Octopus saving sessions coming 1st Nov

[Joeboy]

I like "gaming" the system as much as the next person, but at the risk of being chastised as being a party pooper, I must say I find it wrong that members of a "sustainablilty" forum are are literally wasting electricity for the sake of it just to make a few quid - especially at a time when the grid is pretty "dirty", no in fact very dirty with coal, OCGT, biomass, and gas all pretty much maxed out. Then on top of that all good intentions of not burning gas go out the window, again for a few quid.

Most things I have done in terms of energy efficiency and "treading lightly" on the planet have been done have been done with major consideration to saving money, so I understand the attraction of the "game", but not to the extent where I would blatantly waste or use as much as possible just to make money . It sticks in my throat almost as much as the RHI paying commercial enterprises to burn as much biomass as they could resulting in them turning the heating up full and leaving the doors open.

There I have said it !

I 100% agree with you, and very, very firmly believe that the best ethos for us all is to tread as lightly as we can on the ecosystem of this planet. We don't have a reserve, despite what Elon Musk might think about Mars, and in my view (which everyone is free to disagree with, or ban me from here for stating) is to use the least resources we possibly can, and make the very best use of those resources to live well, support our families and try to make this planet sustainable for our children, grandchildren and many future generations. We should be setting an example by our actions as to how we can cause the least damage to all life on this wonderful planet of ours.

I'll go back into hibernation now, remembering to poke that rod up my backside as instructed yesterday for daring to speak my mind.

OGB, at least be accurate, it was Saturday not yesterday. I didn't tell you to put anything anywhere. I did say you had become boring on the subject by repeatedly making the same point. The ramming stick reference was regarding your increasing vitorol and forcing the same point time and again. You keep referring to being banned. Really, if you want to fall on your own sword maybe watch out that you don't accidentally trip over your petted lip on the way there. Apparently 'I'll leave it at that' continues to be nonsense. Get beyond yourself and move on.

[Joeboy]

The Octopus was a bit bemused earlier,



Its for warming my dinner plates and keeping the oven hot for cooking my dinner after 7pm, thermal mass you know, stays hot for the whole saving session.


I had a thread about using an oven as a storage heater a while back.
https://camelot-forum.co.uk/phpBB3/view ... f=17&t=638

Are the bricks in the thermal mass count on the secret list?

[nowty]

Are the bricks in the thermal mass count on the secret list?

I don't count them but they are on an enamelled steel plate slid under a kitchen unit for the very purpose of a quick improvised storage heater in case of extreme weather, especially in conjunction with any free power hours.

[Joeboy]

Are the bricks in the thermal mass count on the secret list?

I don't count them but they are on an enamelled steel plate slid under a kitchen unit for the very purpose of a quick improvised storage heater in case of extreme weather, especially in conjunction with any free power hours.

Nice one, it all helps. That's a nice double whammy when it lines up.
We are continuing at 1.57p per kWh for gas this evening to the hwt. It feels strange to be running it.

Edit- handily this has freed up charging capacity to send to the EV during the charging window.

[Oldgreybeard]

I dont know that anyone on here has wasted any energy.

My point of view is that I have invested heavily, out of my own pocket, to be more green and self sufficient. Now it seems that the government is trying to encourage people to help them out of the mess they have created, by offering financial incentives. By time shifting my usage I am taking advantage of that incentive. Why should I not benefit from that, when others can, after all it's only a very very small refund on the investment I'd made.

Many times in the past the government has penalised me by subsequently altering the rules and rarely helps those that help themselves.

I'm not sure about waste, either, and like you, I've invested a lot (as in building a self-designed passive house from scratch, over a period of around five years, risking all the money we had for our retirement (around £400k), ditching our petrol car and spending all our spare cash on an electric one, all because I realised some time around 1995 that James Lovelock was right, and that there is a limit as to how well Gaia can remain in balance when we start buggering up the ecology of the planet beyond the point of no return. To say that was a tough sell to my better half, at our time of life, is an understatement!

