the daydream fund challenge thread

lisa26_2

Hi everyone, LIR suggest I should join in after I sent a PM about old horses!! I've been lurking for a while so I guess it is time I joined in!! We currently live in a bungalow with a small garden./ It's a wide plot though so there was a wide strip of wasted space down one side of the house. Last year OH built me a couple of raised beds which fit down the side nicely and my parents have just bought us a greenhouse as an engagement present.....VERY excited about that!!! Last year things didn't grow as well as I'd like in the raised beds so I've given them a good layer of horse manure to rot in over the winter. I've some sprouting brocolli and leeks still in there although I'm not sure how well they'll have survived the snow, they were under 18" of the stuff for well over a week!!

Idealy we'd like to buy a place with land but I'm not sure how likely that is. The other dream is to buy the field directly behind our house (or even part of it would be good!). The guy who owns it knows we want it but he doesn't seem keen to sell, even though he doesn't use it for anything other than dumping rubbish....looks like a combination of piles of manure and top soil!!! I'd really like to have a few chickens, some ducks, a couple of sheep, goats, pigs etc! A real menagerie.....oh and ponies/horses too of course!! I do have 2 horses already already but they live about 40 miles away near my mum's house, we get a really good deal on renting a couple of hours of grazing land and my Mum loves looking after them......it's her escape for some 'me' time as my dad is disabled and unwell so she spends most of her time looking after him.

Phew...that was long! I'll shut up babbling now!!!

rhiwfield

choille wrote: »

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 ;-)

Choille, no probs . Yes, they are just like a fridge in reverse, taking warmth from external air and moving it inside the house. It runs on leccy and for every 1kWh you put in you will prob get an average of 2.5kWh out (maybe more/maybe less). So instead of 10p per kWh cost it goes down to 4p per kWh, on par with mains gas. Its an established method of heating on the continent, but only chugs out lowish temperatures so you ideally need u/f heating or oversize rads. Re the wood, I bought unseasoned at start of year at £45 per cubic m and will be making another log store to enable me to season more

Davesnave, if the returns hold up and RHI comes in I'd be sorely tempted. Having pv as well, would make return even better, as you would expect to use all winter and a lot of spring/autumn generation. Mind, ours are useless atm given the snow cover and being mounted proud of the roof, have collected a lot of snow. Worth bearing in mind when calculating load factor :eek:. Like you, I look on FITs/RHI as part of my pension.

Lisa, welcome on board!

Lir, trouble is that people who dont take advantage of FITs/RHI are effectively subsidising those who do, either thru higher leccy bills or taxes. And anyone doing a new build doesnt have the sunk costs of those with existing homes and can design a renewable system into the build to get greatest efficiencies.

lostinrates

rhiwfield wrote: »

Lir, trouble is that people who dont take advantage of FITs/RHI are effectively subsidising those who do, either thru higher leccy bills or taxes. And anyone doing a new build doesnt have the sunk costs of those with existing homes and can design a renewable system into the build to get greatest efficiencies.

I know:( its just so complicated. Heating feels more important to get right at this time of year then it does in the summer too

Dh has got the drawings from the architect and says he thinks I'll like them. The most radical idea is ditching our smallest bedroom for an even bigger landing/access to the master room.

ukmaggie45

We thought of getting Solar PV, but the build has been so much bigger and more complicated than we thought that it kinda fell by the wayside. We have a really lovely new roof, with green tiles, but I think we'll be looking at finding out more about installing... Whole place just rewired and replastered, so missed the ideal time to do it, but everything has been such a worry and so much to think about it was just a step too far.

Build is finished till the New Year now. Then the asphalt on the concrete floors downstairs will be poured. Thermaskirt and new boiler installed. Kitchen and utility room installation. Aaarrrggghh! Back in September when work started builder quoted us 10-12 weeks. Roof has accounted for some of that - while would have lasted another 10 years or so we'll be in our 70s then, so seemed sensible to replace now while scaffold was up anyway for the new section of roof over the extension.

Can't remember if I mentioned, but when we went over on Sunday afternoon both the bifold doors had frozen shut. We'll prob get over for a bit tomorrow even if all we do is top up the bird feeders. (OH normally works on Wednesdays but is doing Friday this week so one of his colleagues can take the day off to travel home for Xmas)

Better start searching for a hairdrier to take with us!

alfie_1

Davesnave wrote: »

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...

my house is powered by generator. it cost just over £3,000. it costs me on average £2,ooo a year to fuel it,[max] that covers all my power and even if i want electric heaters on ....etc it costs no more. i can use what i like to the max KV.
i have mains gas for cooker and central heating combi boiler [the most economic boiler!]average cost £5 per week
wood/coal for the fire is expensive but a luxury i WONT do without !!!
not sure how this compares to average "normal" electrified houses !! but is a reasonably big house and i think its about average...
my advantage is when theres power cuts ,my house is lit up like a xmas tree in the blackness:rotfl:

alfie_1

Davesnave wrote: »

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.

iv just paid £70 for a large truck load, i reckon at least 1 1/2 sq metres. thats hardwood already cut and split to size.

rhiwfield

alfie_1 wrote: »

my house is powered by generator. it cost just over £3,000. it costs me on average £2,ooo a year to fuel it,[max] that covers all my power and even if i want electric heaters on ....etc it costs no more. i can use what i like to the max KV.
i have mains gas for cooker and central heating combi boiler [the most economic boiler!]average cost £5 per week
wood/coal for the fire is expensive but a luxury i WONT do without !!!
not sure how this compares to average "normal" electrified houses !! but is a reasonably big house and i think its about average...
my advantage is when theres power cuts ,my house is lit up like a xmas tree in the blackness:rotfl:

Goodness Alfie, £2000 quid a year for leccy :eek::eek::eek:. We're about £900 annual credit on our leccy after FITs. OTOH, with your gas cooker and gas C/H only costing £260 a year thats a real bargain, but I'd have expected 4x as much!!

I guess that we're paying about £1400 a year for our heating atm (for a fairly big house) and if we go down the ASHP route that should come down to about £1,000. That would be offset by RHI payments of £1300 ish, meaning we'd be in house energy credit of c£1200.

Mind, we dont keep many outside lights on

downshifter

The local farmer who supplies my logs rang to say he has now to charge £50 for a good sized builders bag. A couple of weeks ago I paid £40. He says he's tried several places to get them cheaper but no luck. I think they've gone up everywhere.

He also says he's heard that kero, diesel and petrol will soon be rationed. I know it affects everyone across the board one way and another, but you can't help feeling that those of us who live in rural areas are penalised more severely than those in urban areas. At least in a town you can walk to the shops, and have gas piped to the house without having to ring round to find the best price, then hope the weather is ok for the oil to be delivered etc etc.

I know I sound like Mrs Grumpy, but people who have a dream of a small country living can't do it on the cheap now.

DS

choille

The price of fuel ie petrol, deisel here is completely outrageous £1.40 a litre I think. We obviously have to do the miles - 37 miles to small town with docs, dentist, mini tesco etc. I think we have to pay far too much, but what can you do -we really don't make trips unless we really can do about a dozen things at once 7 Come back filled upwith as much feed, food |& stuff as we can.

lostinrates

well my heat lamp hasn't worked to thaw the feed room out. Back to dragging buckets out tomorrow unless we thaw! I've found a gap in the lagging so I'll wrap that up tomorrow. Funny we froze quicker this time, I'm sure it was colder in the last burst.