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Another vote for Emma, we're on our second one due to change of bed size when moving and both have been extremely comfortable and good value. I've definitely slept on some hotel mattresses that have been comfier but I suspect they would have been many multiples greater in price...
I did sleep on a particularly wonderful hotel mattress earlier this year, so wonderful it prompted me to email the hotel and ask for the brand... a French company called G. Springs though I investigated no further and don't know where you would get one...
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Interesting, I hadn't really considered a Harley Benton... I'm just looking for something cheap-ish that I can try out a fretless neck on... the appeal of the Classic Vibe is that I've quite fancied one anyway if fretless isn't for me.
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Yes, of course.
To be honest, as I mentioned earlier, I don't think it's a realistic expectation for everyone to have a heat pump in their home. There area economies of scale and lack of resources that just make it unfeasible to think there will be individual heat pumps in every home.
The practical and sensible solution here is that there will be district heating networks installed in communities which will be powered by centralised heat pump plant rooms and will provide heating on a metered supply.
It's already becoming quite common in Europe with lots of projects being rolled out at the moment and lots of Eastern European cities have had district heating networks for decades.
Honestly the best thing is to petition your local politicians and look out for any community action that can be taken to spur this on because it will be the answer to getting fossil fuels out of homes. -
I'll take a look, I've not tried an Affinity so unsure of how they are but I've heard really excellent things about Classic Vibe.
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Will take 10 years+ to see it paid in energy savings but it’s worth it for the draft free comfort and being toasty warm without huge bills.
This is the right attitude, well done on the upgrades!
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Anyone happen to have a Classic Vibe Squier they want to offload? Preferably a 50s Telecaster but open to others too...
c.£250 budget but cheaper would be nice and may need posting to Ireland.
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You don't have to be convinced though. The data is there. I've yet to see one of the naysayers of heat pumps actually show me data where a properly installed system isn't providing savings over a gas or oil boiler.
(That being said I have designed industrial systems whereby there won't be an OpEx saving but in these cases it's because the client has other objectives such as decarbonisation or input energy reduction as a priority).
This is the hurdle people need to get over though. Everyone wants a new kitchen or conservatory but tell me how the ROI is on these projects?
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In 18 years of heat pump installations I have yet to have a client who did not have reduced OpEx compared to their previous system. That includes lots of retrofits in old leaky buildings using 55degC flow temperatures for radiators.
If you've got a heat pump installation that's only breaking even on OpEx you need to have a word with your installer because they haven't done a very good job.
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Of course, I'm not trying to make little of the cost and I appreciate it's going to be out of the budget of very many people. I would imagine people had the same conversation about installing central heating instead of fireplaces many years ago too though.
Councils should be working towards plans for district heating systems with centralised heat pump plant rooms in more densely populated areas which will account for a lot of the future switch to heat pumps anyway, it's not practical or achievable to think that every single home will have its own heat pump.
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Do you have figures to support this statement?
I know in Ireland the estimate is that for every 1 level increase on BER (Building Energy Rating) the property value increases by 1% so on a £500k house which increases from C3 to A3 (this is the increase I achieved with my own heat pump install at home) the value of that increase is 6% which is £30,000.
This report suggests even higher value add in UK
Agreed on the additional works being the real killer on price but I think people need to just get their head around treating it as a major home upgrade, which it is.
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I'm finding it hard to get my head around the conversation about heat pumps not suiting specific types of house conversation.
I've installed heat pumps in buildings built as far back as 1715. I've also installed heat pumps in shitty60s and 70s builds.
Heat pumps are a more cost effective means of converting paid-for-energy into heat energy than boilers. (full stop).
If your house is an inefficient, poorly insulated disaster then it's equally as inefficient at retaining the heat generated by a boiler as it is the heat generated by a heat pump.
Yes heat pumps are more efficient at lower operating temperatures and save more money which in turn improves your ROI but that doesn't mean you don't make savings at higher temperatures.
Yes they're expensive to install but in most cases that is actually caused by additional works and upgrades required at the same time such as switching from an unvented DHW system to a pressurised system. The capital cost is certainly higher than replacing your existing boiler but it's almost never a like-for-like swap.
Lastly, even though they are a more expensive up front cost you are adding value to your home. Typically a good heat pump installation, even domestic, should last for 10-15years and at that point the infrastructural works have been done to make a future replacement easy.
Think of it as when your folks (or grandfolks) first got in central heating all those years ago... it was a massive infrastructural upgrade to a house which then had numerous repairs and upgrades over the years... switching to a heat pump now is the same thing, albeit probably less costly and invasive than completely replumbing your home.
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I'd urge you to all check out this guy on IG. I've never actually heard a fretless guitar sound good to be honest, always just a bit of a flashy shredder wankfest, but he makes the most beautiful sounds on his! It's inspiring me to look into picking up a cheap Squier Telecaster to try it myself!
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Jeez, reading the last pages of comments makes me feel like the Gardaí aren't quite so bad over here... I don't have an obscene amount of kms under my belt on two wheels but I always get the feeling here they turn a blind eye to bikers as long as you're not totally taking the piss... they're very easy going in terms of lanesplitting / filtering / buslane usage! We also don't have bike NCT (MOT).
