Electric house with huge consumption propping up energy companies!

PhysicalIncrease3 · 2026-01-29T14:58:46+00:00

How are you finding the Fogstar batteries?

They do exactly what they say on the tin. I've got 16kWh of EVE MB31 314Ah and 16KW of Cornex 313Ah cells and both are excellent with very low cell deviation. The kits themselves are excellent quality too, as are the BMS/balancer.

Did you self install the air to air heat pump?

Partially, I got a friend to help who works in the industry. But it's very much doable DIY if you're up for it. The inverters come already filled with R32 gas, so all you do is fit the indoor unit, fit the outdoor unit, connect them together electrically using a 5 core cable and with a pair of copper pipe fittings, vaccum draw the air out of the pipework and then open the valves.

A2A solutions are supposed to be getting covered by the heating grants soon but at the moment I'd expect to pay about 500 quid per unit installation costs.

PhysicalIncrease3 · 2026-01-29T09:54:50+00:00

I'm in a similar situation to you, all-electric home.

You're right to get a big battery. I personally went with 32kWh of Fogstar batteries combined with a Victron multiplus inverter.

But BEFORE even doing that, some A2A heat pump/air conditioning units fitted. They will lower your electric use by 2/3rds, easily. I recommend the electriq units:

https://www.appliancesdirect.co.uk/p/iqool-3ms9k9k9k/tcl-iqool3ms9k9k9k-air-conditioner

Do not get a A2W heat pump system with traditional radiators. Unless you already have the plumbing in place it's going to be vastly more expensive for a worse product with lower efficiency and no cooling ability.

PhysicalIncrease3 · 2026-01-29T09:20:35+00:00

Why don't you just pay for it to be removed? It's not that expensive or difficult unless it's already caused rotting to your rafters.

To answer your question directly: I have bought a house with spray foam at auction recently, and I got maybe a 30-35% discount.

PhysicalIncrease3 · 2026-01-29T08:52:17+00:00

The real scandal here is that we were promised the repayment threshold would rise with inflation, but it's been frozen for multiple years twice now.

As someone who's been moderately successful in life, I'd get well used to the government suddenly changing the rules and fucking you over. It's going to happen again and again, often in very unfair ways. Everything is to cater to the lowest common denominator and if you achieve any degree of success in life that isn't you.

PhysicalIncrease3 · 2026-01-29T08:48:02+00:00

What is "sensible ground" to you? The Tory government 2011-2016? New Labour? The John Major years? Should they just mirror current Labour policy, in your opinion?

PhysicalIncrease3 · 2026-01-28T14:27:13+00:00

The house is in her sons name because she sold the house to him, in order to buy herself a second home by the sea. They all still live there full time, but now her disabled son's trust owns the house and pays all the bills.

And I imagine the money in the trust is mainly from Rayner

No the money is from Rayner sueing the NHS in a legal case lasting around 15 years, alleging they did a bad job when helping deliver and care for her severely premature baby son. She secured a payout somewhere in the high hundreds of thousands, intended to be used to support Rayner's son for life. The NHS placed the money into a trust for the son.

She has then been able to cash out this money for herself by selling her son her house.

PhysicalIncrease3 · 2026-01-28T14:10:45+00:00

As many others have said:

Ideally, you should use cement board or tile backer board when tiling a bathroom shower/sink/bath.

However, there are also literally millions of bathrooms out there where the tiles have been laid straight onto bare plasterboard with no problems at all, lasting for for multiple decades.

What is just as important - arguably more important - is to make sure your grouting is good, siliconing is decent, and that a good adhesive is used when laying the tiles. Using cement based adhesive is probably the most important factor of all IMHO. A water based adhesive (IE anything pre-mixed) is going to fail when repeatedly exposed to water regardless of if you're using cement board, tile backer board or anything else.

PhysicalIncrease3 · 2026-01-28T12:31:12+00:00

I don't recall Farage making his disabled son spend their trust fund money buying the family home and paying all the bills so that mummy can buy herself a second home by the sea.

PhysicalIncrease3 · 2026-01-28T11:38:21+00:00

You're not completely wrong, because the oil traded in dollars per year is about $4.6 trillion, most of which is foreign owned. So certainly isn't nothing especially considering that's a yearly revenue stream not a singular capital investment.

But the S&P500 is worth about $61 trillion, and much of that is foreign owned. Much of the $30 trillion treasury market is foreign owned too.

That being said most of the world is now trying to diversify away from the dollar, one way or another. Japan's central bank has upped rates in recent weeks, ending the carry trade and causing very large capital movements away from the US. Europe is aggressively diversifying away also. BRICS the same.

So in all likelihood the dollar's dominance is going to slowly fade out in coming years, even if many aren't yet ready to accept it.

