PVGIS shows an annual generation of about 2650kWh for your location (if you haven’t looked already) and it tends to be really quite accurate.

Had not checked, thanks. This figure is almost on the nose of what our neighbours got last 12 months, and installer thinks he can squeeze a slightly bigger array onto our roof versus what they have (it’s the same installer).

What’s the size of the battery being offered?

10kw

Planning? A flat roof would require a ground mount style frame to mount the panels – that’s going to stand out somewhat!

Should be fine, tall narrow townhouses with a fairly narrow street means it’s impossible to see any of the panels on the neighbours, ours would be the same. The guidance on what is acceptable or not is whether it’s visible on the front elevation, which it isn’t.

Is the shading going to encroach on a 3kW array or is 3kW the size that will be completely unshaded?

3kw is the unshaded section.

I have an unshaded S facing 3kWp system in N Wales and for 5 months of the year it produces less than £70 worth of electricity per month @ 35p/kWh.

(Annual production averages 3MWh)

Have you factored that in?

Awaiting the final proposal and drawings through but from what we went through yesterday, yes all of this is factored in. I’ve also got neighbours very similar system to compare against that should give me a good idea of real world generation versus theoretical.

Looking at joining the solar party, it seems like a no brainer based on quotes so far, but let me know if I’m missing something.

One point to note is we’re in a conservation area (Edinburgh) with about 50% flat roof which is partially shaded by cupola and chimney so those do limit system design somewhat so we’ll max out at 3kwh tops I reckon.

Regardless of limitations if seems like a no brainer, £12k for a 3kwh system and battery, of which home energy Scotland will give £2500 grant and the remainder as a 12 year interest free loan.

Payback period on the system is only 8 years and savings over the lifetime are around £20k so seems like a no brainer, if you pay for it all as grant and loan then you only repay £70 a month on the loan and are saving more than that a month of the electricity bill. Even accounting for payback not as estimated for any reason, it’s quite clearly a good cost saving as well as right thing environmentally.

Am I missing anything?

Modern house yes but older house were designed to breath and not be centrally heated?

They were not designed to be centrally heated, but still designed to be heated. The nature of the materials means they can breathe but also absorb moisture, under normal circumstances the moisture from the exterior is evaporated by the heat of the interior, so if interior heat is not sufficient then the moisture remains in the walls. This is one of the reasons why impairing breathability is problematic as not enough heat goes into the fabric of the building to evaporate moisture.

*Not an expert, just based on what I have picked up from experts like Peter Ward (The warm dry house) and various period property forums and groups.

Friday DH, XC finals and freestyle BMX on the day the men’s road finishes in Glasgow, so going to get at least 4 events in! Not cheap but we’re unlikely to see an all discipline worlds in Scotland again in our lifetime and it would cost significantly more to globetrot to various other future world championships in order to watch for “free”.

Thought ticketing was pretty slick aside from the rugby email…. Got the email announcing pre sale was open, got in queue, got email 40 minutes later saying I was at front of queue, went in and everything I wanted was available still.

Ah, I was looking for some sort of filter. So, what, that’s installed vertically above the fan? Wouldn’t the drain need somewhere to, uh, drain?

Yes would need to go into drainage somewhere. Where depends on your exact setup, still debating where to put ours to, possibly soil pipe. I have seen a couple without drain, it just captures and evaporates from there, but that seems a bit of gamble that you wouldn’t accumulate so much that it wouldn’t over flow quicker than it evaporates.

What’s that look like? I’m not being particularly fruitful on Screwfix.

One of these.

https://www.toolstation.com/extractor-fan-condensation-trap-with-overflow/p73185

I’m going through this at the moment.

Not sure of your duct length but if it’s going through a loft it’s most certainly too long for most axial fans, so as suggested an in line fan could be a good option, or alternatively a centrifugal fan. You might need to check with the manufacturer on exact duct run lengths, some centrifugal I’ve looked at have been good for up to 10m duct lengths, some less.

Also you might need to consider a condensation trap, there are generally recommended if the duct is going through an uninsulated space where the warm air will start to condense and run back down the duct.

One that holds the temperature it is meant to is a good start, also how evenly does it heat, nothing worse than some spots being hotter or cooler than others, not necessarily price related but some will be better than others so worth looking at some reviews. Size is also a consideration, how big does it need to be not just day to day but for cooking for others, if you do that. We ended up with a Hotpoint which was far from the most expensive, but was well reviewed on all the above.

