geefe
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Post by geefe on May 19, 2023 21:10:12 GMT
You're talking mm. At most a couple of inches.
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Post by dfunked on May 19, 2023 22:23:45 GMT
Wait... Who told you that???!?
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Post by Bill in the rain on May 20, 2023 0:13:21 GMT
Your mum!
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nexus6
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Post by nexus6 on May 20, 2023 8:07:14 GMT
If you’re only putting mm on the wall inside then it’s doing fuck all
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Post by elstoof on May 20, 2023 8:13:38 GMT
I just never throw any newspapers or magazines away going back decades, every room has stacks of them piled against every wall. I may only be able to have a chair and small coffee table in each room but good lordy rooms are insulated
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Post by technoish on May 20, 2023 9:54:58 GMT
If you upgrade insulation you have to go all the way to meet building regs... You can't just improve it a bit, even though even a single layer of wool insulation would have a bit impact. (There is an exemption for if it is going to use up a certain % of the floor space)
I think we are going to lose 10cm to insulation on inside. Our rooms are all big though, so I think it is fine, and preferable to covering the brick front/back. It's also just front and back as we are terraced.
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geefe
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Post by geefe on May 20, 2023 20:25:58 GMT
I'm end terrace. Getting external is, easily, £15,000. Didn't even entertain the idea.
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Psiloc
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Post by Psiloc on May 22, 2023 10:35:23 GMT
I finally added batteries to my solar panels and I'm basically just paying the standing charge at the moment. The solar is also doing some of my hot water so it will be taking something off the gas bill too.
When speaking to the installers he said that they're unbelievably busy right now as expected but interestingly he said that the majority of installs at the moment are for people who don't even have solar and are just using batteries to make better use of time-of-use tariffs.
It surprises me that people can make the figures work for a reasonable ROI, but in a world where people are paying 5 figures for wall insulation I thought it worth mentioning.
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geefe
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Post by geefe on May 22, 2023 10:50:39 GMT
How much and what size?
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Psiloc
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Post by Psiloc on May 22, 2023 11:10:14 GMT
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minimatt
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Post by minimatt on May 22, 2023 11:10:32 GMT
at the other, shitty, end of the technology spectrum - coal prices are (still) scary right now - struggling to find much cheaper than £750/ton for premium smokeless, £650/ton for bargain smokeless or anthracite. autumn last year was about £600/ton for premium and two years ago think I was paying less than £400/ton
currently playing the "it must come down soon" gamble, keep thinking the peak must have been ~december last year but it's just kept rising since
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mrpon
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Post by mrpon on May 22, 2023 11:20:36 GMT
Time to start dismantling the log store.
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Post by technoish on May 22, 2023 11:21:55 GMT
Do these basically get installed next to the meter as an add on? And you can set them to charge at night from grid? Can you add an emergency socket for off grid use eg if power goes out? I've had my solar but still waiting for my batteries and I think they effed me over by basically not installing an all in one inverter as promised so would need to replace or add another inverter (like the ones in your link) instead. I'm very close to telling my existing guys to get lost on the rest given how awful their customer service is. |
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Post by Bill in the rain on May 22, 2023 11:25:12 GMT
Has anyone tried using SmartPlugs to cut down on energy usage? (I haven't)
You can pick them up relatively cheap, and then, for example, stick one on a power strip that has all your tv, games console, etc.. and use it to shut off all the vampire devices at night and turn them back on in the morning.
It *seems* like a decent idea, but of course the smart plugs themselves have a minor power usage, and I can't decide if the savings will actually be worth it.
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Psiloc
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Post by Psiloc on May 22, 2023 11:43:49 GMT
Do these basically get installed next to the meter as an add on? And you can set them to charge at night from grid? Can you add an emergency socket for off grid use eg if power goes out? I've had my solar but still waiting for my batteries and I think they effed me over by basically not installing an all in one inverter as promised so would need to replace or add another inverter (like the ones in your link) instead. I'm very close to telling my existing guys to get lost on the rest given how awful their customer service is. Yes they get installed next to the consumer unit. Well, they can be installed anywhere but the cabling wants to go into the consumer unit ultimately. Yes you can set them to charge up from the grid on a schedule but by default they'll just grab any excess solar that it detects using a CT clamp. And yes I'm pretty sure an emergency socket is an option. From the sounds of it you'll be in the same boat as me having to buy another inverter for the batteries, but in my case it's because I have a rent-a-roof solar system and can't touch any of their equipment (though I'm pretty sure the solar inverter doesn't support batteries anyway). To be honest I'd be fuming if they've installed an inverter that can't host batteries if that's what you asked for. |
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Psiloc
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Post by Psiloc on May 22, 2023 11:55:15 GMT
Has anyone tried using SmartPlugs to cut down on energy usage? (I haven't) You can pick them up relatively cheap, and then, for example, stick one on a power strip that has all your tv, games console, etc.. and use it to shut off all the vampire devices at night and turn them back on in the morning. It *seems* like a decent idea, but of course the smart plugs themselves have a minor power usage, and I can't decide if the savings will actually be worth it. I personally think the vampire devices thing is overstated. An OLED TV for example if it were on standby day and night for a full year would cost you £1.50ish in electricity. Even if you scale this up to several devices that you could control with a single smart plug it's still never going to pay for itself within its useful life. I'd say even in a best case scenario the savings are so miniscule that it's not worth your time and effort. |
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Reviewer
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Post by Reviewer on May 22, 2023 12:10:01 GMT
Yeah it’ll take a long time to make back the cost of the smart plug. Nearly all the articles about the cost of vampire devices have worked it out incorrectly.
