ENERGY SAVING ADVICE

[rebel bike]

You could always go down the heat pump route. Heat pumps are ‘always on’ so it should always be warm.
Then do what I did. I installed 30kwh of lithium phosphate batteries (coupled with supercapacitors in parallel) in the shed. They are kept charged up with solar on the roof and a tiny domestic wind turbine in the garden. The heatpump is then dual fed, by my batteries primarily and then the mains/grid as secondary. When the batteries run dry (which they haven’t yet done due to the bright sunny weather this winter) the grid will supply power to the heatpump.
I have no more heating bills and I should be future proofed for the next 8-10years.

Tell us about the domestic wind turbine please! Cost, size etc..

 

[SoundMan]

Could get a smart clock radio.
Basically a smart speaker with an always on clock.
Echo dot for Amazon Alexa or a Lenovo one for Google.
Could set a schedule for when it turns off automatically at night and when you want it to turn on in the morning.

The Roberts one I have a few years is the

Roberts Radio CR9971​

It has two alarms times so you can set up one for the weekend and one for Mon-Fri. You can set up the alarms 1-7, 1-5, 1-6, 6-7 as well as having the usual radio-buzzer-off. You can set the sleep function on anything from 90 right down to 1 and unlike some other clock radios if you press the sleep function to see is there much time left on the countdown it doesn't reset again. It automatically sets the clock time forward and back, and even in a power outage it has a back up battery so you won't miss an important alarm. Great yoke imho

 

[menace404]

Tell us about the domestic wind turbine please! Cost, size etc..

Marlec - A UK Manufacturer of Battery Charging Off-Grid Wind Turbines

Manufacturer of the world renowned Rutland Windcharger range of wind turbines and Solar iBoost PV immersion controller. Renewable energy pioneers since 1979

www.marlec.co.uk

These are the ones that TII use on the motorway road sides. They are the job. I only have it 6ft off the ground on a pole on the shed….I don’t see any need to mount it higher as it catches plenty of wind during a breezy day. There’s been feckall wind this winter so it’s hard to determine the output value so far. I only have it wired to my charge controller for about 6 months or so.

 

[jimmym]

Booked a guy to call today to look at our windows and frames, houses in our estate were built 22 years ago and product not of highest calibre, we will replace 10 windows and the back door, coming in @8k. could shop around but probably much of a muchness, Will also buy an insert stove,

 

[TheEarlofPearl]

Booked a guy to call today to look through our windows.

 

[jeepers]

In fairness, nothing beats the comfort of dogging in your own home. Too cold for car parks at this time of year.