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Energy prices - gone nuts.

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From my reading up. 60oC was to prevent legionella bacteria from growing inside the system. This was more common in open tanks but less common in closed (unvented) systems.
Plus, it doesn't need to be that temperature all the time, just on a regular basis to kill the bacteria colony. We run a weekly 60oC session.

The rest of the time, you are using energy to heat water you will then mix with cold water to get it to the temperature you want. Waste of energy in my book.
 
Calimori said:
From my reading up. 60oC was to prevent legionella bacteria from growing inside the system. This was more common in open tanks but less common in closed (unvented) systems.
Plus, it doesn't need to be that temperature all the time, just on a regular basis to kill the bacteria colony. We run a weekly 60oC session.

The rest of the time, you are using energy to heat water you will then mix with cold water to get it to the temperature you want. Waste of energy in my book.
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I like my baths HOT HOT HOT :D
 
My big immersion heater heats up on economy 7 overnight and that’s it for hot water, there was 6 of us here over the last 22 years and made it work. Had to boost it for an hour now and again to top it up. Have been looking at heat source pump immersion heaters that are a couple of grand, so much to go wrong compared but the energy savings should cover it.

Think it’s time to move to a much smaller house, the one I renovated 3 doors away (victorian as well) will do with all the up to date stuff and has had external insulation then rendered over. Cheap house to run.
Only problem is my daughter is living there with her family😬

Paying £3k council tax with only 2 of us here now is a killer, the other house is ‘only’ £1.2k!
 
M4carp said:
My big immersion heater heats up on economy 7 overnight and that’s it for hot water, there was 6 of us here over the last 22 years and made it work. Had to boost it for an hour now and again to top it up. Have been looking at heat source pump immersion heaters that are a couple of grand, so much to go wrong compared but the energy savings should cover it.

Think it’s time to move to a much smaller house, the one I renovated 3 doors away (victorian as well) will do with all the up to date stuff and has had external insulation then rendered over. Cheap house to run.
Only problem is my daughter is living there with her family😬

Paying £3k council tax with only 2 of us here now is a killer, the other house is ‘only’ £1.2k!
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Stick a static caravan in the garden for her job done :D
 
russdx1 said:
I like my baths HOT HOT HOT :D
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I would be surprised if you are actually putting your sensitive parts in 55oC water.

"At temperatures of 45°C and above, it can scald but at 50°C it will cause ‘full thickness’ burns to children in less than two minutes." The Business Magazine for the Heating and Plumbing Industry - https://phpionline.co.uk/feature-articles/cutting-risk-scalding/
I am balancing risks of scolds, which was happening, vs Legionella which was far less likely. And pointless heating of too much hot water.
 
Calimori said:
From my reading up. 60oC was to prevent legionella bacteria from growing inside the system. This was more common in open tanks but less common in closed (unvented) systems.
Plus, it doesn't need to be that temperature all the time, just on a regular basis to kill the bacteria colony. We run a weekly 60oC session.

The rest of the time, you are using energy to heat water you will then mix with cold water to get it to the temperature you want. Waste of energy in my book.
Click to expand...
I know Legionella gets plenty of publicity as a risk, but the risk is actually tiny, so I wouldn't be worried about it - there are less than 500 cases per year out of a population of about 68 million, and there must be millions of tanks at well less than 60C.
 
I think i was a bit optimistic with my £50 a month DD LOL racked up 1k energy bill over winter (mostly Gas, that stung lol) So have just paid that off and set DD at £100. So now clean slate! Now we are coming into summer again hopefully it will start exporting again (my export was setup bit late last year so only had 3 or so decent months) but will get full summer this year and hopefully build up good credit for next winter. Nothing I can really do about the gas sadly apart from pay it and not use much but when its freaking cold got no choice but to turn it on! But hopefully with the £100 DD building up credit plus extras £100 ish in export can build up some credit for next winter. Also can hopefully use the new Octopus night tariffs to charge batteries to get cheap electric next winter as well which will help keep winter costs down.

From May 3rd id of been running the system for 1 year (export came end of July sadly) but I was on £50 DD and ended up 1k in debt. But deffo works out better then the £350 a month i would of been paying! So lets see how £100 DD goes + full summer of export and winter night tariff this year :)
 
russdx1 said:
that’s insane, Iv seen my system export 20kw in a day, if I was getting 70p a kw that would be very nice :D

Even got my hot water topped up today.
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At 70p a kW, people just need to connect the incoming wire that's costing them 30ish pence a kwh to the outbound wire paying them 70ish pence a kwh.
 
If its the old FIT rate then I gather that you still get that generation rate paid even if you store in a battery and use without feeding to the grid, like a double win.

It runs out after X amount of years thought doesnt it?
 
Fantazia2 said:
If its the old FIT rate then I gather that you still get that generation rate paid even if you store in a battery and use without feeding to the grid, like a double win.

