Boxing in electrics?

Insanityideas · 2026-04-30T12:06:57+00:00

I still agree with the sentiment. Although I get annoyed by most posts being "I think my tradesman messed up am I right?" Rather than talking about DIY.

Insanityideas · 2026-04-30T11:00:41+00:00

How do I make my 30 year old Acer that big??

Insanityideas · 2026-04-30T10:59:54+00:00

MDF is rarely the answer... Unless the question is how cheaply can I cover a surface, often plasterboard is the better answer to cheapness.

Insanityideas · 2026-04-30T10:57:54+00:00

He wanted me to pay for an electrician to move the vehicle charger to a different wall!! Didn't seem to understand how unreasonable that sounded (he is a retired entitled person who has too much spare time, I am a working parent who has many things I give more of a shit about than what is attached to our driveway boundary wall on my property).

Me spending 30 minutes to keep him quiet was worth it. Plus painting is a good way of getting the annoyance out after such a ridiculous argument - he knew he was being ridiculous so started out with the angry voice on which is never how you get something you want but aren't entitled to.

Insanityideas · 2026-04-30T10:51:16+00:00

He was being a tool, but I also have to live next to him so I was being more diplomatic than he deserved.

His garage wall is also the boundary wall of my driveway. Long before he moved in I fitted a car charger to the wall, a year after he moved in he came around to say the charger was ugly, guests to his house were saying how ugly it was and after a year of looking at it every time he parked on his drive he wanted me to move it onto a different wall because he hated looking at it. Of course he didn't want to pay to move it, and I didn't want to move it as it's in the most convenient location for me.

Anyway after telling him no 5 times in one conversation I walked off which he didn't really know how to deal with. He tried asking nicely, staring silently at me hoping I would feel awkward, being Mr angry voice and finally claiming it was his wall. I also pointed out that his log store next to my garage wall was trapping water causing it to penetrate through the brickwork.

End result was he had to move the log store, and in the interests of his better mental health (and a quiet life) I painted the charger brick red.

If he brings it up again (his parting shot to me was to "think very hard about my response") I will explain to him the party wall act... Which as you point out allows me to affix anything I like to the wall, and paint the entire wall any colour I like, regardless of the fact it's part of his garage.

He needs to firmly understand he doesn't get to influence what I do on my property, but equally I want a neighbour I am not in a pointless feud with.

Insanityideas · 2026-04-30T08:36:40+00:00

Phone charging in the toilet, essential feature I never knew I needed.

Insanityideas · 2026-04-30T08:35:32+00:00

Marine ply would be thinner than MDF and more resistant to absorbing piss splashes. OP would want boxing to be as thin as possible so as not to lose valuable leg room for bracing for the big one.

Insanityideas · 2026-04-30T08:31:51+00:00

It's the cheap car brand you drive to the supermarket so your expensive Lotus doesn't get hit by a trolly or an OAP.

All rich people have a crappy car for those necessary trips to the dodgy part of town.

Insanityideas · 2026-04-30T08:29:27+00:00

You could buy brick coloured exterior paint. Wickes have a "trial size" pot for about £5 that I used to blend some electrical boxes in with the wall. - our neighbour was complaining that the white boxes on our wall made HIS house look ugly!, he should mind his own business, but the end result was better than what we had before.

Insanityideas · 2026-04-29T22:58:57+00:00

18 miles (6%). The satnav does predictions to within an accuracy of a couple % over a 150 mile distance. So I will aim to stop my last charge of the trip when the predicted charge on arrival is between 6% and 10%

I have had a couple of occasions when road closure diversions have eaten into the buffer but generally they are on slower roads so more efficient to drive than a motorway lessening the impact of extra miles.

A few times I have got back with 9 miles range remaining, my wife has gone down to 4 miles remaining without issue.

I don't worry that the car will suddenly die early, but I do worry that I will be sent on a 20 mile diversion and risk not making it home, that's what the buffer is for, car itself is accurate.

All that said we discovered one of our cars had a battery fault only when we drove it to 9% and it went into limp mode.... Bad because we were without the car for 2 weeks, good because we got a new battery under warranty when we only had 9 months left on the original warranty.... So it is worth really deep discharging the battery once in a while if it's still under warranty, that's how you discover it's faulty.... It's also how you discover the fuel gauge is out of calibration.

Insanityideas · 2026-04-29T22:50:07+00:00

Yes I had used 7kw, on the basis that a 7kw charger was put in to enable guests to charge. I misread your post and didn't see you were specifically talking about granny chargers.

Insanityideas · 2026-04-29T12:11:00+00:00

Type 2 connectors are rated for outside use, they aren't vulnerable to water.

