sake you have a lot of solar panels, a big battery and live in the Canaries.

Yes, yes and Costa Del Wirral.

How ‘big’ is the current gas boiler?

Its not clear which model we have and unhelpfully the model number (I think it is) varies between 8.8kW and 14kW. Also we have added 3 rooms to the house since it was built.

Thanks. The loft is already insulated to between 250mm and 300mm with traditional insulation. The addition of the PIR is to increase the performance and reduce even further any heat loss through the loft. Part of the loft is boarded and used for storage. At the edges its useless for storage and I have put additional insulation in those areas >300mm deep.

Saucony Endorphin speed 3. Can’t see any on sale in my size (46) and can’t stomach £180 for the 4’s. Any similar alternatives?

I really like these as well. The triumph are a good alternative but they are at full price at the moment from what I can see. The Endorphin trail are a good shout, so much so I bought a pair at the reduced price them immediately bought another. Similar in style but obvs a trail shoes as oppose to road. I do a lot of paths/fields/mud so love them but not really a full on road shoe.

it gets slightly addictive

:-) not for me. 1 was enough….

I can feel a slight ache at the side of the joint

Inner or outer? if outer and it has been around for a while it could be ITBS. It effectively ended my running “career” in that I was competitive (early 40’s) then sidelined for 11 months and never really got back to fitness. That was just me though and I know lots of people who have it and it clears up quite quickly the point being it may be worth investigating and if so there are exercises and treatments that will hopefully help.

I have Foxess batteries in my garage which I insulate with a bog standard water tank kit. Sits around 25 degrees, creeps up a few degrees during forced charge.

As per @daffy I run it on a Raspberry Pi

Am I right in thinking additional batteries are VAT exempt?

We have an 8.7kW battery and I would like to add another 4kW (DIY job) Can I purchase the additional module VAT free?

@flaperon interesting. Same issue for me. “competitive” distance runner for 40+ yrs (well I tried hard!) caught Covid, then Pleurisy then AF. Now on thinners and BP meds (BP only marginally high) Specialist says “common with you old cycling and distance running types” Still run about 40mpw (im 59) and I suspect the mix of drugs is holding me back from being a bit more competitive in my age group which is a bummer.

The message seems to be 80/20 which is roughly what I follow anyway, probably closer to 85/15 easy to hard. Aging acts as a natural brake anyway.

Thanks @simondbarnes

Can anyone recommend a low cost microphone that I can link to my phone (android) I am a novice and have no aspirations but do want to learn to play and sing just for my own enjoyment. I want to record myself (acoustic guitar) just to help me improve my playing and timing but just using the mic on my phone is rubbish. Don’t want to to splash out much to begin with and not after top quality sound just enough to make it clear. Thanks!

My wife and daughter both have Apple watches, I have a Garmin. We occasionally run together and the GPS is very poor on the Apple.

We went in September and echo a lot of the above, it is very expensive. We had the rather unusual (apparently) feature of breakfast in our hotel so made the most of that to get an early start everyday. The one thing I would recommend is a guided walking tour. We had one and although we would have found most of the areas we visited the routes we were taken on we would never have followed and we saw some really interesting places and gained lots of local knowledge.

@redmex scary but they were definitely doing something a bit “non standard” there. No chance of me doing that.

That just leaves the fine work at the edges so minimal time up the tower

Yes, I would say at least 75% of the job is easy and I would be fine off the ground or a low stepladder. Its the remaining 25%.

Just get a scaffold set up!

Preferable I suppose but that would negate any savings.

Thanks for the responses.

Yes thinking of hire not purchase. I will probably have downsized before I need it again.

I fully expect to spend more time checking, double checking and then getting a mate to check than actually painting and am happy with that. My time is plentiful…

Render has been painted before so is suitable.

In terms of Apex height, yes. at its highest point around 3 stories. May need big boy pants for that bit.

Thanks @footflaps @kneeds thats just what I am looking for, to hire not to buy. And yes I suspect you will be able to see the outriggers from space….

@poly been on a cherry picker once, terrifying….

Far quicker to reply to a text that faff around listening to voice mails, espiecially if its from someone in Ireland !

Best if you can spell.

Use them occasionally. Really useful to give updates to a group or family on Whatsapp for example when typing it would be ridiculous and take 15 minutes… Who on earth would object to leaving a voice message.

There are a few other things to consider. How much you can shift to overnight usage which makes the lower cost tariffs better value. I dont have an EV yet however being retired means that when we do we have one, for many months of the year we will charge that from excess solar, as we do with our hot water (although opportunity cost of not selling back to the grid of course)

Each home/family is different and depends on how much you can be bothered making changes (shifting usage etc) but dont discount the fact that your are helping the environment (obvs costs involved with PV/battery production and so on)

@ossify I live on the Wirral so not too far from you.

Use this to estimate your PV

https://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvg_tools/en/

This is my estimate and I have found it very accurate:

One battery holds about £1 worth of electricity, so you save a quid a day. Am I missing something?

