What Preps are you doing this week? Part 8.

[Yorkshire Andy]

You guys I do love that last sentence of yours, jansman: "I am a good and reasonable neighbour. Unless you are not." Priceless

I can be the most helpful chap going but a few down our street well erm they have marked their "DNA" card (do not assist)... Mrs A got a snotty note on her car about parking on "their" front..... Few weeks later their car wouldn't start and asked me if I had any jump leads as I went out to work.. "yes thanks and a jump pack bet your regretting leaving that note on the wife's car now???" Before the penny dropped I was in the car and gone .. not got time for people like that ...

We've a "foreign" family opposite we are about the only people who speak to them down the street (race colour or creed mean nothing to me I treat people equal) we got a Christmas card from them thanking us for our help over the year... Little things like you have left your lights car on.. or your dog's escaped... Cost nothing but we have each others backs so to speak he likes tinkering with his car not my style or taste but we often have a laugh about his projects

[PreppingPingu]

... we are about the only people who speak to them down the street (race colour or creed mean nothing to me I treat people equal) we got a Christmas card from them thanking us for our help over the year... Little things like you have left your lights car on.. or your dog's escaped... Cost nothing but we have each others backs so to speak he likes tinkering with his car not my style or taste but we often have a laugh about his projects

This is a prep in itself - building relationships with those around you. A good prep to think about on a weekly basis be it subconsciously or consciously.

[jansman]

... we are about the only people who speak to them down the street (race colour or creed mean nothing to me I treat people equal) we got a Christmas card from them thanking us for our help over the year... Little things like you have left your lights car on.. or your dog's escaped... Cost nothing but we have each others backs so to speak he likes tinkering with his car not my style or taste but we often have a laugh about his projects

This is a prep in itself - building relationships with those around you. A good prep to think about on a weekly basis be it subconsciously or consciously.

It absolutely is a prep, I couldn’t agree more. Out of an immediate neighbourhood of 20 odd homes, there are only 2 households I won’t give the time of day to, for reasons very much like Yorkshire Andy. The rest I get on with famously. We have new ( very young) neighbours, and their dog got out. Guess who saved the day? Little bricks build big bridges.

[izzy_mack]

This is a prep in itself - building relationships with those around you. A good prep to think about on a weekly basis be it subconsciously or consciously.

Couldn't agree more. My mother used to say "good manners cost nothing but could take you far". Same goes for little kindnesses. I'm fortunate in the area I live in and do all I can to keep it like that.

[jansman]

I am continuing to stack firewood. As previously mentioned,I have a neighbour who builds all sorts from pallets and other scrap wood,and he leaves the off cuts on the front in a box. I am fortunate in that I have a lot of space.Now that the Eco- Police have effectively banned bituminous coal ( you can still have bonfire or barbecue though!), my costs for solid fuel ( primary heating source here) will rise next Winter by almost 30%, through extra cost of smokeless fuel.Next burning season,there will be more wood in the mix to offset that increase.

It will be an interesting time,as the coal ban is the first of many changes to home heating.I saw this yesterday:

Gas Boilers: What are heat pumps and how much do they cost? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57159056

[jennyjj01]

It will be an interesting time,as the coal ban is the first of many changes to home heating.I saw this yesterday:

Gas Boilers: What are heat pumps and how much do they cost? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57159056

I saw that and SMH.
The proposals just don't seem to stack up, so will probably be pipedreams. Heatpumps only work with extremely well insulated homes and a decent sized reservoir to pump heat from?.... I.e. extremely few current homes. And Hydrogen powered would need plentiful, non-fossil fuel, electricity if that is to actually help.

A builder friend was telling me that current building regs pretty much demand that houses are air tight except for enough to breath with and that needs to be heat-loss controlled. Seems really weird and extreme.

https://www.homebuilding.co.uk/advice/airtightness

[daylen]

A builder friend was telling me that current building regs pretty much demand that houses are air tight except for enough to breath with and that needs to be heat-loss controlled. Seems really weird and extreme.

https://www.homebuilding.co.uk/advice/airtightness

They also won't work if conservation rules don't let you have them because they "spoil the look of the area", as is the case with us. We've been told we're not allowed solar panels, external insulation, or heat pump because they don't fit with the character of the area.

[jansman]

Already,two different takes on the situation. Better insulation of my Victorian house would be next to impossible,looking at it. All the houses on the council estate at the back of us have had that insulative cladding put on the outside,but after about five years,I notice some is already coming off! For us,that would be the only insulation‘improvement’ that would be possible,I think.

As for hydrogen,that is ( forgive the pun) a bit of a pipe dream. By what I read - and any chemists please correct me if I am wrong- hydrogen molecules are smaller than natural gas molecules. Therefore it would follow that hydrogen would easily leak from joints etc. within our current pipe network, and heaven forbid,within the home. We had a gas explosion in the next village a year or two back,and that was because of a corroded joint.It demolished two houses,trashed dozens more,and amazingly killed only one person.There was a reason they stopped putting hydrogen in airships!

[Cocotte]

Gas Boilers: What are heat pumps and how much do they cost? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57159056

I got one installed 2 months ago.
Fantastic bit of kit. The house is a constant temperature pumping heat in or out of our 1950s wooden home.
Out if the 4 options available (air, water, shallow/deep earth) we went for the deep geo thermal option.
They come in, drill a hole for a pipe to go down into the bedrock for 120-180m, stick a flexi pipe in with tubes full of ethanol mix, dug a 1m deep tunnel to our basement and put the heat pump in there. Other than the garden still recovering from the machinery it's been amazing.

The bank was happy to give us a mortgage for it as the system increases our house value by 30%.

There are a few grants out there giving a rough price of £17k-23k for most of the UK, price being higher than other locations in the world due to lack of demand. In Scandinavia, even with everything costing more it only costs £11k.

The shallow earth is an option if you have a lot of land as you bury the piping 2-4m down over a large area, or the water option if you are next to a lake or river. Neither as effective.
An air based heat pump looks like an aircon, cheaper still but least efficient and struggles with temperatures below -10⁰C. The rest are good to -25 and the deep mountain heating can cope down to -40⁰C.

.As for hydrogen,that is ( forgive the pun) a bit of a pipe dream. By what I read - and any chemists please correct me if I am wrong- hydrogen molecules are smaller than natural gas molecules. Therefore it would follow that hydrogen would easily leak from joints etc. within our current pipe network, and heaven forbid,within the home.

Hydrogen shouldn't be able to escape from anything methane can't, however, hydrogen is more chemical reactive. The piping may be corroded from the inside out depending on the material used, if one company was cheap or the pipeline went in long ago.
Some parts of the UK are already using a hydrogen mix of 10% Hydrogen to 90% methane as the corrosion is negligible, with a possible maximum of 30% mix.
I think it was Newcastle University who were involved in that study. It popped up on the BBC a few years ago.

[Nurseandy]

Anecdotally, I few of my patients have had the air pump type heating installed and the general consensus of opinion is that its not very good and their electricity use has rocketed. Worth noting that this is in the Highlands which would roughly correspond with coccettes info that they are ineffective below -10 (although its very rare but not unknown for it to be that cold here).