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Post by Bill in the rain on May 22, 2023 12:43:26 GMT
Yeah, they quote like 20-30% of your power bill, which seemed rather high.
The articles all seem to think it'd be worth it, but I haven't found any articles where someone has actually done it and reported back.
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Post by dfunked on May 22, 2023 13:18:03 GMT
Xbox series X on 13w standby mode would be 114 units over a year, so £37.85 at the March standard tariff rate, which wouldn't take much to pay for itself.
I just turn them off at the wall like a caveman though.
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Post by Bill in the rain on May 22, 2023 13:24:42 GMT
You can get smart plugs for about 16 quid on amazon uk, though I don't if they need a hub as well.
A lot of them have energy monitoring, so I'm wondering about picking up one cheapish one and just monitoring how much energy things are using.
I just wondered if anyone else had done it already.
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Psiloc
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Post by Psiloc on May 22, 2023 13:24:57 GMT
Yeah, they quote like 20-30% of your power bill, which seemed rather high.
The articles all seem to think it'd be worth it, but I haven't found any articles where someone has actually done it and reported back.
I dunno about that, my house uses about 150-200 watts when everyone is asleep but the majority of that will be the fridges and freezers and fish tank heaters and stuff which can't be turned off. Actual stuff that's just on standby is a tiny fraction of that. It's easy on paper to say that, "well 200 watt hours over the course of a year is a lot of money" but actually doing something about it is difficult if not impossible (i.e. fridges etc.) and often not worth the effort nor the expense in the case of timers etc. The cost of having a TV on standby is obliterated by the cost of running a heavy appliance for like a microsecond |
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Psiloc
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Post by Psiloc on May 22, 2023 13:26:00 GMT
Xbox series X on 13w standby mode would be 114 units over a year, so £37.85 at the March standard tariff rate, which wouldn't take much to pay for itself. I just turn them off at the wall like a caveman though. That's sleep mode. "Powered off" standby mode is 0.5w. EDIT: so £1.50ish per year at the current rate |
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Post by Bill in the rain on May 22, 2023 13:31:01 GMT
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Post by TheSaint on May 22, 2023 13:33:29 GMT
I never really found a good use case for my smart plug. Its sole use now is as an automatic timer for the Christmas tree lights.
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Reviewer
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Post by Reviewer on May 22, 2023 13:38:51 GMT
There just aren’t many appliances that use much power on standby. Unless you use it on things like fridges and freezer or you’re using it to turn on lights intelligently then there’s nowhere to make the money back.
As psiloc says, consoles use almost nothing in their lowest power modes. Other standby modes that do updates etc just show you shouldn’t use them unless you like to waste power.
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Post by Bill in the rain on May 22, 2023 15:23:33 GMT
Heh, after searching for real numbers and finding none, the first article I find when searching about xbox standby power has some useful real numbers about smart plugs. Grrr.
Though that's dated 2021, so it should only take about 9 years to earn it back now  I may get one anyway to turn the air circulator on and off again at night in summer, but it seems like the savings aren't going to be massive. |
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Psiloc
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Post by Psiloc on May 22, 2023 15:27:30 GMT
If you're just looking for a timer you can go a bit cheaper than that. There are some dumb mechanical ones that work fine. I have one on my cordless hoover charger so that it only charges when the sun is out. To be honest even that is dubious in terms of ROI
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Post by Bill in the rain on May 22, 2023 15:30:36 GMT
That's not as cool though!  |
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geefe
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Post by geefe on May 22, 2023 16:45:02 GMT
I turn everything off at the wall when I'm not using it. Only the fridge and wifi stay on all the time.
Solar battery is on my list. My house is fucking cold though and insulation is defo a benefit. What I would like is hard evidence that solid wall insulation has a tangible difference to either warmth or energy consumption.
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Post by technoish on May 22, 2023 17:10:20 GMT
Youll be asking for evidence of global warming next.
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