Daydream fund challenge part 4

choille

I do think it's always best to have energy 'options' & not be too reliant on one in case there's cuts, or problems with supply.

Agas are marvellous things & built to last. I think that Rayburns are regarded as the poor man's Aga, or poor person's to be PC.

alfie_1

dave.. i gather yours doesnt do heating/hot water etc [doesnt need electricity] is it just gravity fed ? all the ones i know have a power part for the pump to get the oil to them ? and im talking about your aga !!!

lostinrates

Personally I don't miss a range. They do the best toast in the world. Everything else can be done as well another way IMO.


They are nice to curl up and read on, and the cats love them, but then, it encourages cats on the work top...so....

choille

I do miss my pushy cats.........I do think of them fondly, not sadly, but I do miss them. Especially when comiing home...and still expecting them for a moment or two to be here.

Davesnave

Alfie, the Aga is all gravity-fed, but it does some hot water and even warms a towel rail in the bathroom.

I think it was rhiwfield who suggested a mix of heating options originally, and that's a definite maybe now.

I can see the Aga heating the kitchen/diner, with the door open most of the time to the living room, which picks up plenty of solar gain in the daytime. It would also pre-heat water in the tank and keep a towel rail warm in the bathroom.

Then, at night, we can light the living room wood stove, keeping that toasty, feeding any extra heat into the bedroom area.

Two of the bedrooms + the utility could have the new Quantum storage heaters, and we'd run the hot water from E7 too.

Of course, E7 is all very well, but it's more expensive in the other 17 hours, so 4kW of solar panels on the roof should balance that.

It's messy, and sounds expensive, but a new wood stove, Quantum heaters, E7 tank, solar PV and a new oil tank would still come to much less than a pellet boiler + new radiator system....In fact would be about 5 years before the RHI payment for pellets made up the difference.

Sorry, just thinking out loud!

choille

The thing with these pellet stoves is that the price of the pellets is as liable to rise in price as more people go for them & they are not easy to source so they are liable to rise the same way that other fuels do - in price, I believe.

alfie_1

my first 500litres of red diesel for my genny was about £180. in 9 years it was £400+ for 500 litres !! how come at the moment fuel at source has dropped 40% yet we get a miserly 2-5p off a litre ??? utter pooperoo................... i have oil central heating here and hot water. so far in nearly 10 months ive used half a tank. will top up soon incase we get ice/snow as the lorries struggle on the forest roads ...

choille

The fuel thing is a big thing - We hardly use electrickery but I think our bills are high. &0 each bill at this time. That's just lights, puter, telly & tools. Cooker is LPG stove is free wood. I don't hoover! It is all hydro here so at least that is a sustainable fuel, but is probably French owned now.

Davesnave

choille wrote: »

The thing with these pellet stoves is that the price of the pellets is as liable to rise in price as more people go for them & they are not easy to source so they are liable to rise the same way that other fuels do - in price, I believe.

Supply is easy enough here, and I think they will keep the price slightly behind that of oil for a good while to encourage uptake, but some of the boilers are a pig in a poke and the installers even more so.

If we went pellet, we'd have to buy a premium brand boiler to get a reliable install and a decent length of guarantee. But pellets are a wet system, so we'd also need to replace all our rads and pipework, as they're a mess.

lostinrates

Davesnave wrote: »

Plenty of time to prune those trees. We've left it till February without anything dire happening.

How's the new old car? Mine is telling me it needs a service, but I'm showing it who's boss.

Fine thanks.

Only driven it to your wife's old town though., where it came from, because I had to collect it from there yesterday, then drove straight back because I'd left groceries in the back of the courtesy car

Then went back there today to fill up with diesel and have another get used to it spin. Its very comfy but the gear box is a bit stiff.