To add some balance to the views above, mine went back within their 30 day return period, as did at least one other from our club for similar reasons.

It was a mixed bag. I was coming from a 2018 Kickr with a dedicated Zwift bike on it. The Wattbike was was solid, well built, easy to adjust, good price. But road feel wasn’t amazing, erg mode frustrating and it had an annoying long standing bug that Zwift wouldn’t adjust resistance in Bluetooth mode and wouldn’t show gears on screen when using ant+ so you basically had to choose between gears or resistance. Given gears on screen was their big selling point seemed stupid when you could only get it if you were happy with no resistance adjustment.

Coming from a Kickr you should also be aware that the ERG smoothing on a Kickr is very aggressive, making it super easy to sit at your wattage targets in workouts, so when I say ERG mode was frustrating, I get that for some the Kickr is too smooth as it is not really reflective of your actual pedal stroke.

I went back to my old Kickr and built up a new dedicated turbo bike (old one cracked) on a £99 Brand X frame from CRC.

Yeah £2-3.5k is the ballpark figure given for most places in town that do heritage sash and case, doesn’t even take a formal survey to find that out so goes back to how nonsense the EPCs are if they think we can do a whole house for the price a single window could be in reality.

quite – the 5 sash and case windows in my flat would cost over £10000 to replace with DG – I know I have done it

My EPC says I could do 16 sash and case double glazed windows in a conservation area for £3,300-£6,500!

I like the part in the consultation that suggests a cost cap of bringing things up to standard, “like the £5k cap in the rented sector”. In which case I look forward to paying £5k and sending Scottish government the £75k+ bill for the remainder.

I’d not seen this before. Seems nonsense m

While not impossible, I think Scottish government are deluded to think it’s going to be anywhere close to “technically feasible or cost effective” to make major changes to the period property that makes up a large proportion of urban housing stock in Scottish cities. Some of the costs I’ve been quoted for work are eye watering (as in, payback periods of 25 years +) and the vast majority of firms have no understanding of the complexities of making improvements to properties designed to breathe, not keep air in. Of course if they put it through, cowboys will come along and do it all on the cheap, and we’ll be left with houses riddled with damp issues due to inappropriate work.

Sadly I’ve given up on any hope of doing major changes on ours. Secondary glazing is in, boiler will get replaced in the summer, but any ideas I had about insulating roofs or walls are long gone, it just makes zero sense financially or technically. I’d expect ours is not an unusual case for much of city centre Edinburgh.

Dom who is founder of Fairlight was one of the old Genesis designers and the man (or one of) who came up with the Equilibrium. I’d definitely say the Strael is “spiritual successor” to the Equilibrium, though the current Equilibrium is much more basic in terms of tubeset etc.

How are those holding out on their heating or running it cooler than usual coping with mould?

Fine here, Edinburgh victorian terrace, probably same stone walls as you and running at very similar temperature.

Between dehumidifiers and a bit of German style Stoßlüften every day I’m not really noticing issues. We do have 2x dehumidifiers on the go, one which goes on when washing is drying and another in the stairwell to kick in when humidity goes up too much. I don’t know what would be “normal” for the house as we only moved in September, there’s a bit of evidence of historical issues but nothing major. Humidity has been as low as 35% during the recent cold snap and as high as 60% during the late summer/early autumn so generally don’t think the house is a particularly damp one despite kitchen and basement being below street level.

Dreading this month’s bill after the cold spell this week. Heating was on for 9 hours one day and the living room still didn’t get above 16c.

Sooner we can get the shitty old boiler out and radiators sorted the better but can’t help but feel that I really want to say to hell with my principled decision to ditch the idea of a wood burner, so we can get the living room going like a furnace next winter.

Is the heating on constantly i.e. set to auto to maintain the temp?

Yes here, but at 14 degrees or less for the main part of the day, which is what many would have as their set back, 15-16 in the evening. During the cold snap rooms were dropping to 10 or below quite quickly during the day and ice inside the windows overnight, so turning off completely would have got pretty uncomfortable pretty quickly.

Ooft….
Just in, £450 for the month, even though the house was freezing most the month and we were away 5 days over Christmas.