I have an 8.7kW battery and I think it cost about £5.5k. Currently I charge at around 7p per kW overnight so on eaven a cloudy day I can add a small number of kW from the PV meaning I dont buy any from the grid at the higher price. I can count on both hands the days when we have had less than say 3kW per day over the last year and a bit (almost 2 winters) and on most days enough to get through the full day. From spring onwards its pretty amazing and we dont even need to charge the battery overnight and by mid morning it can be full and we are exporting to the grid.

Its not a simple calculation however its more of a hobby…..

I have solar and a home battery. Analysing costs is tricky particularly if like me you change your tariffs at least twice a year and make use of the feed-in tariffs. I did quite a detailed spreadsheet model last year on the 12 month anniversary of installation (I use Home assistant so have access to very detailed data) and, extrapolating, I estimated that total installation (PV and battery) would be paid for in just over 6 years. I am very pleased we did it as finance was only part of the motivation and on good days we are generating up to 4 times our average usage. We are also fortunate that our roof seems perfectly aligned.

spreadsheets you can download online?

Not aware of any but when I have tried to use templates in the past I have ended up spending so much time changing calcs and formulas it was best to build my own, they are very personal to you anyway.

I would suggest deciding how much spare cash you want each month, say £1500 for beer, days out, meals etc. Things that are not fixed or predictable. Then work back from that.

A tab for every years outgoings, obviously reducing in accuracy as they go further into the future but including all of the items you can predict. Loans, Mortgage, utility bills, fuel and food cost estimates etc. So take your month now and extrapolate. Build in increases as you know them, eg Council tax will increase by 5% pa without doubt and your mortgage will end at some point. Build in inflation etc for items impacted by it (easy to build a number and link a formula for all items effected) It cant be 100% accurate but is the best you can predict. Estimate costs for vehicle purchase, service, tax etc as well as holiday funds, annual subscriptions and so on. You will then see quite accurately how much you need. Add that to your spare cash fund above and that is how much you need per month/year.

Then estimate your income streams from maturing pensions, lump sums etc, including state pension (build in increases here) and you will see your income ebb and flow over the years and how you can support those outgoings. As above mine (I am 59 and retired) are high for the next 3 years, lower for a few after that then by the time I am drawing my state pension I will have happily spent around 50% of (our) SIPP and ISA pot by which time (assuming 4%) it will have started to grow again.

it makes drawdown kinda pointless anyway

Only if you want whatever you have to be paid to you at that rate until you die. I don’t, I want circa 7% for the next 3 years then roughly 4% for a couple and so on. I want more in the near future while I am relatively fit and healthy enough to enjoy it.

Who has £500 month to save?

That’s a lot of money net each month and I am not for one moment saying that is easy to find but bear in mind if you are a basic rate tax payer that is £400 from your take home salary. If you are a higher rate tax payer then that is £300. Your employer (if you have one) will possibly be contributing a large proportion of that, which will reduce the hit to you significantly.

I had 3 307SW’s between about 2000 and 2008, 2 as company cars, 1 private. All 3 brilliant, cavernous, reliable and comfortable. Several holidays with the family around France and skiing trips to Austria. I know not a 508 but thought I would share.

Has anyone else had achilles tendonitis and managed it in a training plan and race?

Run/”train” yes. Race-No. Tendon issues can often be managed through reduced training load. They are one of the few injuries IME that can be trained through, although you have to make the call on pain level etc and symptoms and be very careful I was running well many years ago and had achilles pain and swelling. Cut out hills and speed work but similar mileage for 2-3 months before it settled enough to return to harder training and racing and got back to race fitness quickly.

Ice is very effective plus concentric heel drops. I would avoid any massage etc IME they only make it worse.

You drill a route using a spade bit in the middle of the rafters to ensure anyone nailing or screwing from the top or bottom dont hit the cable. Assuming your joists are say 8″ deep or more then a normal length screw/nail should not reach it.

But surely there’s a limit to how much you realistically are going to need anyway ? There’s no point having say £3000 a month if you’ve got no mortgage and debts ?

Yes and you have to factor in future income streams against your outgoings. I have quite a detailed analysis of our outgoings against our income, including current pensions, SIPP drawdowns, future one of tax lump sums then state pension. Even though I will take around 8% from our SIPPS for the next 3 years, in around 7 years (assuming investment growth around 4%) we will actually stop taking out of our SIPPS (if we choose to) and they will hopefully be worth more than they are now, in around 10 years… (of course this is market dependent) At around 75 our income (factoring a few % for inflation) will be very healthy and I dont think we will need it. Given my mum developed Dementia and lost all of her assets to pay for her care I would prefer to go before that happened (easier said than done I know) My analysis stops at age 80.

There are a number of ways of taking some of your tax free lump sum. If you have a SIPP you can crystalise some of the SIPP then take 25% of that tax free. You can leave the rest invested which means that when you come back to take more of the tax free cash the whole pot may have grown meaning if you manage it carefully you may end up with more than 25% of the whole, tax free.

I realise I have worded that poorly so here is video explaining it.