Seriously?

[Kev0607]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

My first "need" for a big estate was 20 years ago when i was married with a wife and 3 step children and the need to deprive local supermarkets of half their entire stock on a weekly basis while transporting aforementioned family with me. It also came in useful for other things too.

Things have changed now but my circumstances now mean i have to carry large loads including two big dogs very regularly so my need for an estate continues. Sadly i now have difficulty getting in/out of a 7/9xx estate so needed something higher. It took me a long time to settle on the Honda CR-V that i now have but aside from a slightly smaller load deck, it does everything i need it to do and is also very versatile.
Granted i've had a few reliability problems with it (not very Honda like! ) but those are all down to missed/incomplete servicing and have now been pretty much sorted.





Agreed, they certainly are! Ditto for my Honda, the front seats convert into two single beds, there is a picnic table between the front seats and another, larger one in the rear load deck with space underneath where the spare wheel might have been (it is bolted to the tailgate on the outside) where things can be stored, there is a 12V socket in the back suitable for powering things like coolers/fridges - the list goes on.

Good estes are always useful vehicles!

What year is your CR-V? Is it petrol? If so, what's it like on fuel?

[ITSv40]

Originally Posted by Othen

… and nearly all the motor cars on our roads today will have to be scrapped before their time if we are serious about net zero (I hope we realise what a daft idea it is before it is too late).

With the main event of this past week, I cannot see that happening anytime soon.

[Othen]

Originally Posted by ITSv40

With the main event of this past week, I cannot see that happening anytime soon.

I suspect you are right - we will be taken on a net zero wild goose chase for the next 5 years.

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Kev0607

What year is your CR-V? Is it petrol? If so, what's it like on fuel?

It's a 2002 (2nd gen/RD5) 2.0 petrol auto with the K20A4 engine. To be honest, it's a bit tricky to give you a definite answer to what it's like on fuel as i've had a few persistent but intermittent problems since i got it, making them very difficult to diagnose correctly for a long time.

The last fill up returned 27mpg (nearly 28mpg but i don't recall the exact figure) for normal use ( a few miles to a nearby forest for the dogs and back) but that was the last tankful with any of the intermittent problems present.
A recent long run only returned 26mpg but that was with at least one problem present. However, i have now got to the bottom of that problem so my next fill will give an indication if things are improving. The one after that should give a more definitive figure.
I suspect i still have one minor problem that should be sorted in the next couple of days before my next fill. Most of the problems i've had with it have been down to incomplete or missed servicing although one was down to a failed new component.

Are you thinking of buying one?

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Othen

I suspect you are right - we will be taken on a net zero wild goose chase for the next 5 years.

There are many people already in uproar because the heat pumps fitted in their new houses don't work. Any engineer will explain why they can not work, especially on a cold day but once again, the government (regardless of political breed) have listened to the greenies who only see saving the planet and don't realise the engineering implications of their goal that are often either impossible or very costly (usually both) and generally will destroy other parts of the planet in addition to those parts allegedly being destroyed by fossil fuel use.

The only Net Zero result that will be achieved will be financial, resulting in many bankruptcies as people are forced to take on schemes that have had little or no thought given to the costs and other problems associated with them.

[don kalmar union]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

There are many people already in uproar because the heat pumps fitted in their new houses don't work. Any engineer will explain why they can not work, especially on a cold day but once again, the government (regardless of political breed) have listened to the greenies who only see saving the planet and don't realise the engineering implications of their goal that are often either impossible or very costly (usually both) and generally will destroy other parts of the planet in addition to those parts allegedly being destroyed by fossil fuel use.

The only Net Zero result that will be achieved will be financial, resulting in many bankruptcies as people are forced to take on schemes that have had little or no thought given to the costs and other problems associated with them.

