Author Topic: Home energy saving tips /ideas...  (Read 94025 times)

Re: Home energy saving tips /ideas...
« Reply #75 on: 13 October, 2021, 08:47:49 am »
There are other taxes aside from income tax.  CGT for instance and tighter control of "reasonable costs" on certain types of spending.

Also tax breaks need to be reviewed objectively as does "Jenrick" interference.

Then there is the recent NI announcement.  Very equitable: load the burden upon the ordinary and young folk whilst continuing to prop up the grey vote.

I am always amazed how ordinary and even quite intelligent people seem to think that low revenue collection for the wealthy results in a fairer if more unequal society.

Re: Home energy saving tips /ideas...
« Reply #76 on: 13 October, 2021, 08:50:43 am »

If only slogans solved problems  :)

:thumbsup:
Never knowingly under caffeinated

Re: Home energy saving tips /ideas...
« Reply #77 on: 13 October, 2021, 09:18:45 am »
Quote
"But how are you going to pay for it?". Easy. Tax the fucking rich.

Hmm. I don't think that will work. If by 'the rich' you mean corps like Apple, Amazon etc, then I absolutely agree. They are a tick on every country in the world.

We need to make building offshore wind (and PV) a more attractive business than sucking oil out from the sea bed.

The cost of building offshore oil rigs is immense, they are incredibly ugly and the decommissioning is expensive and easily polluting. The 'nudge point' of making offshore wind a more attractive business can't be far off. I think it was BP that paid a record price for licence to build wind in an area. Just a little push more . . .
<i>Marmite slave</i>

ppg

Re: Home energy saving tips /ideas...
« Reply #78 on: 13 October, 2021, 09:26:20 am »
Quote
"But how are you going to pay for it?". Easy. Tax the fucking rich.

Hmm. I don't think that will work. If by 'the rich' you mean corps like Apple, Amazon etc, then I absolutely agree. They are a tick on every country in the world.

We need to make building offshore wind (and PV) a more attractive business than sucking oil out from the sea bed.

Well it certainly didn't for Wilson/Healey though it did produce Exile on Main Street* so they can be forgiven  :)

Offshore wind certainly, but with massive investment in storage as demonstrated recently when the output fell to close to nothing. EVs? H2?


* OK not quite the same period, same policy though


felstedrider

Re: Home energy saving tips /ideas...
« Reply #79 on: 13 October, 2021, 09:30:24 am »
One of the benefits of the current high wholesale prices is that new build unsubsidised solar and wind projects now make financial sense.   Masses of projects that were on the shelf are now rolling out to financial close.

Big problem for solar now will be getting the panels out of China to where they are needed on the ground.

ian

Re: Home energy saving tips /ideas...
« Reply #80 on: 13 October, 2021, 09:40:06 am »
Quote
"But how are you going to pay for it?". Easy. Tax the fucking rich.

Hmm. I don't think that will work. If by 'the rich' you mean corps like Apple, Amazon etc, then I absolutely agree. They are a tick on every country in the world.

We need to make building offshore wind (and PV) a more attractive business than sucking oil out from the sea bed.

The cost of building offshore oil rigs is immense, they are incredibly ugly and the decommissioning is expensive and easily polluting. The 'nudge point' of making offshore wind a more attractive business can't be far off. I think it was BP that paid a record price for licence to build wind in an area. Just a little push more . . .

There's a simple solution to that – I mentioned it earlier – if you want to suck oil out of the ground or seabed fine, but pay the actual costs.

Taking it out of the ground immediately becomes economically unsustainable – and this is the true picture, fossil fuel is only a profitable business because the producers don't pay for anything, not even the immediate problems burning them causes. If you are in hospital with asthma because you live by a busy road, they're not paying the bills. And, of course, they're not paying for the cost of climate change. When you burn fuel, you are now passing a non-negotiable IOU to your kids, for an unspecified amount that's payable at an unspecified time.

On a wide scale, and with some irony, capitalism is only successful because we subsidise it. Carmakers wouldn't go far if we didn't build roads, for instance. Taxing the rich mostly doesn't work, they're mobile, there's not many of them, and they have lots of lawyers. Corporates need governments, however.

