Energy bills

[Pirahna]

Get a spilt charge relay. Let the engine power up the leisure batteries.
Easier than a genny

This is the house, not camper.

[Pirahna]

Looks like I'll have to upgrade the solar system. This week there was a few days with sunny spells, wet on Friday, sunny spells yesterday and today. The output from the panels drops dramtically on cloudy days. Today for example output can be 2.5kw one minute, 0.5kw the next, this is from 3.6kw of panels. Add the shorter days into the mix and I'm not making enough electricity to fully recharge the batteries. I've removed wifey's access to the hot water heater settings which has helped, but not enough.

I'll have a chat with the solar bloke tomorrow, I think extra panels will help, I might even go for a petrol generator. They're fairly cheap and will be needed if we get two or three wet days in a row. Today is over 10 hours of daylight, mid winter drops to 9.5 hours, so it's not going to get any better.

I find details like this very helpful when planning my future power plans. Websites suggest a 4kw system for UK residential houses but never say what I should expect from it throughout the year. I'm thinking an 8kw system will be more appropriate with spare juice to run Aircon on hot days.
It will be a while yet so for now I'll carry on reading how other people find it works for them.
For you an alternative is probably a good idea rather than doubling down on solar.

My batteries are 9.6kw/h. There's two of us in a smallish property which is off grid for electric, we have all the usual gadgets, dishwasher, washing machine, microwave etc. There's also a 1.5kw electric water heater and 1kw water pump for getting fresh water to the house. We're very frugal with our power usage, I wouldn't want to to go any smaller than the existing battery pack. Bear in mind I'm in Alicante, lots more sunshine and longer winter days, in the UK you'd need a shit load more panels to stand even half a chance of keeping batteries charged.

The biggest drain on the batteries is hot water. It was a gas boiler when we moved in but in typical Spanish fashion, the gas bottle sat underneath the boiler in an inside utility room. The exhaust was a short piece of metal ducting into plastic drain pipe. The setup looked like something Al Qaeda had cobbled together for an IED, hence the electric boiler.

[Pirahna]

Following on the post above the electric situation isn't getting any better, not helped by my thick as fuck wife who insists she knows best. The hot water is on a timer so it comes on in the morning once the sun is up, it's finished heating by about 12.30 then has the afternoon for the batteries to charge. Batteries were at 44% this morning, yesterday was very overcast and very little charge went in, this is the lowest they've been for a while. I've asked nicely, then not so nicely that she leave the hot water alone today, I've turned it off to allow the batteries to fully charge. Can she fuck leave it alone. It's the middle off the fucking day, fair enough there's more than enough charge from the panels to run the water and put a bit of charge into the batteries, but for fuck sake, they won't be fully charged by tonight and tomorrow is forecast overcast again. This might well be my last post on the subject, short of cutting the plug off the heater I've run out of options. And the dishwasher needs to go on.

Does anybody else have this problem. She'll ask about something then if I say it's a bad idea because, she'll do it anyway. Then when it goes wrong it'll be a lesson we needed to learn. No, it not a lesson we needed to learn, I already fucking knew it you stupid cunt. I'm really fucking pissed off today.

[mangocrazy]

I've found that in these situations, if what you're telling the 'other person' is not what he/she wants to hear, they just ignore it and carry on anyway. Then it becomes your problem when the inevitable occurs. My condolences...

Again, I'm not sure of your circumstances and how much roof/garden area you have, but have you considered solar thermal tubes to give the hot water a boost during the day? Having those as an additional water heating source should relieve the load on the PV panels.

[Horse]

Does anybody else have this problem. She'll ask about something then if I say it's a bad idea because, she'll do it anyway. Then when it goes wrong it'll be a lesson we needed to learn. No, it not a lesson we needed to learn, I already fucking knew it you stupid cunt.

May I introduce you to the concept of the dummy switch?

Had a colleague who kept turning the aircon in a small room down as far as it would go. Fekin cold So I made a false dial to stick over the actual control. At a glance it was set to minimum. Took him days to work it out.

Can you either create a fake switch, or fit a cut-off, so she can fiddle to her heart's content without causing grief?

[Mussels]

I've found that in these situations, if what you're telling the 'other person' is not what he/she wants to hear, they just ignore it and carry on anyway. Then it becomes your problem when the inevitable occurs. My condolences...

Again, I'm not sure of your circumstances and how much roof/garden area you have, but have you considered solar thermal tubes to give the hot water a boost during the day? Having those as an additional water heating source should relieve the load on the PV panels.

This won't help with your immediate issues but have you looked into solar hot water? You should get more bang for buck than using PV and an immersion heater.

[mangocrazy]

I've found that in these situations, if what you're telling the 'other person' is not what he/she wants to hear, they just ignore it and carry on anyway. Then it becomes your problem when the inevitable occurs. My condolences...

Again, I'm not sure of your circumstances and how much roof/garden area you have, but have you considered solar thermal tubes to give the hot water a boost during the day? Having those as an additional water heating source should relieve the load on the PV panels.

