@B.A.Nana , in the middle of possibly getting solar panels plus battery along with a charger. The car will be bang on for 90% of the time, also one of the only cars that will fit in the garage, I need an extra 100mm depth to get the BMW i4 etc in.

I’ve been back and forth on the Ioniq 5 in terms of ordering one or not. I really wanted an electric car that would let me get to my parents house and back without charging (360 ish miles). Ideally I guess 400 to allow for road closures. Journey is M1 / M25 / M3 or A3. Just not sure on the worry of finding a charger. It’s the only thing putting me off in not having to faff so much to get to a charger.

And yes, I am lucky that I can afford to buy a new electric car (just about) and the only issue to me is range anxiety.

Our diesel 1 series BMW is 7 years old but I expect it’ll be getting expensive as things to start deteriorate in the next few years.

Ok cheers guys. GenFit also quoted for a Solaredge 10KW battery for an extra 7 grand. No idea on whether to get it or not just yet. I’ll also look into a hot water tank and plumbing in to the combi boiler too.

Can I stipulate how much goes to the grid, regardless of home battery or water heater? We have a combo boiler so unfortunately we can’t divert energy to a water heater.

Cheers. Scaffolding quote seemed reasonable in all honesty. I just need to get my head around the export to grid percentage vs home use now.

Cheers @uponthedowns
What was the lead time after ordering?

@dooosuk Panels I got quoted for have 12 year product warranty and 25 year linear power output warranty.

I have just received a quote from GenFit

9 grand for 15 Longi all black panels + 15 SolarEdge optimizers + Invertor etc
Also includes a Zappi EV charger as I wanted to find out what it would cost to supply/fit at the same time, that may be removed as I don’t have an EV car currently and not ordered one yet as I was hoping for more choice at not ridiculous prices as well as the utility price hikes making home charging a lot less inviting.

Details show annual estimated energy production to be 5.54 MWh and shows another small figure next to it of 4.53MWh. Will find out what that means.

Also how good are these estimates in terms of real world figures (ignoring weather). Placement on roof + some on garage roof seems about right based upon how the sun moves round but I have a 4 sided hip roof so panels won’t all be getting sun at the same time. Again, I will raise this with them.

Price includes scaffolding and I have no idea if it’s a good price or not. Very well laid out quote.

Will get 1 or 2 more.

It’s a very nice hole in the ground. I’m not sure I could live without more of a changing view out of most of the windows.
But it’s impressive.
No mention of the tech behind the house; I wonder what the heating system is? Hopefully not just a dirty big gas boiler…

Ground source heat pump possibly based upon a brief section when he was unravelling the black pipework with 2 other guys. Certainly had the space available and I think it was a horizontal system, not vertical. Looked like a mvhr system in place too judging by the ductwork shown on the ceiling before it was boarded over.

I’ll echo davosaurusrex, I really enjoyed it. The guy seemed quite cold to begin with but when they showed the family moving in and his kids were hugging him, he very much showed his warmer side.

Only just got an appointment for an ultrasound at the local community docs in the next town over so I have to assume that will be cancelled but haven’t heard anything yet. GPs are usually closed too so I wonder what happens to all those appointments that were booked as they are hard to come by for a lot of people.

The Adventure Game was a little similar too.

Yep certainly remember it but don’t remember if I liked it or not. I was mostly into cartoons but watched the odd live action series, the ones that were on towards the end of cbbc late afternoons. Not your Grange Hills etc, more the 1 or 2 series stories of which I do not remember any of the names apart from The Box of Delights. At the time I thought it was amazing, now, it hasn’t aged well. I watched far too much TV then and still was outside loads, no idea how I had the time to do it all as I wasn’t allowed to stay up late 😂

I’ve always found it slightly perverse that we simultaneously want to eliminate drafts and increase ventilation. I never quite got my head around that one.

You should be able to control ventilation, draughts you cannot control. Seal up the obvious ones and then use windows and doors and mechanical extraction only when needed.

Uk data centres too considering how much energy they will use. Which means online retailers and other online services will push up prices 😔

It’s all lies and fabricated, planted evidence and and, who knows what else his lot will come up with. Fox news even brought up Hilary’s emails yet again.

