ENERGY MATTERS

[plaques]

Moved to Octopus when the co-op did a bulk move. My only gripe is if the customer reading you take and offer up for billing is registered a couple of days before your direct debit is added to your account payment it makes it look that you are a full month behind for that couple of days. Along side the this negative charge amount is a prompt to bring your payments into line which if taken up would make you permanently one month ahead on payments. Note! the apparent out of balance is immediately corrected as soon as the payment goes through. Other than that all your records are available for viewing which is a good thing.

[PanBiker]

Have you registered for the for the upgrade to SMETS2 meters Ken? Once they are sorted you won't have to read the meters again even though it's only a two minute job.

[PostmanPete]

Have you registered for the for the upgrade to SMETS2 meters Ken? Once they are sorted you won't have to read the meters again even though it's only a two minute job.

Will we still be able to play the wheel of fortune every month though...? We won £1 this month - woohoo...!

[Tripps]

? We won £1 this month - woohoo...!

That's very encouraging -the spin is often the most exciting thing that happens for me in a month.

[PanBiker]

Aha, so you are already with Octopus so you wont need my link?

[plaques]

Have you registered for the for the upgrade to SMETS2 meters Ken? Once they are sorted you won't have to read the meters again even though it's only a two minute job.

I would imagine there would be a problem installing a smart meter. The existing meter is located centrally in the house in our pantry. Positioned under stone shelving with very little room left for even a decent new consumer unit. The meter man refused to change the standard 10 year upgrade meter because he couldn't pull the master fuse to switch the power off. I won't say how the previous 10 years upgrade change was done but I'm glad it wasn't me doing it.

[Stanley]

Sounds as though you need a Sparks Ken. Pulling master fuses went out with the Ark!

[PanBiker]

Pulling master fuses went out with the Ark!

Not on domestic supply. I think on inspection you will still find two sealed master fuse links before the meter. When I was in the TV trade I had to wield executive power as a trained bloke on more than one occasion by removing the main fuse links in a few domestic installations to stop them burning the housed down! As far as I am aware current regulations still have both poles on the input on security wired fuse links. Certainly the case on my supply.

On the potential meter swap I would still register, the problem is not yours, (equipment before the consumer unit is the responsibility of the supplier) and a visit from the meter bloke would confirm what can and can't be done.

[Big Kev]

Same here, 'master' (we still allowed to say that?) fuse was pulled here for the meter change. Big rubber gloves, face shield and constant checking for a current, I watched from safe distance. Very useful twin pole isolater between the supply and the consumer unit is a nice bonus

[Stanley]

But if the TV is on a circuit with a breaker on the modern consumer unit?

[PanBiker]

On a modern consumer unit all circuits are on individual breakers, the consumer unit itself also usually has a breaker on the input. The master fuses are the ones on the 60 or 100amp feed line into the property before the meters. They protect for faults on the input cables. The main breaker on the consumer unit protects for faults on the metering and the individual CU circuit breakers do what it says on the tin, protect whatever infrastructure you have in the house. The big wire sealed ones on the input are the ones you pull to kill the entire supply (both poles) to the property.

[Stanley]

Yup. That's why I asked the question. Mine failed once at Hey Farm due to age and the Board had to come to install a new one.
My CH was on at low level for most of the day yesterday despite the thermostat being set at about 18C. Cool weather for July!

[Whyperion]

YT Video (series)for Lithium Storage for your wind/solar charging.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PenPYwa00CA

You need space, and presumably, a home insurance policy covering the fire risk of lithium, you could use other battery storage but the battery management and sensing systems need optimising for different storage characteristics. Of course if you dont use your electric car that much you can use that as a storage system. Needs quite a few tools to build , so maybe do it co-operatively or can the tools be hired in UK? I dont think I would have worried about the prettying up of the cell outside wrappings.

[Stanley]

CH is on again this morning...... Not high summer!

[PanBiker]

I dont think I would have worried about the prettying up of the cell outside wrappings.

Good practice replacing the insulation. Cells could have their insulation damaged in removal from the laptop stacks. You certainly don't want to risk a short in the middle of a huge stack like that. I inadvertently shorted out a "dead" flat pack lithium cell when removing it from a tablet, it melted the end of the screwdriver and that was a duff battery that would not hold a charge!