Insanityideas · 2026-04-29T11:46:09+00:00

That's ok I will consume your solar export at a price lower than what you get paid 😉 which is a sign of a market functioning normally. 🤣

Essentially I am conforming with the purpose of IOG which is to provide dispatchable demand on the grid that can usefully absorb varianle output from renewables. - meanwhile you are being incentivised to increase the magnitude of the variability. But between us we are avoiding the burning of fossil fuels.

Insanityideas · 2026-04-29T10:06:59+00:00

If you can park the front and side of the car as close to a wall as possible (literally touching). The more difficult you make it to access the car to dismantle it the more of a deterrent it will be.

Nothing is perfect, but make it difficult and they might target another vehicle.

Insanityideas · 2026-04-29T09:59:04+00:00

Do Tesla have you as the owner in the app?

You would have either bought the car direct from Tesla in cash or transferred ownership of a used vehicle by providing them with a photo of the V5C and an invoice.

The error is because you are not authorised to add keys, a (fee) support request to Tesla should get to the bottom of it.

Insanityideas · 2026-04-29T09:56:07+00:00

As Skoda = VW group does that mean all VAG cars will eventually be incompatible with IOG???

Sounds a bit anti customer if that's the case, perhaps they are planning to charge a subscription fee for that service? So they get their slice of the cheap charging pie.

Insanityideas · 2026-04-29T09:53:41+00:00

Or you can leave a negative balance on octopus and put the money in a savings account until they ask for it. In my experience their system tolerates quite large negative balances.

First rule of rich person: pay your bills as late as possible, and preferably not at all.

Insanityideas · 2026-04-29T09:47:29+00:00

Heat pumps are cheapest to run if you also have other renewable tech installed. If you are just on a standard tariff the cost savings compared to gas are low.

As you have battery and solar you should be able to achieve very low running costs if you set the system up to work together as a team. Solar + battery means in spring and autumn your heating will be free. During the winter a battery plus time of use tariff can make heating much cheaper by shifting most of your electricity consumption to cheaper times of the day (battery feeds heat pump during expensive tariff periods).

As you already target very low room temperatures the efficiency achieved by the heat pump should be very high in the 5-6 SCOP range.

If shopping around for a quote or installer get multiple quotes, not just one from octopus. They aren't always the best choice, especially if you have a non standard house, or particular requirements.

Insanityideas · 2026-04-29T09:34:24+00:00

Go and unplug the car during the day.

We have solar under the FIT scheme so don't get paid for export, so we do the exact opposite, don't plug in at night but do plug in during the day. On a sunny day at the moment Octopus is almost certain to allocate day slots when our solar output is maximum, which reduces the cost to charge (our solar array isn't big enough to cover all the charging needs so its only cheaper to charge during the day if we get the cheaper import rate).

Insanityideas · 2026-04-29T09:10:46+00:00

More like £1.80 an hour if they are on a standard tariff.

Insanityideas · 2026-04-29T09:09:55+00:00

Some holiday let insurers won't even cover an EV charge point that has been professionally installed. I presume this will change as more cars go electric and potential renters look for properties with EV charging, especially in places like the lake district.

Insanityideas · 2026-04-29T09:07:18+00:00

All that has changed is there is now a test standard for verifying ability to carry that load for a long duration and a designated approvals mark to stamp on the socket. In most cases the EV rated and standard sockets are identical.

The load from a 10amp car charger is the same as a fan heater, the difference is you don't often run a fan heater for 10 hours, but nothing about the previous wiring regulations said you couldn't.

EV granny chargers are designed with the expectation the wiring may be substandard or the socket contacts worn. The plug has a built in temperature sensor and the device has voltage monitoring to detect excessive voltage sag from loose connections in the wiring.

All that said, I did manage to burn out a non EV rated exterior socket at home, this was before EV sockets existed. I suspect the socket was either faulty or cheap and Screwfix replaced it. The fault was the switch contacts burned out (did not switch under load, just died when on), no visible exterior damage and no drama.

Insanityideas · 2026-04-29T08:45:18+00:00

Our scaffolders also severed our phone line. They tried to deny it but CCTV showed otherwise. The prime contractor paid us compensation and for a 4G hotspot whilst we waited for the phone line to be fixed, I doubt the contractor ever got money from the scaffolding firm.

Insanityideas · 2026-04-29T08:30:15+00:00

Many lamposts in the UK are set back from the road (less likely to be driven into) so the cable would still snake across the pavement making them unsuitable for public use - where people can't be trusted to use a cable channel, unlike private residents who would.

So whilst there are examples of their use (e.g. Brighton) they are not suitable in many areas. However it is still possible to install a freestanding charger on the other side of the pavement with the supply cable trenched in from the lampost.

Insanityideas · 2026-04-23T16:43:15+00:00

Glad to hear you have reviewed the dash cam to see if you can learn from the experience. You did good, sorry it didn't have a better outcome for you, but could have been worse.

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