[DebF_EONNext]

Did you finish with this experiment @wizzo227 what were your findings in the end?

Also this has really opened up a great discussion on climate change. I think this would be a fantastic topic for a new thread and an opportunity to open up the discussion further if anyone fancies it?!

[wizzo227]

@DebF_EONNext
Experiment not done properly with sufficient averaging and care to report the cost per bath off daytime solar, or to evaluate suitability for new-build housing.
I reckon that it could be done, but I have not proved so.

There are a couple of "go no further" rules in the bathrooms and electrics building regulations, by which it wasn't kosher for me to just fit a 3 pin plug to the appliance 4 foot cable and run it off an extension lead on the bathroom floor. Puddles and electricity could be bad news so plan C: replace the supplied four foot lead with a twelve foot lead, drill a liitle hole somewhere, and get solar diverter electrics hidden high up in the airing cupboard. Looking more carefully in the instruction manual, replacing the supply lead is written there to be strictly prohibited; Verboten. So from the four foot lead and some messing about to fill it from the cold tap, I did one hot wash using 5 litres of water at an energy-cost of 0.3kWh, 100% free local solar, and the appliance is now doing nothing and not connected.

I'm back to a choice of a kettle-wash in the morning, which costs 0.1kWh, or cold, or run a bath, which uses 3 kWh of gas at the combi boiler at this time of year. My most recent gas bill says: Start: 18 Mar 2025, End: 17 Apr 2025
£13.05

Thats right; I'm paying £13 a month incl. for gas and I'd really prefer to get rid of gas connections entirely for newbuild, because their decomissioning cost isn't budgeted for and neither is the ongoing import of gas and the diplomatic or army efforts to support cheap petroleum imports. There are a few districts nearer to the North Sea where keeping the gas pipes would make sense, but everywhere else those are an expense which I don't see minimal bills like mine paying enough to want to build new ones.