You are not altogether correct on this. With regard to air source heat pumps they are effective in that they can extract heat from the air when that air is at low temperatures.... they have been used for many, many years in Nordic countries. As far as ground source heat pumps are concerned, they are very effective with caveats. If you have a sufficiently large garden and can place slinkies underground then you have the least outlay. If you have a very small space then you can have a borehole but that in itself will cost anything over £18,000 depending on the depth you need to achieve to get to the aquifer and whether a relatively small rig can be placed over the planned bore... rural areas are generally cheaper. A borehole can be shared by a number of neighbouring properties from flats to individual homes. An additional benefit of a borehole is the ability to come off mains water supplies provided that, once bored the water passes certain tests for domestic use. Overall the gains from whatever type of heat pump installed, all electric powered, will depend on prices paid for the electricity consumed. There will always be some saving to be made, accepting your point about the financial outlay, net of any grants available. Another consideration is the additional cost of any ground source installation over that of the heat pump itself... but the costs of can be shared of slinkies or the most costly borehole alternative. In respect of individual, smallish ground source heat pumps, the Cornish based Kensa have what you would need in addition to their bigger stuff..... https://www.kensaheatpumps.com/

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by don kalmar union

You are not altogether correct on this. With regard to air source heat pumps they are effective in that they can extract heat from the air when that air is at low temperatures.... they have been used for many, many years in Nordic countries. As far as ground source heat pumps are concerned, they are very effective with caveats. If you have a sufficiently large garden and can place slinkies underground then you have the least outlay. If you have a very small space then you can have a borehole but that in itself will cost anything over £18,000 depending on the depth you need to achieve to get to the aquifer and whether a relatively small rig can be placed over the planned bore... rural areas are generally cheaper. A borehole can be shared by a number of neighbouring properties from flats to individual homes. An additional benefit of a borehole is the ability to come off mains water supplies provided that, once bored the water passes certain tests for domestic use. Overall the gains from whatever type of heat pump installed, all electric powered, will depend on prices paid for the electricity consumed. There will always be some saving to be made, accepting your point about the financial outlay, net of any grants available. Another consideration is the additional cost of any ground source installation over that of the heat pump itself... but the costs of can be shared of slinkies or the most costly borehole alternative. In respect of individual, smallish ground source heat pumps, the Cornish based Kensa have what you would need in addition to their bigger stuff..... https://www.kensaheatpumps.com/

A lot depends on the performance of the refrigerant used in the heat pumps to pull heat from the outside atmosphere. Most common refrigerants will only give a temperature differential of approx 10C so if it's freezing outside, you will only heat the inside to 10C unless you employ some sort of air recirculation facility.
Also if all houses are pulling heat from outside on cold days, suddenly those cold days will become freezing days so less heat is available for those heat pumps to extract - it's an ever decreasing circle.

It's all down to the laws of physics and to paraphrase the Starship Enterprise character, you cannot change the laws of physics.

There are of course other limiting factors such as the National Grid isn't capable of providing the extra load of heat pumps and just to add fuel to that particular fire (every pun intended!) not all of our electricity is renewable yet so we are still reliant on fossil fuel for our electricity.

[Othen]

Perhaps we don’t want to go too far on a tangent discussing the minutiae of heat pump performance, but Dave is pretty well correct about this issue. The thermodynamic gains for heat pumps at low temperatures (around freezing) are tiny, it is also true that generally electricity costs about 4 times the price of natural gas in the UK. Dave is also correct that taking heat out of the air (or equally the ground or a water source) will have an effect on the environment: if 67,000,000 people try to do it simultaneously that effect will be very significant.

We live on an island surrounded by gas and oil, but politically we seem to have made a decision to not use it. Instead we seem to have decided to wear the net-zero hair shirt: drive only electric vehicles, use only electricity in our homes and make industry uncompetitive. If we lived on a scarcely populated place that could grow its own food and manufacture what it needs that plan might work, but trying to support the lives of 67,000,000 folk (growing by about a million per year) on a small group of islands is madness.

I suspect we will do some pretty daft things to force us Brits into net-zero such as punitive taxation on fossil fuels and completely banning IC vehicles. So, steering this tangent back to where we came from: expect lots more perfectly good vehicles (including the classic cars we like so much) to be scrapped well before their time.

Just the musings of a grumpy chap with a beard.

[Moomoo]

Nutshell , Alan!🤨

[Othen]

Originally Posted by Moomoo

Nutshell , Alan!🤨

Whilst carefully avoiding politics Andrew, it concerns me that 31% of the electorate has committed our nation to madness.