He’s an idiot bringing all those documents with him to his golf club and I really hope this is the last we hear from him, I expect it won’t be and Teflon Don gets away with it again.

Currently waiting for fttp to be installed. I wanted to be on a faster upload connection for work and the new 500/75 connection is cheaper than I’m paying for fttc. In theory connection may be more stable as no cabinet to worry about.

Good news then.
You’ll know when it’s time I’m sure of it. We did with our 2 dogs. Both were getting worse over time but still happily eating/drinking and short walks etc. When their behaviour changed we knew what had to be done, still hurt like hell to see them go.

I reckon it must be at least 20 years since I last watched Predator, but if it was supposed to subvert mainstream action movies this certainly went over my head or I have forgotten it, care to explain?

@anagallis_arvensis
I found the following that gives an overview of the commentary. Some interesting stuff there.

36 Things We Learned from John McTiernan’s Predator Commentary

Looking forward to watching Prey.

When I first watched the Matrix, I was in New Zealand at the time seeing my homeland. I had no idea what it was when my brother in law suggested going to watch it. I was blown away by it. I agree in that the amount of info about films and TV series that exists thanks to the internet does cause you to lose more of that wow feeling and total surprise but we can if we truly wanted to, stop ourselves from being spoiled (I doubt I can manage to though lol )

Surely the issue is if they come out admitting it, the illusion is shattered and all monetary policies based upon austerity and being frugal with economy which really did a **** number on a fair few people would be plain to see as a complete fabrication would result in society being just a tad annoyed?

We could then keep everyone out of poverty, homeless off the streets, loads of training for positions we desperately need to fill, debtless society and warm hugs all round. Or is it just no, small government is better, we will manufacture division and animosity to keep the cycle repeating?

Farnham is packed with shops and shoppers.
Personally I prefer the rundown centre of Aldershot (so many Asian food shops and restaurants) or Guldford for guitars and clothes (Primark!!!! and TK Maxx).

Has Farnham picked up again then as it hadn’t got through the great High Street shutdown completely unscathed when I have visited more recently. I know the big development is still ongoing where they knocked down those shops (shout out to Models of Distinction I used to visit as a young teenager) towards Swain and Jones end and next to the sports centre.

My local town keep on going on about sorting out the high street but you need some good ideas for a shop to get people in, luckily we have a few nice niche real ale places and the typical Birds bakery that cover the East Midlands. Not much else though, charity shops, a couple of coffee shops that aren’t that great at all, as well as Costa that serve some pretty awful coffee compared to other Costas I have been to.

Heard a tip on the radio for homeworkers: open your loft door. Last summer there was a wasps nest in mine so this will be a surgical procedure.

I have my entire ceiling open to the loft in my utility room (shares a roof with the attached garage) due to renovation work. It is hotter in there than the rest of the house when you walk into it. Both lofts have all 4 sides with decent ventilation.

Currently 31 here and 25 in the bedrooms and 23 downstairs. I managed to get the bedrooms down to 22.5 this morning with windows opened when it was coolest. I expect it may be unpleasant tonight but fine at the moment. Yesterday the house was at 22 for most of the day and then went up a few degrees in the evening. The insulation helps a lot until it doesn’t and you need cooler air flow which is obviously a waiting game until outside cools down enough.

Massive compost bin somewhere as leaf litter is pretty good for your garden once broken down a bit and composted.

Hotel chocolat

Their coffee beans are pretty good.

The beans called Oh Hello are quite nice.

Lady Prickles of the Lyme

I had 3 replacements, possibly 4 I can’t remember, I gave up with them and gave my sister the latest replacement I was sent.

Worse case is you use the aeropress for travelling or even sell it on if you don’t get on with it. I didn’t want to spend a fortune on a full on proper espresso machine as it can take a while to “dial it in” and obviously there is the cleaning as well as the space they take up.

I had my doubts trying to decide if I should go all in on a proper espresso machine as my nespresso vertuo started playing up. In the end as I’m the only person in the house that drinks coffee I went for an aeropress. Massive difference to a nespresso, it is miles better. I think its mostly down to fresh coffee beans. I can’t see you being disappointed as it gives you so many options in terms of whole bean and grind them yourself or buy pre ground etc. I really enjoy trying new beans but that can get expensive though.

