Finding the chase and cutting to it

In the East of England, we have an “artic airmass” causing freezing weather. It’s 2°C out there at the moment, and has been as low as -6.5°C in our bit of the world over the past couple of days. So, what is it like living with an air sourced heat pump in this climate? It’s […]

A question was asked after publishing Is there such a thing as breaking even? “Does the carbon cost for windows repay sooner or later than the financial cost?” I am going to find that a difficult question to answer, as we had some substantial building work done to put in a French door and take […]

This is a look at the second half of 2025, and a follow up to Number crunching part 1. The summer saw us pretty much “off grid” apart from backup. Of course, we still have to pay the standing charge, currently a whopping £0.4595 a day, though I know that is better than many companies […]

The UK, that is. We have, as a nation, declared a set of tough targets: We’ve got some politically sticky situations about transportation of said power, especially sourced from off-shore wind farms or tidal power plants. It is far cheaper to install and maintain overhead power cables, but these have an impact on residents of […]

As you know, I’ve been passionate about making the most of the excess power generated in the UK during our peak solar periods. I am sure I haven’t influenced Australia, but I love this idea and wish it were copied across the world: free-energy-while-the-sun-shines. Power shifting is something I have spoken about and makes so […]

I love when people say this, because the thing I’m interested in is the total cost of ownership. Since lockdown, we’ve kept up many of the dishes and techniques we learnt when we had more time. And when you are doing the cost, you really should take your time into consideration. When you are money […]

For many, the costs of producing energy efficient good, thermal insulation, or green power consumption, far outweighs the benefits. In the past, Number crunching part 1 has examined how much carbon was used in producing our batteries and solar cells, and whether that effort made a return – is the juice worth the squeeze? – […]

We take how warm our houses are for granted, but as someone who took advantage of a cheap deal if we got our windows replaced during the “autumn” (autumn my #@!£$), it is interesting to see why we keep windows and doors closed while it is 5°C outside! Our Tado radiator valves and thermostats all […]

It’s 2.6°C at this moment in time and I don’t feel too much of a whimp saying it’s cold outside. Today is day three of our “replacement windows, making a hole bigger, and centrering a window in an existing wall” adventure or our trek into how cold can we go in our house? It’s going […]

The standard says, Space heating <= 15 kWh/m²/yr, an airtightness limit of 0.6ACH@50Pa (air changes per hour at 50 Pascals), total primary energy demand <= 60 kWh/m²/yr. For our house, at 244m², this works out at: Heating <= 3,660 kWh over the year. Total primary energy need <= 14,640 kWh over the year. This year […]