Assuming you can do enerphit restoration
There isn't enough of the building / roof actually left standing for that, so assume Passive Haus once we gather up the bricks and mortar them back together again
Solar - you could look at sun tracking so you can maximise the winter capabilities?
I'll do some maths, but my view of Solar is that, at UK latitude, there just isn't enough insolation to make any difference in Winter, and unaffordable to have enough battery to accommodate a run of zero-PV cloudy days ... so maybe better to just take whatever is generated and stuff it in the battery and have alternative provision (e.g. generator) for when occupied. The PV might provide enough for when the building is unoccupied.
Clearly (I now realise) I need to have a plan for minimal use when unoccupied. e.g. design the wiring so that there are "unoccupied" circuits which can be turned off - big switch by front door!
By the by, when we had our house rewired I wish sparky had offered to separate "essential circuits". We have battery capacity for 8-12 hours outage, but in a scheduled / prolonged power cut I have to go around making sure stuff is OFF. Throwing the breakers on a number of panels which, by design, were non-essential would be a lot easier.
worth the extra £££ for the 30% more efficient new tandem panels
That would be great. I've not come across anything that is ready for mainstream yet. I saw one which took solar-thermal and pushed the heat through ground pipes (used in winter as source for ground source heat pump). The solar-thermal collector was embedded in asphalt roads nearby so, being black, presumably picked up plenty of summer heat. They reckoned that just heating the ground (a few M down) didn't migrate far, and was a benefit in the winter (smaller DeltaT between Ground Source and House than would otherwise be the case, so a better CoP)
But ground source heap pump, for a holiday home that was not continuously occupied in winter, seems unlikely to get through even my Man maths!
Think you could manage on a budget of 50w background usage when the place is unoccupied?
I think this is going to be key. Everything frugal, rather than the modern vogue of megawatts consumed allowing everything to be on standby!
Forgot about fridge freezer
I think "Empty / Off when not there". I think you have to arrive with whatever provisions you need, and not leave anything behind (which might go off / etc. if you don't return when planned). I wonder how that "
pint of milk in the holiday home fridge" was after Covid lockdown allowed visiting the place again?!
Cooking tho at a kw per meal
Does an Air Fryer use that much? I wonder about either no oven, or only use oven on sunny days (which probably rules out any use in Winter ... and in Summer I would hope to be dining al fresco rather than using an oven ...)
Or, just don't be there that week
I'll really like to design so that that isn't a requirement. I would prefer that the house can be occupied at any time - so "lend it to a friend", or "let it out" should be viable. Otherwise I could just buy a tent and lend that to my friends for their weekend-away
Friends of ours actually cook on top of their wood burner too ... would have been standard practice in the past
Yup, done and enjoyed that in the past; as an option its fine just not keen on it as a solution ... I'd also hate a campervan type holiday.
My inlaws had a holiday place in France. They took all the old frying pans out there, the ones where the non stick was failing. All the old, latterly unloved, chipped and battered crockery and any other WTF castoffs too. No dishwashing machine either. It was blooming hard work when we went on holiday when our primary aim was to relax! Had to mow the grass too when we got there ("mow" as in waist high so top-end beefie strimmer was needed). It was more like a kibbutz!
I think my brief is: Rock-up, enjoy, maximally eco.
OK, useful conversation, thanks all - do pls chip in any other thoughts, or if you disagree. My mind is now pondering how to design the building to have a tiny power draw so that (winter) energy consumption is negligible. The insulation etc. is a given, so space heating/cooling will be a tiny energy consumer.
Switch by the door to disabled all unnecessary power when unoccupied
?
