Small things matter

[Joeboy]

Good battery install weather Ian?

Yeah, spent the afternoon torquing up connections on the Victron gear and making up CAN cables.

Nice one, good weather for the HP too.

[Fintray]

Good battery install weather Ian?

Yeah, spent the afternoon torquing up connections on the Victron gear and making up CAN cables.

Nice one, good weather for the HP too.

Yes, pity it's July and we need to put heat into the house!

[Moxi]

Yeah much the same here Fintray, it’s 11 degrees today and a heavy overcast drizzle. The only saving grace we have is that most afternoon/ late evening periods clear up enough to get some sunshine through which yesterday filled the battery stack and on an average day is just enough to get us back up to run through the night off the grid.

Happy to report that despite the kids growing we still only use around 7 kWh per day and where we used to use 2kWh of that through the night it’s dropped back to around 1.2 kWh, so we have shifted some of our nighttime vampire load to daytime usage.

Later this week we are getting the meter cupboard tidied up and enlarged to allow a smart meter to fit ( if I get over my worries) and we are having a new induction range cooker fitted to replace the old range cooker that ran on lpg. It’s a shame as we loved the old range cooker but it’s twenty plus years old and no one will service it and parts are getting hard to obtain so it’s time has come.

It’s been so miserable weather wise that we are cooking a stew to have over a few days a stew in July, normally a winter season meal in our household.

Moxi

[Fintray]

Hardly been any spells of sunshine here but still getting a decent amount of generation though.
Considering a smart meter? That doesn't sound like you
I'm sure you'll love your induction range cooker, I've found our induction hob to be quick, controllable and economical to run. Which was just as well as I had to replace most of our pans!

Stew in July, is that even allowed?

[Moxi]

Yes I know it still felt odd even writing about the idea !

The fact is though as a family we are more and more reliant on electric for cooking, even now we use various mini air fryer oven type gadgets and have three portable induction rings ( a double and a freecycle single ) so our electric demand will increase, add in the car home charge and the laundry from three growing boys etc and it’s clear that I won’t be able to maintain the 7 to 10 kWh day ( seasonal ) for very much longer, no matter how hard I try.

My wife is now on board with a ASHP sometime in the next few years further increasing the electric load.

More pv panels and batteries are on the cards in the future but even then I won’t be fully self sufficient and the only way to access the wholesale tariff, which I can make best use of as I’m normally working from home, requires the dreaded smart meter.

So yes I’m considering ( being coerced? ) having one and shifting over to octopus away from EON.

While I was writing this the sun has come out a bit and the panels have picked up and we are pushing 3.3kWh back towards the house battery and the EV6

Moxi

[Fintray]

If you do succumb to a smart meter and say go to Octopus (I know someone with a code if you need one ) then you should switch as much of your load to the cheaper rate and any excess during the day exported for a higher rate would help to balance out the bills over the year using the VB analogy.

My wife was very sceptical of getting a heat pump but now thinks it's great as the house is at a steady temperature throughout.

The extra panels and batteries will help in greatly cutting your import costs despite the increase in consumption.

[Joeboy]

Yeah, spent the afternoon torquing up connections on the Victron gear and making up CAN cables.

Nice one, good weather for the HP too.

Yes, pity it's July and we need to put heat into the house!

WBS is back on at 16.00hrs! A couple of good wooden guttering torrent tests on the bootroom this afternoon.

Also heard the auto fans kicking in and out earlier during a 6kW generation window.

[Moxi]

We had the rain this morning, stair rods at times, this afternoon it’s been sunny spells and big fluffy clouds with edge scatter, 10.4kWh into the EV6 and the house stack slowly going north of 70% which is more than enough to get us through the night.

That’s six days completely off grid fuelled just by the sun, would have been longer but we needed an overnight charge on the type 1 to cover the weeks driving etc.

Does anyone know of a source for value gabion baskets ? I need to build a part wall and some other hardscaped items like a bin shelter. I’m thinking some of these items might end up with panels on them, a half tonne of slate filled gabion basket should withstand the gales we get here.

Moxi

[Fintray]

Nice one, good weather for the HP too.

Yes, pity it's July and we need to put heat into the house!

WBS is back on at 16.00hrs! A couple of good wooden guttering torrent tests on the bootroom this afternoon.

Also heard the auto fans kicking in and out earlier during a 6kW generation window.

WBS on in July, as bad as Moxi's stew making

Bloody rain, table saw was out, back in, out and back in again

[Joeboy]

Yes, pity it's July and we need to put heat into the house!

WBS is back on at 16.00hrs! A couple of good wooden guttering torrent tests on the bootroom this afternoon.

Also heard the auto fans kicking in and out earlier during a 6kW generation window.

WBS on in July, as bad as Moxi's stew making

Bloody rain, table saw was out, back in, out and back in again

I was the same during boot oom build. Left a plastic sheet beside tablesaw and a few logs to weigh sheet down during wind & rain. Saves the back big time!