Week of 7th October, 2013

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Monday, 7th October

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Tuesday, 8th October

Bad news, I'm afraid. I was probably tempting fate last Sunday, when I mentioned that Katy's flat purchase seemed to be on track. Today comes the news that the vendor has decided, in her semi-infinite wisdom, not to sell. So Katy is out all the legal fees to date, and probably her mortgage offer, too, since that expires this coming Friday. So it's back to the flat search grind.

The scaffolders pitched up early this morning, ahead of the solar install tomorrow. Scaffolding (3 lifts, to get level with the roof of the dormer window in the loft) will remain until Thursday or Friday. But why didn't they clamp a plank onto the ladder, to prevent climbing up to gain access to upstairs windows?

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Wednesday, 9th October

Solar install this morning - 9no 235 watt (30volt at 8amp) panels, mounted flat on the dormer roof, and anchored by gravity, assisted by the weight of (slightly modified) paving slabs. I'll be getting less power than the nominal rating suggests, because the sun never gets overhead here in UK, at 51 degrees North. Best case is likely to be 70% output, at the height of summer. But there's less windage, which is not unimportant, given our climate.

The inverter is screwed to the wall in the loft, rather than in the waste space under the front eaves, where I'd hoped to put it. The installer decided, on investigation, that the space there is too small, and he saw what appeared to him to be asbestos (it isn't), so under the eaves is out. But the inverter fixed to the gable end wall is easier - cable runs are simpler.

The solar meter is installed in the under-stairs cubbyhole, along with two (count 'em - 2!) isolator switches, one of which includes an overcurrent trip, and there are a further 2 isolators beside the inverter - one each for panel DC output and inverter AC output. I need to add my own metering - probably a Fluksometer, with 50amp current clamps on the solar output, and house input cables. All this is downstream of the main electricity supply meter, so first evidence of solar input should be lower bills - followed (maybe) by actual feed-in to the grid. Although I have heard that the National Grid is not configured to accept feed-in at present - I don't understand this, everything I deal with plugs in.

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Thursday, 10th October

The scaffolding has gone, and there's already a change in Jane's habits - she does laundry and dishwashing (both electric) during the day. Not that I see much evidence of solar generation so far.

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Friday, 11th October

Sofa delivery this morning - actually about 12:30. Which basically kippered the morning, because I didn't know when the delivery would arrive.. And it's enormous - L-shaped (in 2 pieces) 2.3m x 2.1m, assembled. It's a sofa-bed, too, so she can sleep a guest if required.

Katy is back on the flat search bandwagon, with a vengeance. Today, she had a viewing booked after school -a 1 bedroom flat, purpose-built in 1980. She doesn't like doing viewings alone, and Jane was at Rainbows, so yours truly was nominated to attend. A very nice little place, first floor, with reasonable-sized rooms - Katy's sofa will fit (I measured!) very warm (electric storage heaters) and even though it fronts onto a main road, it's quiet inside. Fixtures and fittings, like carpets, are worn but serviceable, so no major redecoration to start. I'd be happy to live there, and it's not over-priced. The vendor is moving to larger place, and that's all arranged, so there's no upper chain. Katy, of course, is a first-time buyer, so there's no lower chain, either.

Then, it was mortgage renegotiation. After a long phone call - best part of an hour - Katy has her re-approved mortgage-in-principle. So that's good.

And her solicitor had reduced his bill for the abortive purchase, which is even better. He enclosed a cheque for the purchase deposit - evidently, it's not possible for him to return that electronically, even though it was sent to him that way.

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Saturday, 12th October

While I was archiving TV today, Jane and Katy were doing flat viewings, including a revisit to the flat I mentioned yesterday. And she's decided to buy it, made the offer, and was accepted. So it's searches time again.

But before that, I went out to Simon's, to attempt to repair Miles' attempt to fix a corrupt profile for Simon's login. Miles had bounced, despite my giving him an explicit URL for a Microsoft Knowledge Base artice on the subject. Took about 3 hours, but all is now well.

Why did Micro$oft, in their semi-infinite wisdom, hide the "Tools" menu in Win7 "My Computer" behind a press of the Alt key? Alt is a modifier, not an active key. That cost me about half-an-hour - I could not find the Tools menu by prress-and-hold Alt and click somewhere, as one would normally expect.

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Sunday, 13th October

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