Nice people thread part 5 - nicely does it

silvercar

If the only way to get a D rating is to replace the boilers or externally clad the house, it won't cost in.

I wonder how easy it is to fool the EPC contractors?

Hows this one:

Light fittings count as not energy efficient if they have old style light bulbs. If they have energy efficient light bulbs they count as efficient, no light bulbs and they count as not efficient (!), blown energy efficient bulbs and they count as efficient(!)

I'm sure there is a market for renting out dud energy efficient bulbs just for inspection days.

Nikkster

lostinrates wrote: »

Heard an interesting thing on shhhh, you and yours, today in a phone in about olympic interest and uptake etc.

Sheesh.....this is bad...forgotton what typing mid post.

Um....hangon.

Boxing 6oo women do/ have done in uk and its at the olympics.

Lots of women do.....um....cannot rememebr but either hocky or netball and its not.

Um, in its original quote it was really quite interesting and relevant to some discussions we have had about olympics.

I think hockey is an Olympic sport, but netball isn't. I would think that worldwide more women would play the two than box, but not sure?

vivatifosi

Do you mind if I ask how solar would work here? The house is all electric. We live near a reservoir to the pressure of the water mains means that run by the house (it is the main supply to the town) on a 12 inch pipe means we aren't allowed to have gas as the services would have to run alongside each other and it is considered too dangerous.

Average electric use (ie all fuel use) for small 3 bed semi is c£1400pa. However we are on Economy 10 and there are no circumstances under which we would change tariff as we get a 3 hour boost in the afternoon, so if there are FIT only tariffs we wouldn't be able to change.

What do the experts think?

Doozergirl

silvercar wrote: »

If the only way to get a D rating is to replace the boilers or externally clad the house, it won't cost in.

I wonder how easy it is to fool the EPC contractors?

Hows this one:

Light fittings count as not energy efficient if they have old style light bulbs. If they have energy efficient light bulbs they count as efficient, no light bulbs and they count as not efficient (!), blown energy efficient bulbs and they count as efficient(!)

I'm sure there is a market for renting out dud energy efficient bulbs just for inspection days.

Pretty easy to fool with lightbulbs. You get 6 points for all energy savers which is ridiculous. When we put in upgraded windows into the last project, they only count as "double glazing" where a leaky old unit could have a totally pointless u-value, versus a new bog standard unit which is 1.6 or a fancy one that gets 1.1. Net result of that news is that we won't be bothering in future if extra expenditure doesn't even get you a point.

And boilers. If you don't have a boiler, you don't get extra points, you get less. But if you have no boiler and choose not to heat your house, that doesn't cost anything at all.

I think we gained an extra point once when H took photographs of the same radio controlled electronic thermostat stuck on two different walls as it hadn't been fitted yet, so the guy asked for photos.

Bonkers. Give an EPC assessor a drink, give him the instruction manual for a better boiler and he'll probably get you a D.

Doozerdog is running in his sleep.

zagubov

lostinrates wrote: »

They have been now. I am tired, but can stop running out every couple of minutes.

I cannot wait to have a decent door bell. I cannot here people knock unless i am in the rooms nearest the front door.

First house we owned was far from most people we know. It was a London suburb where a few of the neighbours might talk to you but there wasn't the camaraderie and neighbourliness that would be normal in the north (apologies if the west, wolverhampton and herts are places with similar neighbourly friendliness- it would cheer me to know that)

The doorbell didn't work and we never fixed it for ages. Never missed it. People always rang to check we'd be in before they'd trek round to see us anyway.

Everybody else who knocked at the door was "offering" us things for their benefit not ours e.g power company salesmen trying to poach us for rival deals, missionaries with an amazingly "better" religion that we should swap ours for, double glazing salesmen with one-day-only offers that required them to explain how double-glazing worked to people who honestly wondered if the salesman thought we were recently-thawed out Neanderthals who'd never heard of insulation.

The lowest point was a time we'd booked a cable TV connection (there were competing satellite dish systems at the time and cable gave both their channels) when different salesmen from the only local cable company kept calling to "just check" our booking for a new connection was proceeding correctly and to our horror we realised from their questioning about our details they were actually poaching our secured and completed installlation deal from their rival salesmen to get the comission for themselves. Utterly disgusted. A fantastic competitive sales frenzy stealing already-secured sales from their very own organisation as if that was some kind of economic activity. If that's competition it's a joke. :mad::eek:

Anyway, point is, we don't need doorbells as much as you think. If you're expecting the postman listen out for knocking. If anyone else just drops by what the heck are they after?
Has anyone had someone just turn up to the door with an offer that was seriously worthwhile opening the door to? I'd like to know examples!:p

Doozergirl

zagubov wrote: »

Anyway, point is, we don't need doorbells as much as you think. If you're expecting the postman listen out for knocking. If anyone else just drops by what the heck are they after?
Has anyone had someone just turn up to the door with an offer that was seriously worthwhile opening the door to? I'd like to know examples!:p

Doozerdog tells me loudly when there's someone outside. The handle fell off the letterbox so he's the doorbell now.

The one time someone knocked randomly and it was useful was when we first had him, he didn't bark for the door and a lady had knocked to ask if we had a shaggy black dog, because he was sat outside the back gate waiting to be let in. He'd already taken himself for a walk :eek:

A lot of times, I don't bother answering it.

lemonjelly

Doozergirl wrote: »

Lemonjelly, are you on twitter? It's just three of the pics you've posted in the last week have appeared on my twitter timeline by the same person after you've posted them. Either the person I follow is getting them from the same source, has the same sense of humour as you and it's a coincidence, or they're a NP too.

I'm not on twitter doozer. I'm not on facebook either.

This is kinda contradictory, but I'm npt the biggest proponent of online social networking. It misses too much of real personal interaction imo. Facebook particularly seems to me to be a big step in the commodification of people and friendships. I generally prefer my social contact to be more personal.

I started here mainly through interest in what was happening economically at the time. As time has passed, my perception is that certain debates are repeated, as are certain characters. Some great & enlightening posters don't seem to be around anymore. Some others still are. I learned huge amounts in the first year or 2. I contributed where I felt I could, mainly by asking questions. But sometimes, wise teachers advised me on stuff that stuck, & I picked up all sorts,.

I still scan the debate board, & occasionally post on another thread, but that is rare.

I do post one 1 thread on greenfingered too. But this one & that one are the only 2 threads I really post on nowadays.

zagubov

Nikkster wrote: »

I think hockey is an Olympic sport, but netball isn't. I would think that worldwide more women would play the two than box, but not sure?

Nikkster- you're back! :jAre you well? You've been missed (well at least by the London NPs).

I like to think you've been hiding in tayyabs or similarly good food places.

Shouldn't have said that- I'm jealous from imagining great grub.

Oh dear - I've just seen the last BBC2 analogue programme ever:A:(
Time moves on!

vivatifosi

That's a great shame lj. If you were to go out into the wider forum - imagine for a moment there were no sockies or oddballs - what would you like to discuss? Maybe we can have a mini discussion on here.

lemonjelly

lostinrates wrote: »

Sigh, the poison apple of rejection....

I'll have to find seven dwarves instead. ::(

Make me happy?:D