Anyway, paying the real costs of fossil fuel would, of course, completely change the economics of renewals, they'd be an order of magnitude cheaper. You can imagine why the fossil fuel industry aren't keen on this.

Re: Home energy saving tips /ideas...
« Reply #81 on: 13 October, 2021, 09:51:43 am »
Quote
"But how are you going to pay for it?". Easy. Tax the fucking rich.

Hmm. I don't think that will work. If by 'the rich' you mean corps like Apple, Amazon etc, then I absolutely agree. They are a tick on every country in the world.

We need to make building offshore wind (and PV) a more attractive business than sucking oil out from the sea bed.

Well it certainly didn't for Wilson/Healey though it did produce Exile on Main Street* so they can be forgiven  :)

Offshore wind certainly, but with massive investment in storage as demonstrated recently when the output fell to close to nothing. EVs? H2?


* OK not quite the same period, same policy though

Building storage is where the government should be stepping in. We need storage.

The chances of them doing this? Somewhat less than Nil. They didn't even want to pay to maintain existing gas storage, and look where that has got us.
<i>Marmite slave</i>

ppg

Re: Home energy saving tips /ideas...
« Reply #82 on: 13 October, 2021, 10:12:14 am »
They didn't even want to pay to maintain existing gas storage, and look where that has got us.
Certainly with hindsight a mistake.
AIUI the driver was our ability to import huge volumes of LNG from Qatar & other places (20% of total gas usage in 2019) and not be reliant on Vlad which does make sense. Shame about the global shortage of LNG

Re: Home energy saving tips /ideas...
« Reply #83 on: 13 October, 2021, 09:24:54 pm »
A more mundane question, that’s probably a bigger effect than carefully measuring water for the kettle, while still firmly being in the things I can do - assuming I’ve changed where my pension is invested...

We have a three story terraced house, with a fairly new boiler and mostly thermostatic valve radiators (no zones though). This worked well enough when we were at school and work during the day and used all the floors in the evening / night. Now, with one at university and variable levels of home working, we’re looking at a winter when one or two rooms will be occupied during the day for a lot of the time. This is compounded by Mrs Dan having a colder room to work in.

Fiddling with 10 radiator valves twice a day will be a massive faff. Installing zoned heating probably disruptive and expensive, and running hot water round the pipes probably has some losses. Would a small electric fan heater make economic and carbon sense?

quixoticgeek

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Re: Home energy saving tips /ideas...
« Reply #84 on: 13 October, 2021, 09:35:32 pm »
A more mundane question, that’s probably a bigger effect than carefully measuring water for the kettle, while still firmly being in the things I can do - assuming I’ve changed where my pension is invested...

We have a three story terraced house, with a fairly new boiler and mostly thermostatic valve radiators (no zones though). This worked well enough when we were at school and work during the day and used all the floors in the evening / night. Now, with one at university and variable levels of home working, we’re looking at a winter when one or two rooms will be occupied during the day for a lot of the time. This is compounded by Mrs Dan having a colder room to work in.

Fiddling with 10 radiator valves twice a day will be a massive faff. Installing zoned heating probably disruptive and expensive, and running hot water round the pipes probably has some losses. Would a small electric fan heater make economic and carbon sense?

"It depends"

I need more data to be able to judge. I'm leaning towards probably not. But I'd need to do maths based on actual device and your energy prices to say one way or the other.


J
--
Beer, bikes, and backpacking
http://b.42q.eu/

Re: Home energy saving tips /ideas...
« Reply #85 on: 13 October, 2021, 10:22:06 pm »
Would a small electric fan heater make economic and carbon sense?
In my opinion, based on having tried quite a few rathe than any expertise, the best portable electric room heater is an oil filled radiator. 

Mrs Pingu

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Re: Home energy saving tips /ideas...
« Reply #86 on: 13 October, 2021, 10:33:31 pm »
Smart TRV's, Dan?
Do not clench. It only makes it worse.

