the daydream fund challenge thread

mambury

rhiwfield wrote: »

Forecast says this will be the last of the sunny days for a while and I'm taking time off from cutting a hawthorn hedge down from 8' high to 5' high so it can be better managed in future. Amazing how useful antiseptic and plasters can be! Upper arm muscles are seizing so thats it for today.

Will need to get permission from neighbours to tackle other side, which is down a 6' bank so a ladder job.

Half the solar PV installation arrived this morning (inverter, switches, meter and fusebox) so my main task today is making tea for the installers. Tomorrow should see the solar panels arrive and the system commisssioned. Nothing to do with GYO but sort of related to being partially self sufficient

Pricked out the tomato seedlings at the weekend and then left them in the greenhouse in the sun . Many dead seedlings later.........

wow... I;ve always fancied PV panels but was put off a bit on the price.... Do you mind me askign what sort of rough cost they were installed?? And what comapny did you use??

Ta Mambury

ukmaggie45

rhiwfield wrote: »

Half the solar PV installation arrived this morning (inverter, switches, meter and fusebox) so my main task today is making tea for the installers. Tomorrow should see the solar panels arrive and the system commisssioned. Nothing to do with GYO but sort of related to being partially self sufficient

I'd be really interested if you could point me towards some info on solar PV stuff, as we're hoping we might be able to install it on our new (to us) house when we get all the building work done.

Good luck with getting the hedge trimmed. I'm glad our hedges are only short!

Best wishes from sunny Liverpool

choille

Hi All - Since the last thaw I've been running about rather a lot - 3 months of being idle & now charging about here, there & everywhere. But enough of that. I was at a crofting conference last week & one of the speakers spoke on Extensive farming - was very interesting indeed.

Poppycat1

choille wrote: »

Hi All - Since the last thaw I've been running about rather a lot - 3 months of being idle & now charging about here, there & everywhere. But enough of that. I was at a crofting conference last week & one of the speakers spoke on Extensive farming - was very interesting indeed.

Please tell us more about the Extensive farming. I only have a small area to use and a lot of this seems to be taken up with fruit bushes. Seems strange to put these small sticks so far away from each other, but I am assured that they will soon need all this space.

choille

I have been trying to find out how I can apply it to my ground.
It's basically permaculture with animals also - that's probably too crude & a bit wrong.

Poppycat1

There is a permaculture course nearby in May that I was thing on going on. It's £120 :eek: for two nights and you stay in tents . I think it would be nice to be around like minded people and get lots of new ideas.

rhiwfield

Mambury/UKMaggie,

You are talking of about £4,500-£5,000 per kW installed. Grants are no longer available as new feed in tariffs have been announced starting 1st April. Expect a return of around 8% pa (index linked and tax free) on capital cost.

We are buying from Ardenham Energy and installed by Elltec Solar. There seems to be a shortage of panels, inverters etc as demand increases. Most of the equipment is foreign made so the low pound will probably keep up prices.

Links:
ardenham
elltec solar
feed in tariffs
insolation calculator
standard schematic

hope this helps,

rhiwfield

JayneC

Poppycat1 wrote: »

There is a permaculture course nearby in May that I was thing on going on. It's £120 :eek: for two nights and you stay in tents . I think it would be nice to be around like minded people and get lots of new ideas.

Hi,

Just wanted to say that I went on a weekend permaculture course a couple of weeks ago and really enjoyed it. The payment was on a sliding scale so if you couldn't afford the full cost you just paid what you could (minimum £30). They also arranged for participants to put each other up if they were living nearby which worked really well. The design bit was really useful. Have fun if you go x

mambury

rhiwfield wrote: »

Mambury/UKMaggie,

You are talking of about £4,500-£5,000 per kW installed. Grants are no longer available as new feed in tariffs have been announced starting 1st April. Expect a return of around 8% pa (index linked and tax free) on capital cost.

We are buying from Ardenham Energy and installed by Elltec Solar. There seems to be a shortage of panels, inverters etc as demand increases. Most of the equipment is foreign made so the low pound will probably keep up prices.

Links:
ardenham
elltec solar
feed in tariffs
insolation calculator
standard schematic

hope this helps,

rhiwfield

thanks rhiwfield, useful info..... for when we have the pennies!!

mambury

Rummer

I have been so busy with other things that I have yet to plant a thing yet! So need to get organised and get my seedlings started indoors. Going to add quite a few more raised beds this year also going to increase the number of raspberry bushes as fresh raspberries are just too tasty! OH been made redundant so he should have time to get bits done in the garden while tracking down a new career!