I’m using a Wilfa svart grinder and usually set it towards its finest setting.

I agree with whoever said pact coffee beans can be quite acidic, but I like those with some frothed milk.

Definitely would have gone to this if I’d known before. A great drive over to Buxton and feels like a time wharp visiting the Opera House, building and staff 😁
One thing I don’t miss are the seats, so uncomfortable! We went to see Ken Dodd there a few years ago and after 4 hours I was in agony 😂

I’ve done it due to refurbing my relatively new build (14 years old) that was built by people that wish they could be called cowboys, it’s that bad.

On the subject of a mesh system, I looked at the reviews of the Orbi (wifi 6 and previous) and it was so up and down based upon the need to reboot them quite a lot. Was this a known issue and has now been rectified with firmware updates? I need to get a signal to the shared drive to put in a wifi or poe external camera, so I could put a mesh unit in the garage and then connect up the cat6 I have from outside ready or if the wifi signal is strong enough, use that. I can’t get any ethernet into the garage from the house unfortunately due to how the garage is attached so mesh is the next best thing potentially.

@snotrag, that’s the new blue section I mentioned above

They adding a new last section of the red then? Ive seen and read about the other brand new section of blue near the bus stop but wasn’t aware of the last section of red being changed.

Nothing to add but he’ll win the vote and the ****show will continue 😔

^Same for me. The looped fibre rolls are hanging from a pole and painfully only 25m from my house but no idea when I can actually request it to be installed.

Awesome some vid, as others have said, it also puts it into perspective when you watch the pros do it. I think I now feel a novice rider if you are an average rider 😂

Used to get this on the M1 all the time. Tiresome is all I can say. There was nothing I could do to shake them a lot of the time. Drop speed right down, they do the same. Put my foot down and they respond. I think I just had to sit at 60-65 for a long time and they either raced off eventually or exited at their junction.

Forgetting it’s also mother’s day for the mother of your 2 year old son is not a good idea, that’s for sure 😳

Other half picked up a batch just now from local chemist, I’ll do the same asap.

It’s certainly been closer than ever to me with close family now positive and my son’s childminder – he was there all day yesterday and she tested positive last night after feeling rough late afternoon, so I expect after seeing close family when they may have been infected plus my son’s childminder it’s a matter of when, not if. I’ve told all I’ve been in contact with since just so they can test and have a heads up. It’s thoroughly messed up stuff we wanted to do over the next week or so but that’s life, could be much worse.

On my Nest app I can just go to the mode and set it to off for those saying you can’t just switch it off. Also using the app I can just copy a day’s schedule and paste it to another day etc. I have switched off the smart stuff and set the schedule to the temps I want so low temps at night to switch it off and then certain temps during the day, usually around 18/19 and this way we get up to a couple of hours max a day the heating is on during a colder day.

It’s not perfect by any means and ideally I would have a smart stat on each radiator but the make up of the house may prove difficult for signal coverage as no boosters seem to exist for those sort of heating systems.

Yes I re-insulated the loft 600mm, plus used a thermographic camera from work to eliminate as much of heat loss as I can and I have to use a dilute bleach mix on the ceilings of various rooms upstairs every so often.

Its a small price to pay for my low energy bills

You shouldn’t be getting condensation on the ceiling with that amount of insulation on top unless it’s cold spots amongst the insulation due to poor placement or your loft is very damp due to eaves blocked up and it’s dripping down through the insulation onto the ceiling. Perhaps take a look up there where the mould is forming?

Im just getting to the end of a very long drawn out process of improving our relatively new build (2006). The issue we’ve had is that of a builder who paid so little attention to detail that I’ve had to fix so many basic things that are very easy at the time of construction but very difficult and time consuming after. I’ve gone all in on trying to get it airtight along with whole house ventilation / heat recovery but after all the work and cost and with hindsight I wish I didn’t. Perhaps with gas/leccy bills on the rapid rise it’ll be worth it. I’m sick and tired of airtight tape, airtight paint, insulation and expanding foam and my bank balance taking a hammering.

Dot and dab plasterboard hides so many sins!!

Add timber battens at 90degrees to joists to the area you want to the centres required. You then have more depth for insulation under the boards.