Roll on spring and getting rid of the ancient old Potterton boiler. Secondary glazing being put in this week but draughty old Victorian house, not much more in the way of insulation options exist.

Thanks all, think I’m clear on size now.
The stove v no stove debate has been playing in my mind all along too so saves me starting another topic to have it here too ;)

Need to get the stove quotes and central heating quotes in and compare the options. One thing for sure, I don’t want another bloody freezing winter like this one.

Thanks all, it is a big space (32sqm) and being old Victorian building it’s high ceilings and no insulation so definitely needs decent heat, but having had a stove in our old place (not fitted by us) that was too powerful, I don’t want to go too big, and some of the calculators seem ridiculous. Don’t really understand the reasons for such big discrepancies

What’s the sort of cost for one? Couldn’t see it on the website.

The Envirovent one is around £500 though there are other options around half that.

I’ve used the basic Ooni recipe in the bread maker many times, just use the pizza dough setting on the machine if it has one? Ours does, it’s just a shorter 45 minute dough cycle. It’s a very solid reliable recipe for times you are short of time. Just bung everything in the machine rather than following the hand mixing and kneading steps.

00 Pizza flour works best, strong bread flour works absolutely fine. At a push I’d be willing to bet plain flour would make acceptable pizza too, I often use it instead of bread flour in the basic bread machine recipes.

https://uk.ooni.com/blogs/recipes/quick-pizza-dough

Similar in so far as it’s call at 8 and see what you can get, but they have a queuing system and I have without fail always got an appointment same day, though sometimes have to call back at 1pm for the later in the day slots. In recent years they have started to triage more to give telephone appointments where appropriate in the first instance.
This is city centre Edinburgh in an incredibly stretched practice, but they seem to make it work and I’m very grateful.

They really aren’t. Wattbike will go first.

Seems unlikely, unless you have inside info we don’t? Wattbike had a pretty solid business with commercial gyms and the like well before the home training/smart bike revolution came along whereas Peleton are very much reliant on the home fitness craze.

Is it throwing up any error code when it’s doing this? Our last 2 have always thrown up an error if they don’t drain.

Last time I had this it was a small shard of glass was blocking the drain hole in the bottom, was dead simple to fix once I’d found a Youtube showing me how. Will be different for each dishwasher though so perhaps get on Youtube and search for some videos for your particular make and see what comes up. I just searched for “Miele dishwasher not draining” and there was multiple videos saying this was a common fix.

Octopus want to put our monthly payment up to £480.

Same here. Though in fairness it’s a suggestion and no attempt to actually do it yet. It’s also based on a lot of assumptions from last winter that may not be the same this, though I do like their new forecast tool that shows how they came to it………I just hope it’s not correct!!

Theoretically Tado does actually support EMS bus, but only if you’re using the wireless repeater, and it’s only advertised as such in Europe; in the UK it guides you down the route of just using on/off unless you basically figure it out yourself.

Tado got called out on this recently; they said while modulating controls are ubiquitous in Europe they aren’t here, so it wasn’t worth them supporting EMS bus here given the tiny number of installs.

Modulating version is available again! Got to order via the professional shop right now but it’s proper UK product again.

I can see how all these clever boiler features are a good idea (also weather compensation, external temp sensors etc) might be beneficial without smart TRVs but with them I suspect the differences are pretty negligible.

I don’t really see how one could negate the other, and it doesn’t have to be an either/or choice, get a smart thermostat that supports modulation and it’s a double whammy of benefits.

What is boiler modulation and boiler cycling?

Shirley the boiler takes care of its own modulation, why does the smarts care?

Because the thermostat is telling the boiler what to do as the boiler has no idea what is actually needed, for all it knows it might need to heat up the house by 10 degrees for the next 12 hours, rather than just nudging the temperature 0.5 degrees for a brief time. So with a non-modulating thermostat it’s asking for everything or nothing, a modulating thermostat will ask the boiler for what it needs to get to the desired temperature.

I think of it like the boiler being a car and the thermostat being your right foot, the car only does what your right foot tells it. If you want to go from 50-60mph without modulation, you just put the foot flat to the floor and you reach 60, probably overshoot a bit, come back down, and burn a load of fuel in the process, but if your foot modulates what the car does you get to 60 gently, and using much less fuel in the process.

