Woodworks

Its not difficult to see why the UK is in mess is it 😂 Completely agree with about the poor levels of insulation in UK homes. There have been grants to help with costs of insulation but take up was not great. We seem to a be a nation who has a very short term view and always want 'jam today'

I put a meter on our GSHP some years back. It does all our hot water and much of the space heating. Thats heating a barn conversion of approx 160 m2 built to comply with 2010 regs From the 31/12/2013 until now its used used 18490 kWh hours of electricity. Thats doing all our hot water and much of the space heating. Thats 94 months averaging 197 kWh per month. Take the average cost of electric over that time at say15 pence per kWh? it works out at just under £30 per month.

I think PV pretty much killed it. PV became cheap and electricity can be used for multiple things including heating water.

Goes without saying with this government! The fact they haven't should tell you they are a good idea 😂

Nothing wrong with most heat pumps but plenty of problems with salespeople selling them for totally unsuitable homes. On top of good levels of insulation you need large heat emitters ie very oversized rads or UFH. Heat pumps are way more efficient the cooler they run. Once they start having to heat water to the temps a conventional heating system with rads need the efficiency drops off a cliff. Seems a typical gas boiler will heat your water to 75c. This enables a quick response from small radiators. For comparison out GSHP never has to heat our UFH water over 30C. They are OK to 35C but I am a tight git and if it needs to run warmer and the weather is bitter I top up our house temp by running the stand alone wood burner. This site gives lots of info about them and this page talks about the efficiency (COP) if a bit over optimistic IMO. Also efficiencies dont take into account running a circulation pump which are on 24/7 in the heating season so even though low wattage its small draw adds up with all the hours it runs. What is the COP? – John Cantor Heat Pumps HEATPUMPS.CO.UK Heat pump energy efficiency

Do you need it? We have dried a stack of douglas fir to below 20% in a year with just a top cover. Yes the ends get wet with driving rain but it soon dries out again in dry spells. If you cover the sides how is the wood ever going to dry unless you are protecting already dry wood. For us polythene wouldn't survive five mins due to the winds and even heavy tarps on the top have taken a pasting but you may well be more sheltered.

No problems with noise but no denying a stove is far cheaper to buy and instal. Having both has proved a perfect combination for us. Run the heat pump for low background heat as its most efficient the cooler you run it and top up the heat in the sitting room with the log burner in evening.

According to the link below a GSHP costs you 6.6 pence per kWh. 350% efficiency is pretty fair and a top quality unit in well insulated house would perform better than that A wood burner on their figures would cost 7.27 pence per kWh. That is cheap logs and ours would cost 9.6pence per kWh To be honest its closer than I would have thought but you heat pump still wins for the time being Edit. Sorry just missed your post Energy Cost Comparison – Nottingham Energy Partnership NOTTENERGY.COM Visit the post for more.

Might have go at some numbers later. Heat pumps do vary in efficiency depending on how well insulated the home is and how big the heat emitters are but will generalise a bit What price do you recon logs should be per dry tonne?

We have a log burner and a GSHP. I wont be turning the heat pump off and doing all our heating with logs anytime soon thats for sure.

Hope it's fair to say that the way we farmed back in 1984 was not sustainable and relied on mass use of fertilisers was intensive and has denuded our soils. At some point we have to make farming sustainable and that will probably be even less productive! No good answers as far as I can see. Too many people on a small island which is made worse by our current efforts to alienate our neighbours.

And then appears to deliberately fell the beech on to the monument! Guess there is a bit TV bullshit added though.

For plants try Perry Hale nursery near Honiton. They were also good for advise

But it's say 20c cooler but it's going to heated to 350c plus. Cant see that will make much difference

Mind you with rapid inflation probably around the corner a price thats profiteering this year might be in line for next 🤔

Not at the moment. Sure we could charge more this year but things may be different next year and it's a bad look having to lower prices next having profiteered this year. I have seen the fuss many have made about some forecourts charging more for petrol when in short supply and dont wish to engage the publics wrath

Not sure a polytunnel in winter here will help much. On the west side of the moors there is diddly squat direct sun in winter. Suspect I benefit more from the howling gales outside. Tried drying some kindling in the greenhouse in winter once but cant say I could detect much difference to the sacks in the covered open barn. And yes planner in DNP would be very unlikely to play ball

Bit late now. The kiln boys and girls maybe rubbing their hands with glee but those of us air drying are cutting for next season now.

Both should be good. I run Dewalt but I think the Makita Impact driver is a bit better from the feedback I have had from other tradesmen. Killed my first Dewalt but I did tend to use it for jobs which an Impact wrench would be more appropriate haha

There wont be anything on their site yet. We are just finalising the design for production. What I am able to make with my very limited metal working skills and what their workshop can do are very different things and some improvements can be made which were not options for me. Give it a few months and hopefully we can show the final version.

I should add that these are going to be sold through the Carbon Compost Company who already make the renown Exeter Retort. Very excited about it all to be honest 😀

We get similar humidity up here on the west of Dartmoor. Only thing that really works is the dehumidifier when we are living in the clouds for weeks on end. Its worst when it's relatively warm and damp as the warm air carries more moisture. Our stove does have a closed combustion system and suspect humidity would be lower if it didn't but rules required that or a bloody great hole in the wall which somewhat undermines all insulation efforts.

Hi Harvey. Pleased to say my little retort is about to go into production in conjunction with the Carbon Compost Company. Not quite sorted yet but should have retorts for sale in time for next season if not sooner. Message me if of interest [email protected] Thanks Alec and Andrew for the mentions

Hi all. Very pleased to say looks like production of the Dartmoor Dragon retort should start soon. Will keep this page updated when we have final pricing.

Using E10 for everything. Zero problems