This won't help with your immediate issues but have you looked into solar hot water? You should get more bang for buck that using PV and an immersion heater.

I concur (unsurprisingly)

Not sure what @Pirahna thinks though...

[Mussels]

Doh!

[Pirahna]

Does anybody else have this problem. She'll ask about something then if I say it's a bad idea because, she'll do it anyway. Then when it goes wrong it'll be a lesson we needed to learn. No, it not a lesson we needed to learn, I already fucking knew it you stupid cunt.

May I introduce you to the concept of the dummy switch?

Had a colleague who kept turning the aircon in a small room down as far as it would go. Fekin cold So I made a false dial to stick over the actual control. At a glance it was set to minimum. Took him days to work it out.

Can you either create a fake switch, or fit a cut-off, so she can fiddle to her heart's content without causing grief?

Sadly, the boiler has no physical switches, it's controlled by a phone app. The other boiler also has no physical switches and is controlled by a phone app.

[Pirahna]

I've found that in these situations, if what you're telling the 'other person' is not what he/she wants to hear, they just ignore it and carry on anyway. Then it becomes your problem when the inevitable occurs. My condolences...

Again, I'm not sure of your circumstances and how much roof/garden area you have, but have you considered solar thermal tubes to give the hot water a boost during the day? Having those as an additional water heating source should relieve the load on the PV panels.

This won't help with your immediate issues but have you looked into solar hot water? You should get more bang for buck than using PV and an immersion heater.

I have considered solar hot water, it could be done but with difficulty. There's not really room on the roof for a solar heater so it would have to go on the ground. I've got around 3 acres but it's on a hill and live at the top of the plot. It could go on the higher ground behind the house but then I'd need to cut down some trees. The trees are all protected Alepo Pines, we get drone flights from the national park people to check if anything has been cut down, it's a 10k Euro fine per tree. The drone flights aren't just for me, they fly them over a large area and any missing trees are investigated.

[mangocrazy]

All you'd probably need would be an array of 12 - 18 tubes given your location. In summer you'd have more hot water than you'd know what to do with, and in winter its should still supply (at a guess) 75% of your HW needs. All you'd need would be an unshaded area about 5 metres by 3 metres facing South-SouthWest and with the tubes at a 20-30 degree angle from horizontal.

[Pirahna]

All you'd need would be an unshaded area about 5 metres by 3 metres facing South-SouthWest and with the tubes at a 20-30 degree angle from horizontal.

When you move somewhere warm you spend the day seeking the shade. The pic below is the property, north at the top. Apart from the roof I couldn't find a spot that fits that description, the south end of the roof is on a lower level, it might be possible there.

[mangocrazy]

OK - take your point... Might it be possible to have a word with the National Park people to see if they would allow you to make a small clearing of the required size, or is it a blanket 'No cut' law regardless of circumstances?

Failing that, what amount of spare space do you have on the roof? Would it be possible to have 2 or 3 (or 4) smaller but connected arrays of solar tubes?

[Horse]

Failing that, what amount of spare space do you have on the roof? Would it be possible to have 2 or 3 (or 4) smaller but connected arrays of solar tubes?

Car port roof? Two with one stone.

[Felix]

Turn the imersion on

[Mussels]

You won't need to need to be too picky about placing solar collectors. Look for old ways people did it before it became popular. It could be as simple as a long hose with water sitting in it during the day, then you fill your water heater with that in the late afternoon before switching the immersion on.
I don't know what will work well where your are, it might be a bit chilly in winter for the hose on the ground trick so the answer could be burying it slightly to make it ground source.
There must be people in remote Spanish places that have tried various ways.

[mangocrazy]

Ground source heat pump might be an option, from the very little I know about them. Should be able to dig a trench of the required size without harming any trees.

[Mr. Dazzle]

My heating is now coming on in anger...it was 3°C outside when I woke up this morning and the CH came on to bring the house up to 18°C. Its the first time it's come properly on since we had some radiators changed/moved, there was clearly a bit of air still to find it's way out cause much gurgling ensued . We do have an automatic bleed valve in the system, but air is a tricky bastard.

Anywho...I'm starting to mess with the boiler water temperature. Again, this is one of those things I should have done ages ago but didn't. Modern condensing boilers work best when the returning water is <55°C, even 45°C if you can do it. My boiler just has an unlablled min/max temperature knob on the front so I'll be buggering around with that. It's reckoned you can save up to 10% gas use just by getting the flow temps right.

I'm not sure how I'm gonna figure out the return water temperature though I do wonder if I can use my digital kitchen thermometer and touch the little bit of lagging free copper pipe where it goes back into the boiler

[Horse]

I'm not sure how I'm gonna figure out the return water temperature though :lol

Didn't one of the videos posted give a typical temperature drop?

[Mr. Dazzle]

Yeah typical is a start, but data is nicer.

Edit. I'll probably just do similar to what I did to figure out 18°C is an acceptable thermostat setting. Keep turning the boiler temp down until I notice the house isn't warm enough.