I Failed my EPC!!!!

"Clive George" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Certainty.

Reply to
Adrian
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You can download them off estate agency websites.

Owain

Reply to
Owain

Not sure that's at all helpful. How is g/km CO2 not directly related to mpg for a given fuel type? Should I add the "modern car" caveat, to ensure that all the carbon in the fuel comes out as C02?

Reply to
Clive George

"Clive George" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Because the tests are performed differently, which means that they may well produce different results.

You can if you wish.

Reply to
Adrian

Solar isn't a good option for most water heating either, assuming retrofit in the UK climate. Solar for space heating works well and cheaply (especially if you can go underfloor), but trying to use it for water heating is an uphill struggle. A practical UK system doubles (at least!) the capital spend as you need a thermal store of some form, and still doesn't have enough seasonal availability to pay for itself within the system working lifetime. On top of that, your fuel costs for hot water are dwarfed by space heating, so there just isn't much budget to make a saving out of.

If you're opening a laundry in Spain, a climbing hut showerblock with no fuel access, or if you just like to spend July soaking in a hot bath, then of course the answers are different - but the simple view is that solar space heating in the UK works, is affordable, saves money and pays for itself, whilst heating the hot water supply fails on all four.

Reply to
Andy Dingley

No, it isn't. But I've heard this from straw-bale builders, and the person who did our EPC had "pick the option" software that was as dumbed-down as a maths A level.

Reply to
Andy Dingley

Right, why didn't you say that earlier. Seems moderately insane to me, but never mind. Looks to be 5% or so error in there.

Reply to
Clive George

Now I'm monitoring the power used here and I have an AWS that measures wind speed (also logged). I'm tempted to see if there is a transfer curve between windspeed and power out somewhere for the Proven wind turbines (either 2.5 or 6kW). And actually see how much I could be expected to be able to sell to offset our use, dump into a heat bank or sell to the grid.

Today with the mean speed being around mid twenties mph or just over

10m/s I suspect we could have sold quite a bit but we do get calm days...
Reply to
Dave Liquorice

"Clive George" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Why? You're determining one metric, under two different circumstances, then artificially blending to create a third figure for that metric. Why would you then perform some abstract extrapolation from that blended result to come up with a different metric entirely?

Don't forget that it's entirely feasible that different engine technologies may produce a different relationship between pollutants - then there's all the fudge-factors involved in hybrids.

Reply to
Adrian

Fit air conditioning. It makes a two-grade difference between two otherwise identical factory units I just had surveyed.

....

I had to get the survey done so that, acting as a Director of my company, I could sell one of the factory units to myself, acting as a Trustee of my pension fund. As I might one day want to sell the other and the certificates last 10 years, I got both checked, as I got a substantial discount for doing both at once.

Colin Bignell

Reply to
nightjar

Look,. with any luck, all this nonsense will vanish after the next election, and be replaced with something nice and simple, like fuel duty..

..oh..we already have that..in which case why not increase it. Oh, becaus its rather hard to hide it as a stealth tax..

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Its an E because nobody has done the approval tests to put it in another band. Its the same as my diesel, its in a higher band than it would be if the tests were done. Maybe you can pay for the tests? Not that it would save you any cash in your lifetime.

Reply to
dennis

Well I've devised a simple transfer "curve" that roughly fits that of Proven wind turbines:

For the 6kW model: Watts =3D (Wind < 4 ? 0 : wind < 12 ? ((wind * 0.625) - 2.5) * 1000 :

5000)

For the 2.5kW model: Watts =3D (Wind < 4 ? 0 : wind < 12 ? ((wind * 0.25) - 1) * 1000 :

2000)

I found the makers transfer curves but also some plots from real measurements for the 6kW model, that appears to max out at 5kW. Both generate sod all below 4m/s wind and peak/flat top at about 12m/s, between those speeds the power output is proportional to wind speed.

Today has been a windy day, even by our standards. Force 6 to Force 7 and brief excursion to Force 8. That's equates to sustained wind speed not far short of 30mph or 13m/s and indeed the plots of both (imaginary) turbines have been flat topped for quite a bit of the day, ie running at max output.

I reckon we could have exported somewhere between 50 and 60kWHr from the 6k model and about 15kWHr from the 2.5kW model. Note that this is exporting ie power in excess of our use.

But looking back over the last week even with todays 55kWHr export we would still be a nett importer of power even with the 6kW model. But only about 80kWhr not 160. A saving of =A38 on the week. Payback on installation cost (without a grant) about 60 years but of course energy costs won't stay at todays prices and the case is not just pure economics.

formatting link
todays plot.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

usually its proportional to wind speed cubed, which is quite significant, so things may be worse than they look

NT

Reply to
NT

The energy available is but that need not be the same as the energy produced by a wind driven generator.

Take a look at the graphs here:

formatting link
power out v wind speed from 5 to 10m/s is pretty linear...

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

Interesting question. I have a large turbine available (8' Piggott-ish homebrew) should I wish, but the site is lousy as a wind location, being in the lee of a slight hill.

There's also a new primary school being built against our rear boundary - actually a new building on the playing fields of the existing school. This has already shifted from the green glory of the original planning application (vertical axis wind turbine, solar heating, SUDS and grey water systems) to the built actuality of instead tapping into the existing overloaded surface water drainage (with a vast hole dug in our plot), swapping the wind turbine for a cheaper horizontal axis and solar panels comparable in size to what I'm planning for our house alone.

Reply to
Andy Dingley

The whole thing was a waste right from the start, but it had to be drammatically dummed down when they saw the very low skillset of the applicants. For some reason, the government thought builders and others familiar with building construction or energy use would apply. What they actually got was a load of unemployed people with no knowledge of building construction or energy usage, and with the deadline for HIPs and almost no approved energy assessors, they had to turn the assessment into a dum ticklist for the clueless.

Just look on it as an extra tax to keep a set of people off the unemployment figures, and you won't go far wrong.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

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