Re: Home energy saving tips /ideas...
« Reply #87 on: 13 October, 2021, 11:39:13 pm »
J: I could probably do the maths, though i'd have to watch the smart meter a bit to extract useful numbers. I wondered whether there was a generally known except by me rule of thumb on this.

Paul: Thanks. At first glance it sounds like oil filled radiators need some planning for warm up, rather than being an easy top up without nudging the heating on. But worth a look.

Mrs P: Smart TRVs are going to bump the price up a bit! Quite apart from any internet of shit concerns - i don't need a power cut somewhere else bringing our heating down.

Re: Home energy saving tips /ideas...
« Reply #88 on: 14 October, 2021, 12:16:17 am »
Mrs P: Smart TRVs are going to bump the price up a bit! Quite apart from any internet of shit concerns - i don't need a power cut somewhere else bringing our heating down.
The Honeywell Evohome valves will do timed temperature in zones to a 7 day schedule without needing internet. You can make adjustments on the app, but you can also do that on the control panel, so a power cut elsewhere won't stop it. When we had broadband down for a week or so, the only thing effect I noticed on the heating was an email telling me that the system had lost connection, and another saying it was back when we got broadband back.
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Re: Home energy saving tips /ideas...
« Reply #89 on: 14 October, 2021, 12:33:52 am »
Problem with smart TRVs seems to be that if you can feed them mains power and/or wired networking you can do it properly with a dumb actuator. The smart options are all battery powered, which rules out WiFi connectivity, and means they use something like BLE or Zigbee, so you need a bridge device too, and now you have three problems.

One that can function as a sufficiently clever timer may be a better approach.

Re: Home energy saving tips /ideas...
« Reply #90 on: 14 October, 2021, 02:53:09 am »
If you are sitting at a desk, a little tube heater underneath can make you a lot more comfortable. They are pretty low power, maybe 100W, and quick to warm up.

robgul

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Re: Home energy saving tips /ideas...
« Reply #91 on: 14 October, 2021, 07:45:25 am »
Problem with smart TRVs seems to be that if you can feed them mains power and/or wired networking you can do it properly with a dumb actuator. The smart options are all battery powered, which rules out WiFi connectivity, and means they use something like BLE or Zigbee, so you need a bridge device too, and now you have three problems.

One that can function as a sufficiently clever timer may be a better approach.

We have one bedroom that is used for about an hour every day, at pretty much the same time (I think my wife does yoga in there  ::-)) - rest of the time the door is closed.  What we have done is fit a timer/TRV (eqiva ModelN) - what that does is just open/close the radiator at the set times - thus if the CH is on and the remainder of the house themostat is calling for heat the "yoga studio" will have some heat just at the appropriate. 

It worked a treat last winter - the overall CH/HW (one zone CH) is controlled with Hive* which obviously makes it easy to to set time periods and switch the CH on/off.

Given the way that we use the house (4 bed, 2 storey - and just 2 of us) I'm probably going to get 2 more of the valves to control 2 rooms.  One room downstairs is seldom used and the 2nd bedroom is only used as my wife's dressing room earlier in the morning and later at night.

*I did try a Hive controlled thermosatic valve about 15 months ago but it turned out to be not fit for purpose - read the reviews! and it was sent back for a refund. 
On the face of it the Hive valves would have been the answer to be able to create "zones" in various rooms with time periods that fitted within the overall CH on period.   I may look again to see if there are any improvements to the valves.  It's a pity it didn't work as the Hive plug/sockets are brilliant ... we have a coffee machine on one and some technology kit has the power switched off overnight and back on in the morning.
 

ian

Re: Home energy saving tips /ideas...
« Reply #92 on: 14 October, 2021, 09:41:34 am »
I have an oil-filled radiator under my desk (my office has five external walls, two of which are mostly glass). It's a million years old and I've named it Toasty MacDimplex and he does the job. Though with my wife working at home, I have to do it secretly or she'll want the heating on (her office is upstairs and doesn't get so cold, we have a very well insulated loft, so warmth sits up there, pretty much all the radiators up there are thermostated right down because I'm a cool sleeper).