That being said bike theft here is completely out of hand and they do nothing about that either so... maybe they haven't heard bikes exist yet?
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Oh wow, that seems like incredibly heavy handed policing...
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This is incredibly cool, I've followed VC on IG for a while now and always been so envious of the incredible community ye're building over there.
Keep up the excellent work! -
This works fine too albeit unfun on a hot day...
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They don't have an overwhelming stock of things to admire but they do do 5hr test rides for £15 (money goes towards trail building charities)...
I'll try and pencil in a test ride next time! -
Happened to be passing Guildford for work reasons and popped into YT dealership... had a quick blip around the carpark on a new Izzo Core 4...
I'd have liked the suspension to have been harder but it's super fun and flicky, accelerating felt super sprightly.Would like one a lot :(
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The catch is it's an hour and fifteen drive (without traffic) from my home so every job is c.3hrs commute before I've turned a wrench... less than ideal.
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I do actually! Plenty of space and all of the gear required at my parents place so wouldn't be an issue in that respect...
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I'm moderately capable... I used to actually work with a classic car restorer as a summer job when I was younger and mostly did bodywork there... I also grew up on a farm so learned to weld at a very young age but haven't had heaps of practice in recent years...
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Yeah they're pretty scabby looking alright... seller claims it's regularly driven though and well serviced and maintained so hopefully it's all cosmetic...
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Smitten with this W115 200 for sale locally... it's very cheap.
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Bloody Ducatis... had the bike serviced ahead of Distinguished Gentleman's Ride last weekend and picked it up midweek and got some Pirelli Rosso IIIs fitted. Geared up to ride it home from my folks place on Saturday afternoon, let it warm up for 10mins on the yard before leaving and then made it about 20km before loss of power on the motorway... much sleuthing, two helpful bypasses and a van recovery back to HQ and we eventually ascertained a fuel line inside the tank had blown off the pump and hadn't been making fuel pressure...
Annoyingly I discovered this was actually a problem that had been a factory recall over a decade ago and some previous owner of this bike had obviously had this problem before but only chose to replace the problematic clip and leave the rest for me to have this problem...Drained tank, replaced clip and away I went...
The bike did not enjoy the heat on Sunday and the stop start nature of DGR saw temperature gauge hitting 129°c at one stage but made it around (despite the engine randomly cutting out at idle)...Fun bike to ride though once you're on the twisties!
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I'm conscious there's been feck all progress on this and the plan has chopped and changed so many times but here's an update:
Over the last 3 months or so I've become increasingly disenchanted with Kona EV... we live in an apartment and due to the layout of the car parking arrangement it's not practical for me to have a home charger. Public charging costs have risen to such an extent that I'm paying about the same amount per km as I would be on petrol again (possibly more considering finance).
Furthermore the diabolical price gouging Tesla has been carrying on with over the last year or so means the Kona Electric is in negative equity...
All in all for a car that I don't particularly love it's just lost it's sheen...
Meanwhile... Forester 2 has been sat in the shed and I've been plotting.
I do significantly less mileage than I used to and mostly work from home so to be honest I think I can stomach 30-35mpg petrol prices again.
I also desperately miss the comfort and practicality of Forester.
So...
First job is to reassemble Forester 2 as is...
I've already got all of these parts and once completed I can get it NCTd and it's then legally roadworthy again!
It will still look like shit at this stage...
Next steps as follows:
I would also like an automatic transmission and I'll scavenge the front seats and central armrest from the facelift version as I prefer these to the pre-facelift equivalents.
I'll also use the drivers side front and rear doors in place of the damaged ones that are on Forester 2 at present (I have done some filling and repairs on these but I'd rather just pop on two fresh ones than drive around with all of that filler in it).
I'm thinking a nice cloth of some description on the seats and then leather on the dash and high wear spots like arm rests... colour TBC also.
Finally... the bit we've all been waiting for... engine swap!
I want to end up with somewhere between 250-300bhp and 30-35mpg and it's just not achievable with a Subaru motor... you'd be looking at a costly build to reliably make 300bhp and then only make 20-25mpg.
I did toy with the idea of a VAG EA888 EVO4 which would be the engine in a Mk8 Golf R, these make 40mpg+ apparently so should still do well in a Forester but I foresee massive ballaches and expense in terms of either matching that to the Subaru drivetrain or swapping everything to Golf R parts.
At the moment I think the most sensible solution might be a Toyota 2GR-FSE or 3GR-FSE... both were in a number of different Toyota and Lexus models but 2GR is the 3.5l version making c.300bhp and 3GR is the 3.0l version making c.250bhp.
They're V6 engines so I think they should fit easily enough and go directly to the Subaru 4eat transmission without too much fuss and they're pretty cheap and easy to get hold of too (3GR is in the mid-200s Lexus GS300 and you can buy a full car for <€2000).
A lot of work to be done but I'm excited to get stuck back in to it and hopefully get the whole lot done in relatively acceptable time. I'll be happy to get it back on the road and do the aesthetic bits for now so hopefully that can all happen in the next few months and I'll be back to Forester daily driving this winter!