Keeping your home warm / heating / energy crisis / insulation etc

Octopus customers, where do I see my predicted readings to tell if it's worth giving them the real ones?

A bunch of Sonoff SNZB02 temp/humid sensors sending info to a Tasmota flashed Sonoff ZB-Bridge. I then scrape the temps from that via my own code and present it as Prometheus metrics which are then scraped by Prometheus/Mimir and graphed by Grafana.

About as far from a turnkey/plug-and-play solution as you could get.

I think i understood about 5% of that.

Mine is from home assistant. Useful as I have half a dozen different thermometers of different makes.

Can see stuff like this for instance where I have thermostats in my living room and kitchen (fairly stable) and then the loft. I assume that shows something useful but not sure what, guess I'll need to look at a cloudy day and see how much the loft heats up from the house rather than the sun.

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Octopus. On a flexible plan since Avro went under.

No idea where you see the predicted usuage.

I'm just going to correctly update it.

Maybe it's time to get a smart meter. I've just always been suspicious, but now can't remember why.

11mins queue to access the Shell energy website.

Was having queue withdrawals to be honest.

The saddest thing is that I understood all of that

Old people are absolutely furious about the existence of smart meters, it's really bizarre

They pretty close to zero value to be fair.

No idea where you see the predicted usuage.

Look at your last few bills and see if it's estimated or based on readings. If it's an estimate and it's higher than what your meters say (bear in mind the estimate may be a month old) just don't provide a reading

I mean, on a list of things we should spend our beer tokens on, a kind-of automatic spying device for electricity and gas usage made by the lowest bidder and installed by and managed by indifferent global-hyper-mega-corps is never going to be the top of most folks' wish lists.

The IHD is pretty useful these days

The saddest thing is that I understood all of that

I got respect for anyone who can code. Lord help me, my brain just don't work like that.

I never got the hate. Saves me a job every month/quarter and I can see in advance what bills are going to be like, enabling me to move the required money around, etc.

Maybe it's time to get a smart meter. I've just always been suspicious, but now can't remember why.

Ha - exactly that discussion in our house the other week. Think it was something about the first gen being tied to a single supplier, but might also have been about BigHeat stealing all my datas.

And @Greenbank -er...thanks. Didn't understand a word of it. We do have some heatmiser kit so I might see what I can find.

Don't think we can have a smart meter because we have solar panels (or can we???).

I think you have to have a smart meter if you ever want to sell energy back to the grid... I have solar panels and no smart meter, and a lack of smart meter was given as a reason why I can't export.

BigHeat stealing all my datas.

Or small sketchy engery companies with tight margins trying to maximise the value they can get from customers. Whilst having only the very loosest of security?

TBH I'd love to give loads of useful data away so that we could use it to tackle the worlds problems. But unfortunately a meaningful proportion of people in tech have morals on par with the tabacco industry, so what can you do?

The ways that homes overheat in summer:

• Heat conducts through the roof/walls from outside to inside, due to poor insulation and made worse by dark colours and direct sun on the outside surfaces.
  
• Hot air gets inside through uncontrolled gaps/leaks or open doors/windows.
  
• Solar gain (heat from sunlight) comes through windows/openings to the interior and heats up the inside floor/walls/air.
  
• Internal heat gains from people, cooking, lighting, washing, computers, fridges etc
  
  

These can be combatted by a combination of insulation, keeping windows closed, external shading and being conscious of how much heat you're producing inside (difficult to avoid, most things we do generate heat).

Fortunately even in the summer, the UK is relatively cool at night. One of the most effective ways of preventing overheating is to make use of thermal mass to 'store coolth' or buffer heat gains. When outside temps cool down in the evening, open things up and get the heat out of the house, cool down the fabric. Materials like stone, concrete, brick and to some extent plaster, if they start the day cool, will then absorb the heat energy during the day keeping the ambient temp down and giving you more of that radiant thermal comfort by keeping the surface materials cooler for longer. Water also has high thermal mass but it's not that practical to have lots of it sitting around inside.

coolth

Hmm

It's a slightly nonsensical word, but useful to describe the cool version of warmth.

Because "rates" and not actual usage. Ahhh the days...

Any dehumidifier recommendations?

Meaco