No point with zones or fancy here, the cats leave all the doors open, and I tend to free-range about the house. We had zones in our last place and never much used them, but it was narrow-ish three-storey place and heat just went straight up the stairwell. Cats and doors again.

Re: Home energy saving tips /ideas...
« Reply #93 on: 14 October, 2021, 12:31:37 pm »

The chances of them doing this? Somewhat less than Nil. They didn't even want to pay to maintain existing gas storage, and look where that has got us.
The things that governments pay for are payed for with our taxes. Surely, if the majority of the electorate doesn't want their taxes spent on something and the government goes ahead, it becomes the opposition without the power to do anything?
Never knowingly under caffeinated

Re: Home energy saving tips /ideas...
« Reply #94 on: 14 October, 2021, 01:22:25 pm »
Just checked temp in my office. 16C

I'm sat here with a jumper on, perfectly comfortable.

We overheat our houses.
<i>Marmite slave</i>

Re: Home energy saving tips /ideas...
« Reply #95 on: 14 October, 2021, 01:34:16 pm »
Just checked temp in my office. 16C

I'm sat here with a jumper on, perfectly comfortable.

We overheat our houses.

More to the point, most of us live in houses much larger than necessary for our basic needs.
We are making a New World (Paul Nash, 1918)

ian

Re: Home energy saving tips /ideas...
« Reply #96 on: 14 October, 2021, 02:45:47 pm »

The chances of them doing this? Somewhat less than Nil. They didn't even want to pay to maintain existing gas storage, and look where that has got us.
The things that governments pay for are payed for with our taxes. Surely, if the majority of the electorate doesn't want their taxes spent on something and the government goes ahead, it becomes the opposition without the power to do anything?

Government spending isn't really paid for by taxes (taxes basically provide collateral for borrowing, but it's more complicated than that) and I doubt the electorate is qualified to contemplate gas storage needs or that it featured highly in their election day thoughts.

As mentioned, the local gas storage things disappeared a while back, the sites unsurprisingly sold off cheap to developers (cheap because contaminated, though it didn't seem to stop them building blocks of £750k flats in short order).

In other news, I don't like being below 20 degrees, so I look forward to the heating coming on. That said, it's about 19.5 degrees in my office today, so I'm only teetering on the edge of hypothermia.

rogerzilla

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Re: Home energy saving tips /ideas...
« Reply #97 on: 14 October, 2021, 03:01:29 pm »
Just checked temp in my office. 16C

I'm sat here with a jumper on, perfectly comfortable.

We overheat our houses.

More to the point, most of us live in houses much larger than necessary for our basic needs.
Unfortunately, the nicer streets are all big houses.  You have to buy a big house to avoid the kind of neighbours I have!
Hard work sometimes pays off in the end, but laziness ALWAYS pays off NOW.

ppg

Re: Home energy saving tips /ideas...
« Reply #98 on: 14 October, 2021, 03:09:39 pm »
Quote
We overheat our houses.
We is all different, even within one household

As an example - I am, of course, totally normal, #1 son was (and still is) an eskimo but Mrs ppg & #2 son are orchids

Setting the temperatures back in the day required some juggling.

FifeingEejit

  • Not Small
Re: Home energy saving tips /ideas...
« Reply #99 on: 14 October, 2021, 03:32:15 pm »
The cost of building offshore oil rigs is immense, they are incredibly ugly and the decommissioning is expensive and easily polluting. The 'nudge point' of making offshore wind a more attractive business can't be far off. I think it was BP that paid a record price for licence to build wind in an area. Just a little push more . . .

The East Coast of Scotland... there is a shit load of near shore wind schemes in the planning on top of the capacity already built.

https://www.offshorewindscotland.org.uk/forth-tay-offshore/


The North Sea is well set for it, relatively shallow waters means not too expensive to get the foundations in and plenty of wind.
When floating turbines prove themselves in the North Sea, then the wind capacity of the Atlantic is there for the taking.