Winter is here then!

[Joeboy]

Reminds me of my bedroom windows when I was a small boy, except then the frost was always on the inside!

Yes that is a theme when us oldies discuss home heating, basically upstairs rooms were not heated and the kitchen and sitting room were where we congregated in the evenings. As a result even though insulation was poor less heat energy was used overall.

I saw it published that average winter indoor temperatures were only 13C but cannot find the cite now,

Also the patterns of the frost on the windows (solidified vapour from our breathing) formed in lovely patterns.

My big sister taught me to write in that frosting.

Excellent story!

[nowty]

Yes that is a theme when us oldies discuss home heating, basically upstairs rooms were not heated and the kitchen and sitting room were where we congregated in the evenings. As a result even though insulation was poor less heat energy was used overall.

Yep, grew up in a largely unheated house in the North of England in the 70's when it was proper cold.

Never going back to that.

[Stinsy]

Yes that is a theme when us oldies discuss home heating, basically upstairs rooms were not heated and the kitchen and sitting room were where we congregated in the evenings. As a result even though insulation was poor less heat energy was used overall.

I saw it published that average winter indoor temperatures were only 13C but cannot find the cite now,

Also the patterns of the frost on the windows (solidified vapour from our breathing) formed in lovely patterns.

My big sister taught me to write in that frosting.

This phenomenon is well-studied.

I read that the amount of labour spent doing laundry for a typical family is identical to before every home had a washing machine/drier. As a society we changed our expectations of how frequently we’d wash clothes/towels/bedding.

The same for heating. As insulation got better we didn’t save energy we just heat our homes to higher temperatures. Parker Morris standards required that:

Dwellings should be fitted with heating systems that maintain the kitchen and circulation space at 55.4 F (13°C), and the living and dining spaces at 64.4 F (18°C), when the external temperature is 30.2 F (−1 °C.).

[openspaceman]

Dwellings should be fitted with heating systems that maintain the kitchen and circulation space at 55.4 F (13°C), and the living and dining spaces at 64.4 F (18°C), when the external temperature is 30.2 F (−1 °C.).

That will be the bit I misremembered

[Tinbum]

Oh dear!!

Had a couple of miserable days and the lead acid are getting low so my wife decides to do the ironing, use the oven this morning for some baking and now she's doing jacket potatoes in the oven this evening. That's despite me saying last night that we needed a sunny day to charge back up and discussing the forecast.

I fear we will have to do a grid charge tonight, first power from the grid since early March..

[Fintray]

Yes that is a theme when us oldies discuss home heating, basically upstairs rooms were not heated and the kitchen and sitting room were where we congregated in the evenings. As a result even though insulation was poor less heat energy was used overall.

Yep, grew up in a largely unheated house in the North of England in the 70's when it was proper cold.

Never going back to that.

If you did think what it would do to your energy balance, you'd always be very well positive!
But you'd likely be single again.

[nowty]

Yes that is a theme when us oldies discuss home heating, basically upstairs rooms were not heated and the kitchen and sitting room were where we congregated in the evenings. As a result even though insulation was poor less heat energy was used overall.

Yep, grew up in a largely unheated house in the North of England in the 70's when it was proper cold.

Never going back to that.

If you did think what it would do to your energy balance, you'd always be very well positive!
But you'd likely be single again.

I might just be hanging on to energy neutrality this month if WT1 keeps churning it out.

[Oldgreybeard]

Worst day of the year so far here, I think. Managed to generate a whole 3.16kWh. Still, the battery is still at 60%, thanks largely to being charged to 100% yesterday, so we've managed to avoid using any peak rate electricity. Looking at the forecast I think I may need to think about changing the overnight charging threshold soon. It's been set to 55% since about April, and I don't think we've dropped that low more than two or three times, but with the shorter days and the onset of winter gloom I think it might be time to up it to about 65%.

[openspaceman]

0.0 for my installation in the North East, fog all day. Inverter didn't even try to start.

Rain till 14:00 then bright sunshine, battery up to 50% then a power cut, still ongoing expected outage till 22:00

Cheap Aldi inverter generator keeping lights on but the Growatt doesn't like something about the output, reports 231V fluctuating slightly and 50Hz but will not connect. Shame as the battery would have filled in the afternoon.

Tweak the grid monitoring parameters.

Pondering on this again, I imagine neither the Solarmax nor Growatt inverter liked the generator output but the Growatt has the monitoring on my desktop, the Solarmax I would have to look at its LCD in the loft to see if it had a fault warning. I will try it one dull day.

I wonder if I would be better off with an off grid inverter and battery which I could charge with a simple alternator then the waveform becomes irrelevant. Anyway that was the longest outage I remember in the 43 years here so it only becomes interesting if I get any further with CHP.

[Joeboy]

Yep, grew up in a largely unheated house in the North of England in the 70's when it was proper cold.

Never going back to that.

If you did think what it would do to your energy balance, you'd always be very well positive!
But you'd likely be single again.

I might just be hanging on to energy neutrality this month if WT1 keeps churning it out.

10 days to go past WT1's new PB, in addition a 4,000 mile self displacement and No1 son only using the house allows,me to claim home energy neutrality if not flights...

20kWh days to the end of the month would crack 700kWh generated for me. No matter though because if not this month then certainly next.