Finding the chase and cutting to it

When my husband was made redundant in 2008, my wage was less than a third of what it is now and we had a mortgage. We had no gym membership, we had a relatively expensive house to run compared to our wages. But we adjusted and 9 weeks later, he had a job offer with […]

If you have been following my blog for a while, you’ll be familiar with my love of automation. It is not necessarily a passion my immediate family shares, but working with them, we have a situation we can all see the benefit of and all have equal control. (If you are in such a position, […]

The reaction to our heat pump has been interesting. Many questions have been about how much more it is costing us? It’s not, actually, we’re saving about £3 a day on heating our water compared to the gas boiled at today’s prices. It’s summer, and for the past eight days, for 7kWh of energy we’ve […]

And I am not talking about slaying a Scottish King to seize the throne! We have had our heat pump going for three days! So, everyone should be thanking us for the more than clement weather we’ve been having. Little note to the manufacturer: in normal operation, it is perfectly reasonable to prevent the heating […]

When you DIY a project, preparation is key. If someone is coming in for you, making sure the decks are clear saves valuable time. The heat pump is coming and the old boiler and water tank are disappearing. With luck, the old gas pipe too. How do we know which is the gas feed? Well, […]

I like to be busy. It drives my son up the wall: but if I am sitting down and see a task that needs doing, I am on my feet and looking for the means of getting it done. This has some issues – I love my job but, if I’m not careful my “overly […]

I swear, this April has been one of the coolest I can remember, not helped by the fact we currently have no central heating! The boiler, rest in peace from 28th March, has been switched off, with all our water heating happening via our Solar iBoost. We’re spending 130kWh on heating the water on a […]

Of course, that’s compared to three professionals living in a single house. We do our own cleaning, keep extravagances down to a minimum, and do most of our own cooking. If you weren’t already aware, and this has made several news channels, last year’s cocoa crop fell well short of expected quantities and quality. That […]

We have to go back a couple of years now, to when the “energy crisis” first hit. Our electricity was locked but the smart meter reader we had in the house didn’t even have that latest report on it, so the price doubling per unit had no reflection to what our “smart meter” was reporting […]

Thankfully, I got a whole seven and half hours sleep last night and finally got my blood sugar behaving itself.  Looks like the bug is on its way out, I now get to recover.  I’m taking a couple of days to gently get back some stamina before starting work again – the idea is not […]