Re: The energy crisis
 

Liz Truss campaign’s biggest donation came from wife of former BP executive
Fitriani Hay, wife of James Hay, donated £100,000 to Truss’s successful bid to become PM

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...box=1662636333

the real reason she against a winfall tax

Re: The energy crisis
 

A former BP executive it says.

Did you not understand that bit?

Re: The energy crisis
 

20 years ago - a bit tenuous…

Re: The energy crisis
 

It's considerably less time than he spent at BP though...

Re: The energy crisis
 

Our hot water is set to 50C and heating to around 65C as recommended by the installer. You don't want the water much higher as that goes to scalding and there is no point having the heating too high as the radiators can't "push out" the heat fast enough. (The boiler is less than 1 year old BTW)

Re: The energy crisis
 

Sounds good. I think I may reduce mine down a few degrees too.

Re: The energy crisis
 

We've got our central heating set around the middle of the range so it gets to around 60, but the hot water is on maximum simply because both Mrs G and I like a shower to have some oomph and this gives us a superb water flow - heating water just to cool it down with cold water is wasteful but at the moment we're happy to pay it. One thing I'm planning to change though is turn the water pre-heat off. I'll take some grief because she likes 'instant' hot water in the shower but that is a waste of gas. I wish when we were renovating the house we'd not put the boiler at the far end of the loft as it's crawling access only down that end!

Re: The energy crisis
 

This summer we moved house to a super efficient new build with 1.3KW of solar panels integrated to the roof. Since the electricity meter was activated last spring it has exported about a third more electricity to the grid than it has imported … sadly as our wholesale market is rigged against the little people, Scottish Power can get away with paying me a small fraction of what they will sell that solar power on for. Nevertheless we get some benefit because the house consumes any available solar power before drawing from the grid so there are times when we’re using electricity at little or no cost. Add to that the construction of the house makes it like some sort of giant storage heater and we’ve still yet to switch the central heating on (a notable achievement in this part of Scotland in September).

All told I’m hopeful that despite the price increases, we’re actually going to reduce our energy bill compared to last winter, as our old house was so draughty. However as Scottish Power has been truly glacial in setting up our account and the counter-top smart meter doesn’t actually work, it’s still going to be a while before I know what it’s actually costing us to live here.

Re: The energy crisis
 

Any batteries?

Re: The energy crisis
 

Oddly enough I was reviewing the documentation yesterday and the house builder does have a recommended supplier if we want to add them. I think I’m going to at least ask, and see how cost effective they are.

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Not that I will ever be able to afford it but keep us informed anyway

Re: The energy crisis
 

Aside from the noise, I wonder how cost effective a home generator would be now.

Re: The energy crisis
 

It's not so long ago that there was a push in the UK to have home gas boilers removed, and gas powered electricity generators fitted that had waste heat to warm the homes. I suspect that is on the furthest point away from becoming a reality now.

Re: The energy crisis
 

You must kidding 75c !!!: shocked:

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It's all down to how condensing combi boilers work. 75c leaving the boiler, but a lot lower on the return leg. I had it explained to me in a very techie way, and it made total sense.

But, and it's big BUT, Building Regs Part L changed again in June this year.

Now the system must be able to cope with 55c.

This guy explains it, but the writing on the screen is a bit off-putting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbcVKU1QxJ4