teepeeat

second the Osmo - we have used it and the kitchen fitter who helped us only uses Osmo in all the kitchens he does:thumbup1:

We put in solar thermal and saved by installing it ourselves. Your thermal store is already to take the feed so that is a good start. We get 'free' hot water from mid march to mid october generally, requiring no other energy input (obviously lecky for the pump:001_rolleyes:). It does contribute a bit through the winter but not much, but then we specifically optimised it for summer. As with everything, some solar gear is good some not so good, so do your research before you spend. As with all these building energy issues, the Navitron & the Green building forums are a useful source of info.

Heating systems have to be flexible, because different fuels will change in relative cost over time. One other certainty is that all fuels will go up due to increased demand from an increasing population. Gas will run out and even if the shale gas numbers do actually pan out (personally think it unlikely), that will only last so long as well. Reducing demand is key, so insulate,insulate, insulate. When we renovated the house a few years ago we put in 2,5 times the required insulation (oh how they laughed at the time) and just as important, installed it correctly and now run a 200m2 house on an 8kw stove in the winter - supplying hot water and heating from on average 2 small builders buckets of seasoned wood a day. Only problem we find is we got the balance a bit wrong as the stove gives of too much heat to the room when trying to get some heat into the thermal store to give enough hot water. (exagerated because two children and the missus arnt very efficient at using hot water - hrumph) Our achilles heel is electricity - cant run our stove without it as went for high efficiency system requiring pumps, sensors, controllers etc. Have wired all the essentials into a separate circuit in case we need to resort to a genny at some point. Our electricity supply is a spur off a spur through the woods to our place and the neighbours so physically a bit vulnerable without even getting into the whole national supply debate. @ Difflock Has there been much advance with CHP. A few years ago when I looked, they could barely supply enough power to run a torch , let alone cover the peak demand of a GSHP on start up.

penny for the dog's thoughts Predator :lol::lol:

thats the key Codlasher - insulation to reduce the demand. Unfortunately most of the UK housing stock is poorly insulated and where there is insulation it is often badly installed.

vw here too, although might be biased as I grew up with them and just bought one also a few pints of cizzer down :lol::lol::lol:

how old is that??

oh no - the A word!!!!:lol:

Hey folks Any recommended reading or web sites for learning a bit more about hedgelaying styles as well as practical how to type stuff. Building up to doing one in a year or two when I can get to it. Was aiming to go to the nationals to see how it is done, but will unfortunately be away still

Hi Andy Not into tats myself, but can understand where you are coming from with this. Body art with some personal thought and meaning Sadly quite a number of aquaintences have rushed out and got some ink on the spur of the moment - read pished/loved up or other wise not in their normal frame of mind - and would rather forget those particular events. That or got something done because all their mates have it or it is the latest fashion, but has no personal connection. On that basis I think the coverup experts are going to be kept busy for a while yet Mind you, have seen some brilliant cover ups too, but that says more about the inker rather than the inkee.

Short as possible 1 - 2 hours a day when convenient Burn hard and fast - makes max use of energy in the wood, keeps flue clear, limits shite going into the air, no faffing with a fire all day & minimises how much wood you need. Store the energy in a thermal store. Why make life difficult and inefficient........ grabs coat and leaves:lol:

I think this all needs a bit of qualification - everything depends on the heating requirements of your house and hot water consumption which in turn is greatly dependant on insulation/airtightness and hot water usage. The biggest savings to be made will always be in reducing demand, particularly in the average UK house which is pretty bad when it comes to thermal efficiency. Anybody looking at reducing bills needs to address insulation else you are just pissing your money into the wind - literally. We were in the position of having a house needing renovation, so spent extra on insulation - as a one off cost. We now supply all heating and hot water from a high-efficiency wood stove & boiler combo tied to an 800 ltr thermal store. Heating is downstairs via under floor heating from the store and hotwater is via a coil in the top of the store The house is approx 200 m2 (with slightly lower than average ceiling heights - why heat a bigger volume than you need) The stove is 8 kw - 30% to the room & 70 % to the boiler. Through the winter we average about 2 smallish builders buckets losely filled with well seasoned logs The 30% (2.4kw) heat to the room from the stove - open plan upstairs of the house of approx 100m2 - gives too much heat needing the windows to be cracked open to give a sub 25 deg temp in the depths of the cold spells the last few winters. We tend to have to light the stove for hot water only sometimes as the temperature in the house stays comfy with little input, although downstairs underfloor heating is always flowing up. The advantage of the thermal store is that we only need to burn once during the day - hard and fast for max energy gain from the wood and minimum nasties up the flue to the atmoshere (dont underestimate the nasties, especially with more and more people burning wood) The one off insulation cost was probably paid back in the first year or two in fuel savings. We have our own wood, but even if having to buy it in I think we would save money with this set up. We do have mains gas to the property, but dont bother with it except for cooking.

I was arrested for drinking battery fluid and swallowing fire works. The police couldn't decide whether to charge me or let me off!

so you're not the only oddball out there H-A, H-A :lol::lol:

Nice one there That should help increase income to get the bigger truck quicker

nibbling all day so just having pud Apple crumble - apples fresh off the tree down the hill, but couldnt find any decent blackberries to go in it. Not quite ready, but just realised no cream, ice cream or custard to go with it

mmmm....... some planners can be complete a..........s and can come up with all sorts of unnecessary hoops for you to jump through if they dont like you. I know people who have had years of grief from the planning department only for it to end up with the planners being severely chastised by the planning committee for being a bunch of p...locks. Good outcome, but didnt remove the years of trouble and significant cost. Had some interesting times with our own planning issues as well. Got round it in the end by embarassing the planner into being more sensible - she hadn't bothered to look at what had been granted before her involvement and even if had looked at the drawings, couldn't translate it into 3D. Yes, she was blond and good looking!

As my machines go without use fairly regularly (not in tree work) I used to have all sorts of problems getting them going after a month or so on the 5/6/7/week old fuel. I am no expert on machinery, but having only made one change to what I do - ie change fuel to Aspen I now have no problems even if the machines are left longer. That said, my neighbour pulled an old Stihl 075 out of his shed a few months ago and had a quick play and got her going on the 5th pull on the same mix that had been in the tank for the 5 years it had been in the shed - go figure PS using Aspen2 that is over a year old now - no problems

yep - finding the Oregon files dont do very well on Oregon chains On a slight derail - what does everybody do with used files??

oh all right, I admit I'm just a part time pedant

Nipped in and did a bit of clearing in between heavy showers today. A few original roots remain although the base of the trunk is now hollow (3rd pic), but wondering if it would have rooted from the stem perhaps where the soil has piled up against the uphill side (last pic), or from the branch that is impaled into the ground next to the blade in the 4th pic?

some pictures of the fungi growing on the apple tree. Anybody know what it is?

Just me or did someone else notice the little elf at the waters edge bowing toward the sunrise?

cant deny it takes a lot more weight than I would have thought, regardless. Mind you, a steel box shaped stove is quite a sturdy construction and they tend to use thickish steel - wonder how many others would stand up to that abuse? The bloke in the vid is clearly tickled pink at the end in a 'that went better than I could have hoped' kind of way :lol:

damn, will be away As for recognition of Arbtalk members, Steve will sell you a fetching tee shirt or sweater in a choice of colours and designs with 'Arbtalk' or 'Treeshirtz' on it :-) not on any commission by the way !