Perhaps. Why do you think there’s congestion?

I don’t I’m just reading stuff on the internet that says there might be, so reducing the number of devices on the main network may be a good thing!

Less network congestion
Last but by no means least on our list is network overload. Wi-Fi routers can only handle so many simultaneous connections. While a single apartment-dweller may never run into any problems, a couple with a house can hit their limit in a hurry, especially if they deck out each room with Wi-Fi lights (like Lifx) instead of connecting to a Wi-Fi hub (like Philips Hue). Don’t get me wrong — built-in Wi-Fi bulbs can be great, but only if you’re using a handful.

It’s possible to avoid this overload by using a Wi-Fi 6 router, but 2.4GHz traffic would still get congested quickly since it only supports 11 channels, whereas 5GHz allows many times that number. The more you can offload from a single network’s 2.4GHz channels, the better.

congestion? from IOT? surely that is almost impossible.

Just going based on what I have read, see example article in the original post. It does seem the security aspects are indisputable.

if you move them to a different network is there anything on the other network they would need to talk to?

Yeah, aware some may need to stay on the original network, or just make it easy to switch phones back and forth to the alternative network.

The biggest issue I can’t work out is how Google Home will react to it since it is the main control hub for the Wifi as well as the Google Smart devices I have in the house.

Feels like it should be possible with a software fix as it clearly knows when it’s got the valves set for hot water and when they’re set for heating and could then instruct the boiler accordingly. I’m no heating engineer though!

I emailed them about it, they said they are working on a fix for it, but couldn’t share timescales for when it might be ready.

I don’t know if I’d go as far as to say there’s a surefire way, but for every business there will be stuff that works and stuff that doesn’t. The difficulty is in finding what that is for your audience. So first question you need to ask yourself is who your audience is and what problem you are solving for them, then you need to work out where that audience go and where they might be looking for information that you can help them with/sell them something.

It might be social, it might be email, but you need to work that out yourself. I’d certainly not be using someone from Fivrr to do email marketing, at best it will be wasted effort spamming people who have zero interest in your product, at worst you end up with a list of names with no way of knowing if their details have been collected in a GDPR compliant way. Email has worked best for me when it’s to existing customers who have proactively opted into some sort of mailing list.

This thing.

I reviewed it and everything. It’s excellent.

https://smile.amazon.co.uk/gp/customer-reviews/RHIAFDS48CP6U/

The (ahem) lightbulb moment for me was realising: I wanted seamless 2.4/5GHz roaming Wi-Fi throughout the house without having to reconnect to different access points but… IoT cares not a jot. A bulb in the dining room isn’t suddenly going to want to connect from the bedroom. Connecting boggo Tesco smart lights to a £200 Asus routerbeast took ages, when it worked at all. Pairing to this little pocket rocket instead was near-instantaneous.

Thanks!
So where does this connect, in one of the ethernet ports in your mesh system?

Do you have any notable issues with the fact that it means some devices are not connected to the same network as the phone that you might want to control them through? I *think* most of ours should be ok, but things like Sonos are only controllable by a device on the same network.

Switched our hub 3 several times this past month, fine every time. Perhaps you’ve a problem?

dedicated £20 little box of awesome for the IoT stuff.

Tell us more?

One point to note about wiser is that the 2 channel version (system boiler and zone valves) it isn’t opentherm compatible, only the 1 channel one (combi) is

Argh! Very frustrating though glad I stumbled across this now rather than realising after buying it. Was about to go for the Drayton for exactly the same reason that Tado is not open therm compatible on the hot water/system version.

Not sure if anyone does an open therm compatible thermostat for a system boiler that has radiator valves?! I could go with a Nest and zone valves but buying multiple Nest’s and getting valves fitted is a mega expensive way of doing it versus sticking on a few TVRs.

They’ve been cheap for a while now, got a great deal on some 27.5 wheels for my boys new bike. He’d been riding a set of 24″ Crest’s on his previous bike that unfortunately some tea leaf nicked, otherwise they’d be going to his sister as they are still going strong after 3 years. Just a shame there is no kids sized ones still in stock, was the only place in the UK to easily get 24″ Stans.

Ah ok, so it’s just about being able to place the bridge in a more central position rather than actually doing anything to improve its signal