The ones I see in the countryside usually have sheep grazing around and underneath
My electricity bill has just tripled: how about yours? Alternative suppliers?
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welovebadgers
Active Member
Considering ssolar panels in the house I’m moving in to very soon. Problem is it’s grade 2 listed. Think they’re gonna have to lighten the restrictions given our looming energy crisis.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
That's just bloody bonkers! Unsurprising, though...
MickiQ
In My Defence I was left Unsupervised
Solar panels (and car charging points) needs to be mandatory on any new house
welovebadgers
Active Member
or ground source heat pumps on housing estates.
two sheds
Least noticed poster 2007
indeed - both because they work well together
eta particularly for air conditioning in summer which can be a huge drain
Artaxerxes
Look out, he's got a gnu!
Think we're going to need a cost of living crisis thread.
(The Economist)
(The Economist)
Leafster
.
Is that via Solar Together? Surrey were doing something similar. I even got a quote last year but it seemed more expensive (£7k including battery storage) than I imagined even with the supposed "discount". The energy savings at the time were lower than I expected and would have had a payback time of nearly 15 years! Of course, with the increases in energy prices now that time period will have reduced.
The uncertainty over the installation company and the products they were using was part of the reason I was reluctant to take it any further.
I remember with one of the earlier schemes to improve energy efficiency I looked at the list of government backed suppliers and none of them were names I'd heard of.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
I was always deeply suspicious of the approach that Government took to this whole solar thing. As ever, it seemed less about kickstarting mass adoption of renewables, and more about funnelling revenue through a small number of profit-making companies, who - surprise, surprise - ended up costing the whole thing in a way which maximised profit over doing the best thing in terms of reducing fossil fuel consumption.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
If Russia is locked out of the world economy and Ukraine unable to produce the quantity of food it usually does, that graph's predictions may turn out to be optimistic
welovebadgers
Active Member
I remember readin a while back that a lot of the solar panels are made in China under less than ideal ethical and environmental circumstances. Hoping that if true things have changed more recently.
Artaxerxes
Look out, he's got a gnu!
Nah WTO rules enforce competition ensuring that cheapest suppliers from abroad win.
WouldBe
Dislicksick
Yes:
Wood burners emit more particle pollution than traffic, UK data shows
Revised government data estimates a lower proportion of pollution comes from wood stoves but they remain a ‘major contributor’www.theguardian.com
Finally got round to reading these articles. two sheds article is out of date and platinumsage is more up to date and points out errors in the first article. The levels of pm2.5 has been more than halved to 17% from 38% due to assumptions during the survey. Even the updated survey is an estimate based on how owners of woodburners answered the questions. No actual measuring of particulates appears to have been done.
If pm2.5 is bad for asthma then how come cases of asthma were lower in the 50's - 70's when most homes were still burning coal / coke?
50 years of asthma: UK trends from 1955 to 2004 | Thorax (download pdf and look at fig2)Anecdotally my woodburner is in the dining room at the back of the house. The gutters and window / doorframes have very little dirt on them. The front gutters, window / doorframes are always covered in a sticky black dust due to being next to a main road and bus route.
StoneRoad
heckling from the back!
Anecdotally ...
Our log burner produces a lot less smoke than the open fire did, even with similar wood as fuel.
The least smoke is on a day with enough wind to keep the fire drawing well, and with well-seasoned & dry hardwood.
The most smoke is from a day without much wind, so the fire doesn't draw properly and attempting to burn sappy, green / resinous and physically wet / dirty softwood.
Our log burner produces a lot less smoke than the open fire did, even with similar wood as fuel.
The least smoke is on a day with enough wind to keep the fire drawing well, and with well-seasoned & dry hardwood.
The most smoke is from a day without much wind, so the fire doesn't draw properly and attempting to burn sappy, green / resinous and physically wet / dirty softwood.
WouldBe
Dislicksick
Not supposed to burn wet wood.
Only time I get smoke out of mine is for the first few minutes after lighting it.
StoneRoad
heckling from the back!
I know, but sometimes whoever collected the logs went to the wrong pile !Not supposed to burn wet wood.
Only time I get smoke out of mine is for the first few minutes after lighting it.
and some of the unseasoned pile actually looks dry after it's been cut a few months.
We also did some tests last year ...
two sheds
Least noticed poster 2007
Yes, I read that more recent article, too. It still estimates that wood burners release more particulates than traffic despite having far fewer people using them. It still has several passages that emphasize how bad they are.
Not from that article:
Dunno, there are presumably more causes of asthma than just woodburning stoves. There are loads more chemicals around in the house, that may be a factor. I looked at the pdf but it doesn't mention wood, coal or (that I could see) causes of asthma.If pm2.5 is bad for asthma then how come cases of asthma were lower in the 50's - 70's when most homes were still burning coal / coke?
Anecdotally my woodburner is in the dining room at the back of the house. The gutters and window / doorframes have very little dirt on them. The front gutters, window / doorframes are always covered in a sticky black dust due to being next to a main road and bus route.
Anecdotally I grew up in a house with an open fire and remember the permanent smell of coal dust. My sis recently told me that having seen me get attacks, when she was a doctor at first she didn't think that someone's asthma was too serious unless their face went blue.
It's all a balance, and I'd love to keep using my rayburn, particularly since the wood I've been getting is from woodland management. Wood is renewable and carbon neutral (unless it's somewhere like Drax which uses wood cut down from forests) while gas isn't and as I say there's no gas where I am anyway. The equation has also been distorted by the government having subsidized fossil fuels.
