No quitten we're whelan on to chitchat 11

Mad to be using heating oil in early June

We use thee oil too even though we have an immersion, always thaought it cheaper...... be terrified to work out the cost now, eek.

All tanks are empty now, Kero, ag diesel, and auto diesel.....cost in the region of €5-6000 to fill ....eek again

Brother next door leaves for work at 6. Frost on the car last two mornings.

Electricity is gone very expensive as well. Put the immersion on a timer if you have night rate.

We put in solar for hot water about ten years ago. Best think ever. Alway hot water from Mid March to middle of October. You might have the odd day but not that often. There was a big hot water tank put in to have enough hot water.

As well you put a thermostatic valve off the hot tank which mixed cold and hot leaving the tank. It to prevent the hot water scalding you( water can be 70C+ at bottom of the tank. You set this valve to however hot you want the water at the kitchen sink. This stretches your hot water further.

I noticed after our oil consumption reduced by 150 ish L per year. Before we used to use 1100L in about 11 months after wards the tank stretched to nearly 13 months. Even in winter and the tubes heat the water to a tepid temperature that reduced you heating costs.

Nephew did the specifications for mine at the time. He said that most plumbers specifications were too small. Mine was Southeast normal spec was twenty tubes. He recommended putting in 30 tubes which ment I needed two frames for them. Cost 4-500 extra at the time.

I have come accross other with your problem. It's mostly down to too few times or panels instead of tubes. The tubes were made in Austrian as well not Chinese.

We have no electric showers in the house now. Both are power showers fed off the hot and cold water. There is a dump to the radiators it works off the stove thermostat.

Just looked there - we only have 18 tubes on ours, one frame…

We are the same re showers, only use the non-electric ones (we have an electric all right)

same setup with the dump to the downstairs rads - but the solar never causes this. It’s only the range would heat the water enough for this to happen…

Say these boys not generating much this evening here

Not a stir out of them

2 frames of tubes here facing south, easily provides hot water most days from March to October but there are definitely exceptions. I've immersion set to come on automatically at night if tank happens to be cold and the forecast is poor for the following day just in case.

PV's are the way to go now though.

Got it out minus the C4

No guntering there!

When they look for it back tell them you left it on the wall in front of depot.

Fast way leave our packages at the end of our lane as the dogs go mad at the girl who leaves the packages. Dpd throw them out of the van in our yard. Found a jersey id ordered off lfc store on the concrete in the yard a while ago, no packaging to be seen

We got ours serviced once about 2 years ago - they were in 10 years and I said I would get them checked… We got the oil boiler serviced at the same time…

Ours are ok - they do generate hot water, maybe not enough for 5 people. But they are half the size of the ones you and Bass have…

They work well enough for us - as in the summer they generate the hot water, in the winter, the range is on so that supplies the hot water. It’s just days in the spring and autumn can be a bit hit and miss…

Are PVs any good? Like, do they make financial sense yet?

I don’t know would we use that much electricity during the day to justify them?

I don't have the same experience of them except small scale projects around the farm for pumping water, running fences and lighting, but what I'm hearing from others is positive. It like the solar hot water will probably come down to what you get installed with some systems performing much better than others. I believe there are small PV systems being sold now just for heating water and they out perform our tubes as they work in day light even during the winter. But PV for electricity generation you now have options of storing power in batteries, using surplus to heat water and/or radiators and more recently sell back to the grid.

I changed to one of the smart meter plans last year and have been monitoring electricity usage, I moved using all large appliances to night time and am paying less now for electricity than I was a year ago even with the price increases, I can see the half hourly energy usage and I'm using more power per hour during the night than I am during the day. The dishwasher, washing machine and immersion use more power than the rest of the house combined so if you think you don't use much electricity in the daytime, these 3 appliances along with a tumble dryer and an electric cooker could test the output of any solar PV installation. You may be surprised at how much daytime electricity you use because these days lighting is very efficient. I have a gas tumble dryer which works out well as cloths can be washed on night rate and dried in the morning in the dryer or on the line.

I did get a quote last year for a PV install think it was about 11K for 14 Panels, I found the sales man from one of the largest installers in the country was very pushy and kept emphasizing how the grant would be gone within weeks and he couldn't guarantee the price more than a few days. So finding an honest reputable installer may well be the biggest challenge. Probably nothing wrong with the system I was quoted for but I wonder how some of these sales people sleep.