Big J

Ever the optimist, eh?! 😆 I think you underestimate me a little. We've been debating moving to Europe since 2014. Through the pull of family, we moved to Devon to try out England. Really didn't like it. So back to plan A, which is what we ought to have done all along, but at least this way we know that England isn't viable for us. I don't want to derail the thread, but what exactly do you think we'll miss from the UK? I can hardly be accused of being England's greatest cheerleader.....

It again comes down to one fundamental problem with UK housing - that it's treated as an investment, not a home. We don't really place any value on the green credentials of a house and money invested in insulation and sustainable heating isn't recouped at the point of sale. So it's often not done. Couple that with the general inadequacy of housing in the UK, where people have to continually hop up the ladder to get a house that grows with their needs. Moving house is extremely expensive in the UK, which is a whole load more wasted money. The UK average moving cost is £9k - it'll cost us less to move to Sweden, including all fees. Then add in the expectation that new technology adoption, or insulation improvement should be payed for by the state. Improvement only occurs if someone else pays for it, which is an odd mindset. The UK housing market it absolutely and completely f*cked on so, so many levels. It just doesn't function for anyone except the most wealthy. Very few people live in houses that would be considered decent by European standards. New builds in the UK average 103 kwh/square metre. Older houses 294 kwh/square metre. We've bought a 1957 house in Sweden of typical construction and if memory serves, the energy use is around 65 kwh/square metre. Keep in mind that it's much, much colder there in winter too. And then there's planning too. So many developments are pushed through without adequate affordable housing provision. No infrastructure is put in place, roads are barely upgraded. Planners continue to favour large developers, shitting on the self builders. Ecologically barren farmland greenbelt land is sacrosanct (and won't be built on), second home ownership is rife and local people are priced out of so many markets. I'm really, really grateful to be leaving. I wouldn't have the first idea how to buy/build an affordable, sustainable, spacious home for my family now in this part of the UK.

Small scale, local renewable energy production is a good way to address some of the energy shortfall. Solar panels and both ground source and air source heat pumps. Obviously that comes with a massive need to insulate properties. I feel that one of the main issues with renewables in the UK is that we don't look at them as an objectively good idea, rather as something from which we can obtain money from the government through grants or feed in tariffs. Consequently, the public funding hugely overinflates the cost and makes a lot of cowboys who are quick to start installing them very rich. To illustrate the point, I compared the installation costs of like for like systems in the UK and Sweden. A fairly basic air to air heat pump was about £4300 installed in Sweden. Over £8k here. A ground source heat pump running your central heating. £12k in Sweden. £34k here. The only subsidy there is that you get 50% of the labour cost back against your income tax bill (so you have to earn it to get it back) and they've just removed VAT from solar panels too. We're going to put a full sized solar array on our roof as soon as is practical once we get to Sweden as we have a massive SW facing roof. It's very little extra cost to put on a charging box and battery for electric cars (that we don't have yet, nor can afford). The payback period on the solar is 6 years (or less, due to high electricity prices) and after that it's all free. We'll combine it with an air/air heat pump so that we get cooling in summer for free too. My point is (apart from listing what we'll be doing) is that we need to make renewable energy production the default. 80% of the houses I've looked at whilst house hunting in Sweden have had water born, ground source heat pumps. And we've been looking at the budget end of the market too. We're so far behind in the UK. Did you see that 84% of all new cars sold in Norway last month were full electric?

So the Australian government are a bunch of muppets. Djokovic's deportation has nothing to do with 'strong borders' or 'public safety'. They scapegoated him to distract the populace from the fact that they have the second highest infection rate in the world at the moment and that their isolationist policy through covid has been a total failure.

I don't dispute that the tram system works well, only that process of its construction was farcical, horribly delayed and could only have been more expensive if they had gold-plated the tracks.

Perfect. Because the Scottish government has such a great track record with large transport infrastructure projects..... the Edinburgh trams? £71,400 a metre to replace a very good bus service. Or the A9 dialling, which is over budget and somehow taking decades! You can't punish people out of cars. You can only offer more coat effective or convenient alternatives. Personal transport is personal liberty and I suspect public transport is largely useless for almost everyone on this forum.

Your only option in that price class is the Logbullet from Finland. It's a good machine and well designed. The best option is to speak to Pekka in Finland (the owner of the company). He's a lovely guy and will look after you. The only issue is that every machine manufacturer is working on a long delay due to parts issues. Logbullet is no exception.

To by fair to him, it was probably only about 40 thrusts! 😆

It was the slow, methodical nature of it that made is comical. That and the obligatory grunt at the end of each thrust! Gotta give the chap credit though. We went out the carpark so that I can pop out for half an hour to check on a site, and when my daughter and sister in law got back inside 10 or more minutes later, he was still going for it.

Go for a nice family day out they said. Go to the local zoo they suggested. It's nice for the children they assured me. Reality: XXX rated tortoise shows for all to see! 😆 Fortunately my 7 year old was none the wiser and didn't ask any questions that I wasn't mentally prepared to answer! Tortoise at Tropiquaria.mp4

Define compact - commercially in the UK, that could mean anything from an Alstor up to a Komatsu 840tx.

No where to swim around here unfortunately. The rivers all run red with the clay run off and are also laced with sewage overflow. Not a pretty picture.

Very much agreed. I liked the company, but the product wasn't up to scratch unfortunately. I'm a heavy user (so to speak) and within a year it wouldn't last a working day without a top up charge. By contrast the Ulefone is usually 3 days at work on one charge. 4-5 days if I'm not at work, and 2 days if I'm using it continuously when travelling, including sat nav.

Really crap here today. 27mm of rain in the last 24 hours, so a very indoor Christmas. 11c too.

I had one. It was OK, but the battery life was terrible (6-7hrs when on headset listening to the radio through it) and the rubber outer case just peeled away. The Ulefone Armor X3 is a big step up from the T500. With the exception that the Tuff phone sounds like it should be a Terminator model. The Ulefone can't match it for cool 😎

I had the worksite pack on mine, which included grip control (clever traction control modes for offroad), 30mm raised ride height, bigger (mud and snow) tyres and underbody guarding. That made a big difference.

Fair point. I obviously got started on the sauce a little too early! 🤪

I have no idea what you are saying! 😆

I only got rid of the Berlingo for financial reasons - in prepping to emigrate, I needed to capitalise on the fact that nearly new prices are very high. So 2.5 years and 42,000 miles only cost me £3.5k in depreciation. The Octavia is an ex-police vehicle with high mileage, but drives really well. I can't believe how little fuel it uses considering the all terrain tyres and 4x4 system.

I'd put a vote in for a Berlingo on M and S tyres. Had a 19 plate one for 2.5 years and it was great. I'm in a 63 plate Octavia Scout 4x4 and I'm very impressed with it. The 4x4 system is good (I go a lot further on forestry tracks now than in the Berlingo) and the fuel economy is actually better. It's averaging pretty much exactly 50mpg, but will better that on a long run.