It runs out after X amount of years thought doesnt it?
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25 years is the term, install was 2012, so a while to go on it yet :)
 
Anyone installed a plug-in DIY kit?, if so where did they buy. Probably looking for an additional 1 or 2Kw, ground based
 
ianw said:
Anyone installed a plug-in DIY kit?, if so where did they buy. Probably looking for an additional 1 or 2Kw, ground based
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I did my own panels DIY, bought the inverter from eBay and the panels were from somewhere call the Green Power Shop Online but they dont seem to exist anymore.

I used https://midsummerwholesale.co.uk/ to look at options to put something together and then shopped around for the best prices for all the parts.

This company does kits but I think their prices are a bit steep for what you get https://www.pluginsolar.co.uk/?product_cat=ground-mount-kits

Putting a system together is fairly easy, the solar panels have male and female connectors on them the same as the inverter and its just a case of daisy chaining them making sure the specs match, and there is usually a plug on the inverter to wire the AC into, This AC your supposed to wire into a lockable Dual Pole switch for the regulations which you can get pretty much at any electrical store, screwfix etc, and depending on whats on the inverter you might want to put a DC isolator inbetween the panels and the inverter if there isnt one built in.

If you are adding on you will need to be careful what you add in terms of what the original installer has registered with the DNO to make sure you dont push more power back to the grid that theyve been informed of, but not sure if they do any checks on this and there will probably be a little bit of wiggle room in it but I wouldnt risk it myself.

Im planning at some point to add a few more panels and will be at the limit of the 16A you can add for free with just notifiying so have will have to setup but I have the option on my current inverter to limit its output so that I wouldnt export more than Ive registered with them, shouldnt really be much of a problem for my usage as my panels already produce more than I can use in Summer, just wanting some more to extend the solar season a couple of more months in and out of winter.
 
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Fantazia2 said:
I did my own panels DIY, bought the inverter from eBay and the panels were from somewhere call the Green Power Shop Online but they dont seem to exist anymore.

I used https://midsummerwholesale.co.uk/ to look at options to put something together and then shopped around for the best prices for all the parts.

This company does kits but I think their prices are a bit steep for what you get https://www.pluginsolar.co.uk/?product_cat=ground-mount-kits

Putting a system together is fairly easy, the solar panels have male and female connectors on them the same as the inverter and its just a case of daisy chaining them making sure the specs match, and there is usually a plug on the inverter to wire the AC into, This AC your supposed to wire into a lockable Dual Pole switch for the regulations which you can get pretty much at any electrical store, screwfix etc, and depending on whats on the inverter you might want to put a DC isolator inbetween the panels and the inverter if there isnt one built in.

If you are adding on you will need to be careful what you add in terms of what the original installer has registered with the DNO to make sure you dont push more power back to the grid that theyve been informed of, but not sure if they do any checks on this and there will probably be a little bit of wiggle room in it but I wouldnt risk it myself.

Im planning at some point to add a few more panels and will be at the limit of the 16A you can add for free with just notifiying so have will have to setup but I have the option on my current inverter to limit its output so that I wouldnt export more than Ive registered with them, shouldnt really be much of a problem for my usage as my panels already produce more than I can use in Summer, just wanting some more to extend the solar season a couple of more months in and out of winter.
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I really want to add one more 400w panel to my chain, hopefully as simple as just plugging it in?
 
russdx1 said:
I really want to add one more 400w panel to my chain, hopefully as simple as just plugging it in?
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Depends what you have currently really, if its a basic system with them all just daisy chained in a loop it should just be a case of unplugging one joint and adding it in as long as adding it in wont exceed the specs on the inverter (DC Voltage and wattage), if its a system with optimizers on each panel then not entirely sure but would expect it to just be a case of adding another panel and optimizer and adding it into the system, possibly the same again of just adding it into the daisy chain of optimizers.

It should be noted be very careful when working around DC voltages, Ive been told anything over 30v can be dangerous and solar strings can be in the hundreds of volts.
 
Fantazia2 said:
Depends what you have currently really, if its a basic system with them all just daisy chained in a loop it should just be a case of unplugging one joint and adding it in as long as adding it in wont exceed the specs on the inverter (DC Voltage and wattage), if its a system with optimizers on each panel then not entirely sure but would expect it to just be a case of adding another panel and optimizer and adding it into the system, possibly the same again of just adding it into the daisy chain of optimizers.

It should be noted be very careful when working around DC voltages, Ive been told anything over 30v can be dangerous and solar strings can be in the hundreds of volts.
Click to expand...
Yeah so it’s 4.8kw panels split into 2 strings going into a 5kw inverter but max rating is 6kw so think it will handle another 400w easy. Should just be plug and play. But yeah be careful around the DC :)
 
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