Full charged show - EV and renewables

[Sw1000]

Anyone go to the fully charged show at Farnborough airport?

Was a really good day out and a great way to check all the EVs next to each other and really do side by side comparisons.

Also, there were lots of Tesla stands including a TMC one. Also gave us the chance to see every model in each colour .

We have had a Skoda Enyaq on order for 7 months, I have pretty much given up on getting it anytime soon and placed an order on a Model Y performance on April 14th.

Got the better half to look at them side by side and she also preferred the Tesla with loads more storage i.e. frunk, underfloor etc.

Modified the order again to change to Red . Still in as 22 which I can cope with.

Have the fun of trying to get our deposit back from Skoda next week

 

[robbieduncan]

Are you not tempted to let the order with Skoda run? We are in a very similar situation. Until I actually have the Tesla I’m definitely not cancelling the Skoda. But even then it’s very tempting to let it run and try and find someone who wants one and split the difference between our order price and the current price with them. Could be an easy couple of thousand…

 

[GRiLLA]

Just back, bit disappointed in the home stuff really.

If you wanted to pick a new EV then it would be ideal, the exhibition was kinda overrun with manufacturers of home charge points (why are there so many?). I was keen to find out more about heatpumps, solar and batteries, but was a bit disappointed with who was in attendance.

 

[Adopado]

the exhibition was kinda overrun with manufacturers of home charge points (why are there so many?).

I think we know why ... there's money to be made! They really are (IMO) unnecessarily expensive for what they consist of. Presumably that will change if/when a really competent charge point is available for nearer £100 than £1000.

 

[Sw1000]

Just back, bit disappointed in the home stuff really.

If you wanted to pick a new EV then it would be ideal, the exhibition was kinda overrun with manufacturers of home charge points (why are there so many?). I was keen to find out more about heatpumps, solar and batteries, but was a bit disappointed with who was in attendance.

Agreed, they missed a huge opportunity inside, I made this very point to my wife i.e. how many different wall charger stands can you have. Was hoping for more home renewables, outside was good for the cars etc

 

[WannabeOwner]

I was keen to find out more about heatpumps, solar and batteries

Is your interest for a newbuild or a retro fit?

 

[GRiLLA]

Is your interest for a newbuild or a retro fit?

retro fit.

 

[WannabeOwner]

retro fit.

I am curious as to how well Heat Pump is going to play out for retro fit ...

 

[ACarneiro]

I am curious as to how well Heat Pump is going to play out for retro fit ...

There are retrofits and retrofits.
It’s not unreasonable to replace radiators with larger surface area ones, for example, to compensate for the lower water temperatures.
Or there is always the option of air-to-air.

But I agree that it’s a technology best deployed during the build or if you’re doing major renovations.

 

[WannabeOwner]

It’s not unreasonable to replace radiators with larger surface area ones, for example, to compensate for the lower water temperatures.

Strikes me as being a Big Job ("As an average"). Might need larger diameter pipes too ... and larger rads have to be accommodated - which might be a compromise for furniture and the like. If they are just fatter then maybe that's not hard to accommodate, and if the old rads lacked the more efficient finned-air-flow-up-the-middle then maybe larger surface area won't be physically any bigger ... but the fitting is messy and additional cost, at the very least

Then an bulky ugly noisy ASHP outside somewhere - fine if an unobtrusive spot can be found.

air-to-air.

We retrofitted MVHR. Its a big house, we had large fitted wardrobes in all bedrooms and used them to "hide" the (relatively large, for air, of course) pipes to feed downstairs rooms, thus we got all the distribution pipework in the loft. Worked out OK, but I reckon in a smaller house finding a way to "accommodate" the pipes would be tricky.

Decades and decades ago we had a house that had ducted air central heating. Worked fine, but a mouse died in there mid winter ... smell was very off-putting for ... months!

it’s a technology best deployed during the build or if you’re doing major renovations

We put the MVHR in at the same time as rewiring the whole house and putting in Ethernet to each room, took the opportunity to put in a plumbed-in vacuum cleaner too, so the MVHR pipes weren't a huge effort on top of that ... so, yeah, the place was like an open cast mine whilst all that was going on.

For a new build I would go straight to Passive House ... and then not need the heating per se. (We gave up trying to convert our house to passive House/EnerPHit standard (too difficult - notwithstanding that we had a very impressive air tightness to start with), and we built a Passive House extension on South Side of the house instead - that has the main living quarters so does us fine for the Winter and the thermostat for rest of the house is now 2C lower ... we increased house footprint by 50% and cut winter heating fuel in half (And the MVHR retrofit in old part took care of condensation on windows and removed all slight-musky-smell and so on). Not had a winter cough or cold since ...