[Tizer]

Now to a different type of insulation...Back in June I mentioned the government promising cheap home insulation and I mentioned the problems that arose from earlier versions of the idea. Here's a call for higher quality this time around. Cavity wall insulation has had the most problems. It's shocking when you read that one company alone (Miller Pattison) did 800,000 homes and has been receiving between 40 and 50 complaints a month.
`Home insulation scheme must guarantee high-quality work, say campaigners' LINK

[Stanley]

I've always been aware of the fact that most of these 'improvements' to older properties, whilst fine in theory, don't work out as well in practice, quite often due to bad practices on the part of the installer. I have been told that this is largely due to the way installers are paid on the quantity of work done and not on quality. This leads to skimped work to achieve targets.
Remember a similar situation after the Bright Idea to install wall ties?

[Whyperion]

Now to a different type of insulation...Back in June I mentioned the government promising cheap home insulation and I mentioned the problems that arose from earlier versions of the idea. Here's a call for higher quality this time around. Cavity wall insulation has had the most problems. It's shocking when you read that one company alone (Miller Pattison) did 800,000 homes and has been receiving between 40 and 50 complaints a month.
`Home insulation scheme must guarantee high-quality work, say campaigners' LINK

The two (maybe more) problems with cavity (assuming Wall Ties are all downwards sloping from internal block to external brick !) , is external ground levels (including gravels or concrete etc pavings ) above 3in min below dpc level, (and assuming physical dpc is across the foot of the cavity - it should be) , and it seems debris in the cavity - so it was not a cavity in the first place !!. this can be checked with mini- fibre optic etc cameras but it does mean a clear cavity is needed for insulation materials to be effective. Also any holes in walls (BT, Virgin, Sat Runs, Gas Pipes etc) properly sealed, mortar joints raked and replaced with appropriate bead finishes if existing is flaking and unsound, and any failed brickwork replaced ( rarely occurs with Stockport Type Bricks, can happen with some sand-faced bricks and common if soft red rubbers from some clay deposits were used). I also assume that eves/fascias and gutters are sound , few people budget for the external maintenance of their homes, and many with high mortgages might not even have the funds to do so.

[Stanley]

Wendy. Did Col go any further with his extra oil tank?

[Wendyf]

Wendy. Did Col go any further with his extra oil tank?

He certainly did, it's sat neatly beside the plastic tank, full with 2000lts of very cheap oil and linked up to cut in as the first tank gets low. My little tool shed, which it replaced, is now rebuilt beside the poly tunnel.

[Stanley]

Hee hee! He's a determined lad! Tell him I think he has done exactly the right thing.

[Stanley]

July's combined energy charge reflects the cool weather, a total of £50. The CH had been active many a morning!

[Tizer]

Another scam similar to the VW emissions one?
`Plug-in hybrids are a 'wolf in sheep's clothing'' LINK
`Carbon dioxide emissions from plug-in hybrid cars are as much as two-and-a-half times higher than official tests suggest, according to new research....analysis from pressure groups Transport and Environment and Greenpeace suggest they emit an average of 120g of CO2 per km. That compares with the 44g per km in official "lab" tests..'.

[Stanley]

That caught my attention also Peter. I doubt if it is a scam, it looks to me as though the people who made the estimates assumed that owners of chargeable hybrids would be making full use of the electric drives by charging batteries overnight but the trouble is they don't. The extra emissions are because of the weight of the battery that the engine needs to drag round all the time.
On another matter. I wrote an essay many years ago about energy and in it I said that 100 years on future researchers would think we were mad to be burning good chemical feed stock simply for heat energy. I also posited a theory that all wars were ultimately about energy, in earlier days it was slaves and draught animals, today it is about resource, look no further than the Middle east. In both cases I was nibbling at what we now know to be true. Almost on the money again!

[chinatyke]

I also posited a theory that all wars were ultimately about energy, in earlier days it was slaves and draught animals, today it is about resource, look no further than the Middle east. In both cases I was nibbling at what we now know to be true. Almost on the money again!

In the very near future it is possible that mankind will have unlimited energy available at very little cost. Will that stop wars?