Hey friends,

I've managed to give myself tennis elbow from all the drilling/impact driver use for the garage roof and apparently it's very common amongst tradesmen. So badminton is out for the time being but hopefully it won't last too long. However I did get my final outdoors project over the line with the help of my left arm and Joe.

🔨 DIY

The guttering is now reattached to the back of the garage but we reversed the slope to flow away from the end of the garden.

The water now flows to a water-butt which is currently inaccessible behind the shed but when that's demolished and this overgrown area has been cleared I envisage a beautiful raised-bed veg and berry patch serviced by a water-butt on either side. Something to tend to when I'm old 👴🏻.

Inside the garage I've done a bit of tidying and raised my timber collection above head height. This is partly why I situated the fibreglass roof lights either side and not in the middle.

Just to the right of centre in the below pic, my Evolution mitre saw now sits on a portable workbench which, with a bit of tweaking, will be level with the workbench in the far corner. If I clamp a piece of wood to the far workbench this will give me a 'stop' so that I can make repeatable cuts - good for cutting the future workshop's studs/joists.

Near the door will be where I keep all the gardening tools. It's good to keep things adjustable in case I get a new tool (I'm yet to buy the DeWalt hedge trimmer for instance) so perhaps a french cleat system or some OSB on the wall that I can insert screws into. Any better cheap ideas? It doesn't have to be fancy.

♨️ Heat pumps

The government have announced a £5,000 grant towards replacing gas boilers with heat pumps, amongst other measures. It amounts to 90,000 homes over 3 years which is a drop in the ocean of what's needed but probably quite sensible because, as the failed Green Homes Grant proved, there are not enough installers to do higher numbers. Time will tell if we'll see prices go up and cowboys get in on the act.

Through all the discourse around this announcement I've picked up some nuggets but take it with a pinch of salt as it's hard to verify this stuff:

• Heat pumps cannot heat water up to the 80-odd degrees a boiler can and instead get it to around 50 degrees.
• You need really high levels of insulation, air tightness and double or triple glazed windows.
• Underfloor heating is almost always needed.
• Radiators often need to be larger than for a boiler install.
• The pipes running to the radiators need to be a wider diameter than found in most homes, meaning you have to pull up floors to change them.
• You may still need some kind of extra heater for the kitchen tap.
• The heat pump needs to be as close to the house as possible, no hiding it behind the shed!
• The fan makes a whirring noise so must be >1m from a boundary. Apparently they're slightly quieter than a washing machine but from my experience fan blades pick up dirt and get louder over time, unless cleaned.
• They're about 1m3. Pretty bulky.
• Ground source heat pumps are not viable for most homes, either due to lack of outside space (horizontal system - our garden would be too small to heat our house), disruption from digging or lack of access (for vertical system).
• They are however low maintenance and should last around 15 years.

All in all, I won't be jumping on this grant and would like to see how things play out and for technology to advance a bit further. Gas boilers for existing properties will still be available to buy and install until 2035 and serviced long after that. As alternatives, I wonder whether electric boilers could be made more efficient or whether hydrogen (only by-product is water) could be used instead of natural gas (with just a few tweaks to existing boilers needed), especially if we end up with a surplus of renewable energy to produce it. Both these options would be a lot less upheaval compared with installing a heat pump, plus would work for flats as well as houses.

However, for my workshop I will be going for an air-to-air heat pump, also knows as air con with heating facility ;). With higher temps, at least here in the SE, cooling is important too which is harder to achieve with air/ground-to-water heat pumps, though I've read not impossible. I think that would be a game changer because it adds something you don't get with boilers.

Overall I think these subsidies are a good thing because as I've said before, change will come with better economics and the early adopters (I'm betting it's the off-the-gas-grid oil tank type homes) will help push the industry forward. For now, the inconvenience factor of installation remains.

Some of you have shared info on your systems of PV panels, heat pumps and Tesla Powerwall batteries. If anyone fancies doing a write up on your experience and sharing it with us, that would be amazing.

🎧 Podcast

I listened to a great podcast on happiness this week. The chap being interviewed, Mo Gawdat, makes little 'hmm?' noises between sentences which has the effect of making you agree with everything he says. In his life story, he overcomes the great tragedy of losing his son with an incredible degree of acceptance and dignity...and then here's me bemoaning my lost cat.

👋

With Abi's maternity pay come to an end she's been doing keeping-in-touch-days to bring in some income. The remote working has been confirmed and it looks like she may be able to work a four day week as well. The next move is to ask for a pay rise 🤑. They appear to be short staffed so it's a brave move but could come off.

I actually think it's sensible to do it now or soon after she returns because if an employer thinks you're soon to have a second child then they know you can't jump ship to another company because you have to have worked there for a fair amount of time to get maternity pay so they don't fear losing you and are therefore less likely to dish out a pay rise.

It's all a game.

Hit "reply" if you've got any comments on this week's newsletter – otherwise I'll see you next time. Have an epic week :)

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