the daydream fund challenge thread

choille

Thanks Alfie - yes I'll need tokeep an eye out as there has been a spate of feather pecking - not surprising as I've let them all roam & they've all been raming theirselves intothree houses - i can only think that it is because of the extreme cold.

Walked up to look at the road & it is pretty bad & I don't think we'll be going anywhere tomorrow. All the deer were running around when we took a quick walk down the road. They've only put salt on one side of the road where there is a hill. The deer like to lick the salt - not that there's much about.

lostinrates

Feed room frozen up again. Have hung a heat lamp in there in the vague hope it might help.

Also,the loo seat has frozen down...oh dear. But there is much less snow....didn't need to replace many of the hay piles.

Davesnave

Milder here. Still freezing but not much ice formation on the troughs. No sign that the gritter, if that's what it was, has had much effect, but I saw one 'normal' car heading out of our lane & going east, the easy way. Doesn't mean the driver is 'normal' of course; it wasn't a local vehicle.

rhiwfield

Still freezing here as well but cloud cover means its only -1C.

No post for 6 days now and DW has had to cancel a medical appointment as we cant get the car up to the house. With things calming down snow-wise I'm hoping that we can get more grit to treat the roads, my one sack of rock salt wont do the trick

Still playing around with changing the CH, posted on heating forum but got little response. Wood locally has gone up from £60 to £100 per cubic metre in 3 years and at current usage I have to buy 1 lot of oil in midwinter when prices peak. Also doubt that heating oil prices will do anything but show cost increases well above inflation.

So its back to the heat pump idea but with a twist...seems its now common on retrofits to use an Air Source Heat Pump to deliver the base heating load, leaving the existing system in place to cope with heating at coldest time of year. Its called a bivalent system. If RHI comes in and applies, that should mean a return of about 12% pa on cost plus a saving on heating cost of maybe £300 pa.

Lots more research needed, far too early for any decision.

Davesnave

I'm also thinking hard about future fuel use/prices. I may have it wrong, but it looks as if the Mole Valley Farmers PV system will cost £35k in set up money and pay back about £4k a year for 25 years (inflation adjusted) at current money values. Their wind turbine package is even more costly.

Hmmmm......That's almost as good as another pension, but of course it's a huge initial investment and it's tied to the property. As I'd not want any of their ugly field mounted systems, it would have to go on the barn roof, I think.......and the barn needs work. The house also needs work, of course, and with £35k less in the bank that would have to be trimmed. Still, at current performance (we're getting about 4.2% on our house fund and a lot less on the ISAs) having money in the bank isn't that productive.:(

As you say, lots more research...

choille

LIR - £100 for wood is very expensive to my mind. I don't know if you have woods near you that you can apply for license for dead wood collection?

All these heating systems that are comig about are expensive & really don't have the time scale of use to be able to say if they are economical & who knows how long they will keep going without needing repaired, new bits & how much they will cost - sorry I'm a bit of a cynic.

Very cold last night - didn't get a great sleep at all. OH gallantly has battled on & ventured to the PO with my two parcels & will get milk & bits for neighbours.

It's all starting to look like last year - like we've moved to Canada.

lostinrates

choille wrote: »

LIR - £100 for wood is very expensive to my mind. I don't know if you have woods near you that you can apply for license for dead wood collection?

All these heating systems that are comig about are expensive & really don't have the time scale of use to be able to say if they are economical & who knows how long they will keep going without needing repaired, new bits & how much they will cost - sorry I'm a bit of a cynic.

It is, but its what Rhiwfield paid;)

I paid 120 for a double load..no idea how much that will last us

I'm really scared abut the heating decisions. Structural stuff makes sense to me a bit but the ''physics'' of the heating stuff is like martian. The architect is going to do a meeting just about heating options and electricity generation so that it is all we have to think about for that time...trying to juggle it in my head with other stuff I just ignore it..its too hard. I thnk the companies know very well a lot of us just don't understand so monopolise on that.

Davesnave

choille wrote: »

LIR - £100 for wood is very expensive to my mind. I don't know if you have woods near you that you can apply for license for dead wood collection?

I've tightly stacked the oak and beech that Pete the farmer delivered in the Toyota, and it's at least a cubic metre, for which he usually charges £60.

I know that isn't much help, as he can't deliver to the Vale of Glamorgan, but it gives you an idea of what foks here are paying.
Our other supplier isn't so generous, but something a little bit under 1m3 from him in softwood is £35 and that's fine for keeping the woodburner gently ticking over during the day.

Davesnave

Aarrggghhh! Just looked into the old polytunnel to find that it has collapsed along one side, the wooden framework which I repaired having had enough of the snow.:(

I shifted the initial snow off days ago, but yesterday I was distracted by other things and never looked around the 'blind side.' There would have been little I could've done anyway, especially if it had already gone on Sunday night, as I suspect.

This will be the boot up the backside I need to get the proper polytunnel finished, but that still can't happen before next May. Meanwhile, I suppose it's fortuitous that we have plenty of other places to store the dried dahlia tubers, arum lillies etc which is all that was in there.

choille

Well we paid £35 from Inverewe Gradens wind blown - chopped, a builder's bag load - we collected. That's the first time I've bought wood in over 25 years. It hurts to buy wood. But I didn'tthink it was dear - mainly beech by the look of it. Here you can help yourself to slab wood from the saw mill for free - it's a problem for them.
I see ads in the local rag & it's £70 a ton delivered I think.

OH does plans & stuff & has to do all those SAP calculation stuff, but it's all a bit beyound me. He says basically these air source heat pumps are like a fridge in reverse!!!!
We have a client who has had this system for a while so should ask him what he thinks - although it's a letted holidayhome so may not be as accurate a review as if it was his own residence.
Some of these new boilers are like something out of NASA but do seem to be a heck of a lot more efficient.
Still the same old mantra from me though - insulate, insulate, insukate then you don't need as much heat.
Gosh it's cold....

Sorry to mistake poster rhiwfield - must be hypothermia ;-)