I have no problem at all with people safely taking advantage of incentives to take actions that genuinely do good, and that cause no increased risk of harm to others, but, IMHO, we need to think about applying critical judgement as to whether those incentives are aimed to reduce our impact on the ecology of this planet, or whether they are really just to increase the profits of the energy companies, and may do more harm than good.

I will freely admit to being cynical about the motives of all energy companies. They are all out to make a profit (and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that if it is ethical) and the problem for us all, as consumers, is to understand if we are being conned into changing behaviours to make those companies more money, or if we are being genuinely incentivised to do things that make this planet a better place.

It's really, really hard to prise those two apart, given the level of obfuscation that surrounds energy sales and incentives, and the lack of transparency of available tariffs from many supplies. Greenwash is abundant everywhere, and trying to look through it and determine the ethical from the unethical is difficult, and made all the harder by the way energy suppliers work hard to manipulate social media, including forums like this one, by recruiting sales agents for free (or almost free).

Some of that is down to the uncertainty in the energy market at the moment, from circumstances largely beyond our control, but some almost seems to be deliberate, in order to confuse customers, or encourage them to adopt behaviours that increase company profits. It also seems clear that some energy suppliers (the usual suspects) are trying to use the present energy crisis to enhance profits, with ludicrously high fixed tariffs.

I share your view that the government is in cahoots with some of these profiteers, but that has always been the case, I think. It's just more obvious at he moment, as the internet and investigative journalism has made it a bit easier to find out about some of the underhand dealings. I still doubt that we ever see more than the tip of the corruption iceberg, though. Best we can do is to try and cut ourselves free from our dependency on those that would hold us to ransom, although that is one hell of a challenge, bears considerable cost and is not without a lot of personal sacrifice for some, especially those on limited incomes.

On that latter point, perhaps we should all see if there is anything we can do to help those less fortunate than ourselves, especially in the very cold spell we are having at the moment. I'm giving another talk on cheap ways to reduce energy use and stay warm this coming Thursday, and have had a fantastic contribution of some low power mains powered electric throws to hand out to some of those having real problems keeping warm.

Next project is to see if the the three of of us involved in this project can come up with a safe, low voltage, battery powered electric throw, with a long enough battery life that we can charge them up and hand them out two or three times a day to keep people warm for free. Quite understandably, a lot of people are worried about using eny mains electricity at the moment, especially those on credit meters. Right now I'm sat here surrounded by reels of silicone covered carbon fibre heating wire, trying to come up with a really safe and reliable gadget we can safely hand out to people. Hardest part is making a REALLY safe battery back and controller, with easy to operate controls.

[nowty]

Are the bricks in the thermal mass count on the secret list?

I don't count them but they are on an enamelled steel plate slid under a kitchen unit for the very purpose of a quick improvised storage heater in case of extreme weather, especially in conjunction with any free power hours.

Nice one, it all helps. That's a nice double whammy when it lines up.
We are continuing at 1.57p per kWh for gas this evening. It feels strange to be running it.

If I had not got my GSHP running yesterday, fecking about with it in the cold and dark , my GCH would have been on yesterday. I have previously made the pledge of 1kWh of gas per day (used for cooking) but I have some spare quota left for the year so I would not have felt any guilt by using a bit to get us through this cold snap. But I refitted a contactor and a larger fuse and it started ok and has been running in a constant cycle for over 30 hrs now. I have not known it this bad for a decade, ok there was beast from the east in 2018 but that was in March so there was more solar and I used gas to heat then.

And after the 3 hr additional charge period on my home battery bank this afternoon I am hardly sitting pretty for the rest of the week and the EV is still only at 50%. In hindsight, I should have re-programmed the supplementary battery charger instead of using the oven storage heater but it was too much of a faff.

[Oldgreybeard]

If I had not got my GSHP running yesterday, fecking about with it in the cold and dark , my GCH would have been on yesterday. I have previously made the pledge of 1kWh of gas per day (used for cooking) but I have some spare quota left for the year so I would not have felt any guilt by using a bit to get us through this cold snap. But I refitted a contactor and a larger fuse and it started ok and has been running in a constant cycle for over 30 hrs now. I have not known it this bad for a decade, ok there was beast from the east in 2018 but that was in March so there was more solar and I used gas to heat then.