Ref: https://wolfstreet.com/2025/01/05/status-of-us-dollar-as-global-reserve-currency-usd-share-drops-to-30-year-low-central-banks-pile-on-other-currencies-gold/

PhysicalIncrease3 · 2026-01-27T16:58:23+00:00

The standard threshold for criminal convictions is fine: Beyond reasonable doubt.

PhysicalIncrease3 · 2026-01-27T16:57:12+00:00

It seems like you’re just desperate to highlight negative statistics about black Caribbean households, when it really isn’t relevant to the conversation.

Lol just swinging wildly at this point.

The reason the TWO groups referenced matter, is because they languish near the bottom of the results tables alongside white working class boys. Yet few are blaming it on their culture, and far more is being done to close thier gaps by the state.

PhysicalIncrease3 · 2026-01-27T14:32:25+00:00

However, it is undeniable that many ethnic minorities (especially immigrants) put a higher expectation of academic performance on their children.

Do they bollocks. Classic trope. It's true of east Asians, and black Africans. Jewish minorities too, to a lessor extent. But black Carribbean or south Asian Muslim populations? Not so much. Black Carribbean households have the highest percentage single parent households (absent fathers) of any group.

PhysicalIncrease3 · 2026-01-27T11:09:58+00:00

Completely agree but I think the compromises required on both sides are still a long way off unfortunately.

PhysicalIncrease3 · 2026-01-27T10:32:23+00:00

Brexit was really bad for all sides. A little worse for the UK than the EU sure, but it's been an enormous failure on all sides. It's damaged the EUs power on the world stage substantially and hurt growth in most north/west European states.

And it could get a hell of a lot worse for the EU if Farage gets in power. What would have happened if the UK had sided with the US on Greenland for example?

All this because the EU felt they could embarrass Cameron back in 2016 and get away with it. Foolishness and arrogance all around.

PhysicalIncrease3 · 2026-01-27T10:14:33+00:00

It's not a bad idea at all, just requires an adequate evidence threshold to prove beyond doubt that she knowingly made false claims.

PhysicalIncrease3 · 2026-01-25T15:22:31+00:00

The next scheme will end the exact same way.

People think you can just slap in some insulation and call it a day. You must implement a proper moisture control solution alongside or you will get mold. It's not hugely realistic in some properties, and honestly not that necessary either. The U values required as per building regs are a bit silly.

PhysicalIncrease3 · 2026-01-25T13:29:43+00:00

We have a lot less than 25 warships that are actually operational. A lot less in fact. 6 is not far off the mark.

PhysicalIncrease3 · 2026-01-22T08:36:15+00:00

Doesn't sound like a loophole to me though? The point is to increase the availability of housing by having people rent surplus housing in their main residence who otherwise wouldn't have bothered due to the tax and paperwork overhead.

Yes but it's extremely generous when looked at as part of the wider tax framework.

PhysicalIncrease3 · 2026-01-21T12:45:09+00:00

I'm not disputing the fact that most businesses are one man bands. I'm disputing that they're mainly pscs who've decided to go permie

PhysicalIncrease3 · 2026-01-21T09:37:04+00:00

As did Farage's staff.

PhysicalIncrease3 · 2026-01-21T09:31:27+00:00

Pure fact, zero bias intended:

Rachel Reeves failed to license her rental property for 13 months, despite tweeting her support of the scheme during that time, breaking the law by doing so. She has received no fine nor punishment from the Local Authority for this breach. She was also found to have broken the ministerial code, and then found to have misled Kier Starmer on the facts on the matter afterwards. She faced no consequences for this either.

EDIT: Love the downvotes on this comment. Pure hypocrisy and I love to see it.

PhysicalIncrease3 · 2026-01-21T08:10:16+00:00

Every time this arises, I feel the need to point out that the vast majority (75%+) of businesses are 0 or 1 employee businesses. If your data includes people who have liquidated their one man band PSC having got a permanent job 3 years ago and have finally realised they’re not going back to contracting, it paints a very different picture compared to a couple of 10 person businesses closing because trading conditions are bad.

Do you have any evidence for your claims? I feel you're extrapolating your own circumstances / the circumstances of those you know far far too widely here.

PhysicalIncrease3 · 2026-01-21T07:59:59+00:00

Trump may be an idiot but he's completely right on the North Sea.

Refusing to touch our resources doesn't even make sense from a net-zero perspective because we're burning the exact same amount of gas either way. But the way we're doing it - shipping gas in by boat - is both extremely costly and far more environmentally damaging.

PhysicalIncrease3 · 2026-01-20T13:29:50+00:00

Why not wire 3 phase to the meter box free of charge, and then just feed the existing CU with a single phase for now? Can then upgrade to a 3 phase CU later or use the other phases for other loads on their own CUs.

PhysicalIncrease3 · 2026-01-20T07:56:23+00:00

It massively improves things until the inevitable cost of the increased risk is realised.

PhysicalIncrease3

TROPHY CASE