A Better View 🌄

themadvix

Lovely photos Fortune and glad you’ve got your boiler sorted.

 Would you be able to share the rhubarb cordial recipe you use please? I love the rhubarb vodka I make, but an alcohol-free option would be wonderful. 

Cheery_Daff

Glad you got to see it too Fortune 😍 I'd never seen it before either. I was surprised by how much more the camera picked up, although there were some pretty dramatic pink streaks here too that I wasn't expecting to see.

Hooray that you have your house back! New boiler sounds fantastic, and it's reassuring to hear it's smaller and quieter. I'm anticipating we'll have one at some point over the next few years, but we tend to run things until they are completely, irretrievably broken so I suspect things will get a lot more annoying here before they get better 🙄😂

Love hearing about your pottering and plans 😊 i might be inspired by Mr F to run the strimmer round 😊

greenbee

I slept through the lights as I was unaware of the high chance of seeing them (snowed under at work), but lovely photos from people in the village. I’ve seen green in Stockholm before - but not very impressive with all the light from the city!

Good news in the boiler. I moved mine at the last place from the utility room to (detached) garage and it freed up some very useful space. @Cheery_Daff - you’ll probably find that air source heat will be your best bet if you’re leaving it until the current boiler turns up its toes. So if you need to replace any radiators or pipes between now and then, just make sure you oversize them for the current system (I’m having 4 replaced and 2 added in June with this in mind). Grants for air source are pretty good at the moment - I’m just not quite ready for it yet!

Cheery_Daff

From what I've read, an air source heat pump wouldn't suit here given the nature of the house, and we don't meet requirements for any of the current grants. Of course, things will likely change both in terms of the technical details and legislation in the next few years! I will bear in mind what you say about pipe size, thank you. The boiler in our old house was older than me and this one's only about 15 years old so it may have a while to go 😂

Fortune_Smiles

themadvix said:

Lovely photos Fortune and glad you’ve got your boiler sorted.

 Would you be able to share the rhubarb cordial recipe you use please? I love the rhubarb vodka I make, but an alcohol-free option would be wonderful. 

Thanks MV.  It's a good old BBCG00dF00d recipe again.  Really quick and easy to make and goes down a storm with workmen 😆  We have it with sparkling water but I think it would also go well with still water, lemonade or gin 😉

Fortune x

Fortune_Smiles

Cheery_Daff said:

Glad you got to see it too Fortune 😍 I'd never seen it before either. I was surprised by how much more the camera picked up, although there were some pretty dramatic pink streaks here too that I wasn't expecting to see.

Hooray that you have your house back! New boiler sounds fantastic, and it's reassuring to hear it's smaller and quieter. I'm anticipating we'll have one at some point over the next few years, but we tend to run things until they are completely, irretrievably broken so I suspect things will get a lot more annoying here before they get better 🙄😂

Love hearing about your pottering and plans 😊 i might be inspired by Mr F to run the strimmer round 😊

We could see streaks of white with blooms of pale pink and pale green but, yes, the camera picked up more intense colours.  It's possibly a once in a lifetime opportunity to see the aurora in our Shire so I'm really pleased we got the chance.

I'm delighted to have the house back to ourselves.  I have a very low tolerance for disturbance in the house and had reached saturation point by the time the workmen left.  The boiler seems to be significantly more efficient.  We have endless hot water but it is only firing for a short time after we turn the tap off.  The old burner was firing for ages afterwards - half an hour or so.  It will be really interesting to see how much fuel we now use.  We waited until the boiler was beyond repair before replacing it but I wish now I'd done it sooner.  We've had a very smelly, noisy and unpredictable winter 🙄

Pottering is one of my favourite things to do Cheery 😁

Fortune x

Fortune_Smiles

greenbee said:

I slept through the lights as I was unaware of the high chance of seeing them (snowed under at work), but lovely photos from people in the village. I’ve seen green in Stockholm before - but not very impressive with all the light from the city!

Good news in the boiler. I moved mine at the last place from the utility room to (detached) garage and it freed up some very useful space. @Cheery_Daff - you’ll probably find that air source heat will be your best bet if you’re leaving it until the current boiler turns up its toes. So if you need to replace any radiators or pipes between now and then, just make sure you oversize them for the current system (I’m having 4 replaced and 2 added in June with this in mind). Grants for air source are pretty good at the moment - I’m just not quite ready for it yet!

Shame you missed it greenbee.  We follow 'Severe Weather Updates' on FB and they issue alerts if there's a high chance of seeing the aurora in the UK.

We did consider moving the boiler outside but that would have involved more ground work and more cost.  We have re-orientated it though which makes the space in our new boot room more useable.  Our house isn't suitable for air/ground source heat either.  Too old and full of breathing holes 😆

Fortune x

Fortune_Smiles

Cheery_Daff said:

From what I've read, an air source heat pump wouldn't suit here given the nature of the house, and we don't meet requirements for any of the current grants. Of course, things will likely change both in terms of the technical details and legislation in the next few years! I will bear in mind what you say about pipe size, thank you. The boiler in our old house was older than me and this one's only about 15 years old so it may have a while to go 😂

Our old boiler was about 18 years old and worked perfectly until this winter.  I was a bit sad to see it go (even said goodbye and thank you when it was propped up on the drive looking forlorn) as it served us so well.  Might also have apologised to the house when the workmen were rattling its old bones 😊  Must stop getting attached to inanimate objects... new boiler is called Betty 😊

Fortune x

themadvix

Thanks for the recipe Fortune!

Re ASHP, neither you nor Cheery may be far off being suitable these days - they have become so much more efficient that a normal house (without underfloor heating and super insulation) would be ok, assuming, as Greenbee says, over sized rads - things are definitely getting there!

greenbee

I have a friend who specialises in restoring historic buildings. She says ASHP and GSHP are much kinder to them as they run at lower flow temperatures so put less stress on the fabric of the building. And ideally go with old-fashioned cast iron radiators and wide bore pipework. She's found that the cast iron rads are much more effective than the modern panel ones - even those that say they are designed for lower flow temps. 

My parents' old house would have been ideal for it - the original 1930s rads and pipework would have been perfect for it, but they sold up about 12 years' ago. The oil boiler was probably older than they were - it had been given a few new parts, and sounded like a jet taking off, but was still going. Whereas the modern (gas) boiler in their new house needed replacing at about 14, as did the oil boiler in my old house. The one here went in in 2016, but as the vendors extended it is probably slightly undersized for the house - however, I do have two circuits with wet UFH which is perfect for air-source - the only issue is going to be replacing radiators and pipework in the two rooms that have been completed (I don't want the mess or hassle, so will have to see what the verdict is) and the hall which has a tiled floor that I don't particularly want to take up. But I can deal with that when the time comes - I need to get solar in first and then find a location for the heatpump that won't disturb either the neighbours or me!

One thing I do think will save me money is the sensors I have put on the doors which disable the heating if the doors are open. Particularly helpful when you have trades in and out who are unable to close doors I'd love them on the windows but they are bulky and ugly, and I have two many windows to make it cost effective. 

And I agree @Fortune_Smiles - there is only so long you can cope with the disruption caused by workmen in the house!