Energy bills

[Mr. Dazzle]

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.

He could just put them on top of whatever that red fence/wall around his property is.

[Mussels]

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

Since setting my ch temp to 45 the hot/cold cycle has gone, it now just gets to a comfortable temp and stays there. It's working well so far even though one of the lounge radiators is blocked and I've removed the bathroom radiator.
I'm using in IR thermometer to check pipe temps, not very accurate but probably good enough.

[Pirahna]

Off to buy a gas water heater this morning. I ran the water heater on Wednesday and had 80% battery at sunset. Overcast yesterday so left the water off, overcast today so no hot water again. Batteries now at 48% (they cut out at 20%), tomorrow is forecast sunny spells so I'll probably let the batteries recover then put the electric heater on Sunday. It's a fairly busy weekend of socialising so it's washing in cold water until I get the thing plumbed in on Monday.

I've had a look at solar heaters and I can buy what I need for around 1200 Euro, add fittings and sundry items and I'd be at 1500 Euro and I'd still need to install a gas heater for situations like now. I'll think keep the electric heater which is fine most of the time. I've used a bottled gas heater before, the modern ones are a lot better so I reckone 1 to 2 bottles a year with electric most of the time. Bottles are 23 Euro at the moment, I'll be long dead before I recoup the cost of a solar system.

[ZRX61]

Awkward...

climatechangedispatch.com/oil-and-gas-firms-warn-of-complete-operational-collapse-in-north-sea/

[irie]

So this is why France/Macron is so soft on Russia/Putin. I'm sure some of you knew this, but I certainly didn't!

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukrai ... 735a78e89d

Russia’s nuclear trade with Europe flows despite Ukraine war

While the European Union has agreed to curtail its use of Russian oil and gas, its member nations continue to import and export nuclear fuel that is not under EU sanctions ...

The EU’s executive arm, the European Commission, did not propose targeting Russia’s nuclear sector in its latest sanctions package presented Wednesday.

In the meantime ...

https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-agre ... acks-plan/

EU agrees $60 price cap on Russian oil

European Union countries have agreed to put a cap on Russian oil prices of $60 per barrel, bringing an end to days of arguments over how hard to hit Vladimir Putin's fossil fuel revenues.

But ...

The $60 price is higher than the level at which Russia currently sells its crude oil — which is trading at a discount to benchmark prices.

Oh.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Awkward...

climatechangedispatch.com/oil-and-gas-firms-warn-of-complete-operational-collapse-in-north-sea/

Company in "we don't want to pay more tax" shocker.

[ZRX61]

Awkward...

climatechangedispatch.com/oil-and-gas-firms-warn-of-complete-operational-collapse-in-north-sea/

Company in "we don't want to pay more tax" shocker.

75%... No point it showing up to work.

[Mr. Dazzle]

It's 35%, only on profit.

[Kneerly Down]

It's 35%, only on profit.

Isn't it 35% windfall on top of the 10% supplementary on top of the 30% basic...i.e. 75%

edit: looks like it...the technical note when the 'levy' was 25% said it was 25% on top of the 40% so 65%.
Having gone up to 35% it'll be 75% total.

[Mr. Dazzle]

That's right. But still only applies to profits which they've mysteriously not made in the UK.

And that's before you even get to the relief they get for reinvesting.

Edit...to give you an idea of how little sympathy I have for the poor North Sea Energy firms, look at how much tax they've historically paid. And yet somehow this latest one will cripple em.

BTW I'm in favour of big taxes on these things, not for environmental reasons but cause digging up bits of the UK and selling them shouldn't benefit just a privileged few IMO.

[ZRX61]

BTW I'm in favour of big taxes on these things, not for environmental reasons but cause digging up bits of the UK and selling them shouldn't benefit just a privileged few IMO.

Wait, you think companies pay taxes? They just pass it straight on to the consumer.

& what county is the North Sea in?

[Count Steer]

BTW I'm in favour of big taxes on these things, not for environmental reasons but cause digging up bits of the UK and selling them shouldn't benefit just a privileged few IMO.

Wait, you think companies pay taxes? They just pass it straight on to the consumer.

& what county is the North Sea in?

Rutland.

[Mr. Dazzle]

BTW I'm in favour of big taxes on these things, not for environmental reasons but cause digging up bits of the UK and selling them shouldn't benefit just a privileged few IMO.

Wait, you think companies pay taxes? They just pass it straight on to the consumer.

& what county is the North Sea in?

Yes, and that money can either go and line someone's pockets or it can (eventually) come back to me.

[ZRX61]

Yes, and that money can either go and line someone's pockets or it can (eventually) come back to me.

Or you could just keep YOUR money in the first place. I bet you'd be one of the people who would vote for Newsom in Calizuela if you lived here.

[Mr. Dazzle]

The only way to do that would be to set an artificial government enforced energy price, which is even more left wing comrade.

[Mussels]

I've been looking at solar setups again, it seems it's now a fairly simple DIY setup (with battery) if you don't want to earn any money trading extra electrons back to the grid. I suspect money earned from feed in won't make it worth paying labour to have someone else screw it up
I live in a bungalow with a shallow roof and mostly work from home so this will get some serious thought after I've done the kitchen and bathroom.

[Mussels]

In other news my low temp radiators are working well. It's starting to struggle a bit but instead of turning it up I'm trying to find out what else I can change. Yesterday someone had left the bathroom window open and today I noticed the loft hatch is cold and one radiator is blocked, tomorrow the hatch will get insulated and I'll try to flush the blocked radiator.
It's also good my family is realising they need to conserve heat, leaving a door open for ten minutes means it will take an hour to heat up again. They think the new boiler is low powered, I haven't told them I turned it down.

[Mr. Dazzle]

I've found a new loft hatch makes a huge difference. I didn't get a new hatch just for insulation, I was having the landing done and I got a new hatch/ladder combo.

The new one is a metal hatch which actually locks shut with a quarter turn doodad which pulls it tight in to the (rubber sealed) hole.

I didn't notice the gentle trickle of cold air which was coming from the old one until it wasn't there any more.

It's 20 in my house and 3 in the loft today. All my added insulation really works!

[Dodgy69]

Think I've lost the battle of keeping under £5 a day, for both.

[Pirahna]

As I seem to be using this thread a blog, today was more or less sunny in Alicante province so I switched on the water heater. It made it to 42 degrees but first warm shower since Wednesday. As I type the gas heater is in a box behind me, I'll do the prep work tomorrow and blokey with the tools will finish the install on Tuesday. I'll then be able to switch between gas or electric for hot water which is a relief.