I'm not really intending to tell other people what they should do, I'm more saying why I'm planning to do what I'm doing.That article said the major problem was from woodburning in urban areas while I'm rural. I don't have a car so woodburning would be by far my major contribution to particulates. My asthma isn't going to be helped by burning wood although I do try to keep the rayburn door closed as much as I can, and I'd only be using the rayburn from around December to March, when I need to heat the house so I might as well cook with it too.
I saw somewhere else that we could cut out Russian gas in the UK by installing more solar energy (I think it was) and heat pumps. Ideally I'd like a battery solar system developing enough to power heat pumps in the evening but that's unlikely during winter, so as I say I'm still not sure what's best.
It's interesting that on the website a couple of pages back that tracks local particulates, the red bits seem to all follow major roads rather than being clustered around posh houses with woodburners.
I was diagnosed with asthma last year - mine's triggered by the cold and according to my doctor it's a very common cause. Since being diagnosed, I've discovered that all 3 friends of mine with asthma are all cold-triggered. I'm not suggesting that particulates don't play a role in many cases, but it looks to me like the obvious culprit (traffic) is the elephant in the room.
two sheds
Least noticed poster 2007
Interesting - my asthma's been worse over the cold weather, too. And yes, there's loads more traffic on the roads since the 50s. I presume the figures for traffic particulates include from tyres and brakes (I got laughed at for suggesting it last time but):
www.gov.uk
Government targets particulate matter and microplastic pollution from cars
UK Government calls for action to tackle particulate matter released from tyres and brakes.
ATOMIC SUPLEX
Member Since: 1985 Post Count: 3
Just given my meter readings and I have suddenly gone from being £300 plus in credit (I forget how much over £300), to immediately only being £50 in credit since my last bill/reading. I've not used any more energy than usual.
welovebadgers
Active Member
I think one of the major contributors to increasing asthma/eczema/allergies is cleanliness and reduction in exposure to serious diseases. Our immune systems have changed very little in evolutionary terms. It evolved to be effective against serious infections and we just don’t see that these days cos we have generally good sanitation, we sanitise everything and vaccinate against a lot of serious illnesses. So our prehistoric immune systems get a bit bored and start to find bits of self to attack. This might confuse the trend you refer to in 50-70 year olds.If pm2.5 is bad for asthma then how come cases of asthma were lower in the 50's - 70's when most homes were still burning coal / coke?
Sorry, realise I haven’t quoted any sources but I recall from my healthcare/nursing days that it is pretty widely held that cleanliness and overuse of antibacterials has had ab impact on autoimmune-type conditions.
20Bees
Well-Known Member
The trend for wood burners led to an increase in the outlets selling logs by the net - you certainly couldn’t buy wood from supermarkets and petrol stations when I was a kid. The propensity of that wood to be both inadequately seasoned and hugely overpriced was often the cause of great angst when it didn’t produce a nice fire. It amazes me how many nets of wood we sell in the supermarket where I work.
I have an oil-fired boiler and and a Rayburn canopied open stove. I have always foraged fallen wood all year round on dog walks, cut branches off my own willow, apple and cherry trees, dry prunings for kindling, and in 30+ years here I have probably bought logs from the farm fewer than 10 times. Sawing wood to size, stacking some in the shed and bringing enough indoors for the week is pleasing, and as long as I can burn a branch or two I’ll not be cold, whatever the oil prices do.
I’m in my 60s, my only neighbours are in their 70s and also burn wood. The dust-producing factory across the village has long closed and is being built on. Fast but infrequent traffic down the lane past our pair of cottages will leave little in the air to worry us, we are generally upwind from the road, and we will relish our indoor fires for as long as we survive here.
I have an oil-fired boiler and and a Rayburn canopied open stove. I have always foraged fallen wood all year round on dog walks, cut branches off my own willow, apple and cherry trees, dry prunings for kindling, and in 30+ years here I have probably bought logs from the farm fewer than 10 times. Sawing wood to size, stacking some in the shed and bringing enough indoors for the week is pleasing, and as long as I can burn a branch or two I’ll not be cold, whatever the oil prices do.
I’m in my 60s, my only neighbours are in their 70s and also burn wood. The dust-producing factory across the village has long closed and is being built on. Fast but infrequent traffic down the lane past our pair of cottages will leave little in the air to worry us, we are generally upwind from the road, and we will relish our indoor fires for as long as we survive here.
Artaxerxes
Look out, he's got a gnu!
not a trot
Well-Known Member
Received letter today from the council informing me that as I pay my council tax by dd, I should be getting my £150 refund paid into my bank account soon.
The letter also contained my new council tax bill, £1900.
Over the fucking moon.
The letter also contained my new council tax bill, £1900.
Over the fucking moon.
Yuwipi Woman
Whack-A-Mole Queen
I like the way our water bills are structured. Its arranged in tiers with the people who have the lowest useage, getting not only the lowest rates, but a $10 credit toward the standard charge. The cost of water rises by tiers the more you use. This makes water bills run as little was $15 a month for showers and drinking water, to upwards of $300 for someone who waters their lawn regularly, or otherwise use large amounts of water.
NoXion
Craicy the Squirrel
That billing structure. Are you saying that you pay your entire year's worth of council tax in one go? Or is that your monthly figure?
I don't think I could afford to pay annually. Mine comes in monthly. Apparently I paid about £15 last month. That seems a little... low?
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