And after the 3 hr additional charge period on my home battery bank this afternoon I am hardly sitting pretty for the rest of the week and the EV is still only at 50%. In hindsight, I should have re-programmed the supplementary battery charger instead of using the oven storage heater but it was too much of a faff.

No one is infallible, we all screw up, it's a part of the human condition. Our battery damned near ran out yesterday, as like an idiot I'd stopped looking at the SoC for a couple of days and not noticed that I'd left the MVHR heat pump turned on, 24/7, drawing around 500W all the time. My wife had remarked that it was a bit warm, but being an idiot man I'd just assumed that she was was having a hot flush. The reality was that the house was like bloody oven, and I'd not noticed as I'd been out planting trees in the freezing cold, so whenever I came in the fact that the house was toasty I ut down to me being f'ing cold!

I've been duly berated all evening. The box of choccies I'd put out for her on the coffee table were, apparently, all a bit melted . . .

[Joeboy]

I don't count them but they are on an enamelled steel plate slid under a kitchen unit for the very purpose of a quick improvised storage heater in case of extreme weather, especially in conjunction with any free power hours.

Nice one, it all helps. That's a nice double whammy when it lines up.
We are continuing at 1.57p per kWh for gas this evening. It feels strange to be running it.

If I had not got my GSHP running yesterday, fecking about with it in the cold and dark , my GCH would have been on yesterday. I have previously made the pledge of 1kWh of gas per day (used for cooking) but I have some spare quota left for the year so I would not have felt any guilt by using a bit to get us through this cold snap. But I refitted a contactor and a larger fuse and it started ok and has been running in a constant cycle for over 30 hrs now. I have not known it this bad for a decade, ok there was beast from the east in 2018 but that was in March so there was more solar and I used gas to heat then.

And after the 3 hr additional charge period on my home battery bank this afternoon I am hardly sitting pretty for the rest of the week and the EV is still only at 50%. In hindsight, I should have re-programmed the supplementary battery charger instead of using the oven storage heater but it was too much of a faff.

I forget about the stream for a while then I remember, just brilliant! A little bit on BBC news saying that this is the coldest snap in a decade. I am currently pulling 20kW from the grid with 5.5kW of that going to the EV. I am very glad of the extra storage capacity on the wall, it gives me more options, flexibility and less stress.
At -10 I am testing the limits of what I can do here re adequately heating the house. Getting away with it but only just and not for a multiple day scenario I think. Hey if its once a decade dicey I'm happy!

[openspaceman]

No one is infallible, we all screw up, it's a part of the human condition. Our battery damned near ran out yesterday, as like an idiot I'd stopped looking at the SoC for a couple of days and not noticed that I'd left the MVHR heat pump turned on, 24/7, drawing around 500W all the time.

On Saturday we had a 30 minute power cut during daylight, I thought no more of it.

On Sunday morning I came down and noticed a £2.40 cost on the smart meter for gas which is kept switched off, I then found the lounge was toasty warm, this is the only radiator left on with no trv.

I decided the frost stat must have switched on the boiler, which is in a very cold part of the house, and just checked it was off. Later when I came back in I saw the cost had risen to £4, went to the boiler and found the clock wrong. Also it had defaulted to heating on twice and water on twice. I think the internal battery has failed in the programmer but was kicking myself for not investigating further.

[nowty]

I forget about the stream for a while then I remember, just brilliant! A little bit on BBC news saying that this is the coldest snap in a decade. I am currently pulling 20kW from the grid with 5.5kW of that going to the EV. I am very glad of the extra storage capacity on the wall, it gives me more options, flexibility and less stress.

I had another problem yesterday and that was the pressure washer has packed up, might just be a frozen hosepipe I don't know. But I needed it to wash off the silt on the GSHP heat exchanger coils. So what do I do ?, old skool, fill a few buckets of water and throw them down the hole.