Impatience

There has been a few updates in the last few days which seem to have come quite rapidly, to ease the growing impatience. We had a telephone call on Friday night about Kevin’s Land Rover Defender from a nice man called Rik who was very excited to come and see it. Saturday morning at 9.30 he was on his way here and by Monday lunchtime the banker’s draft was ready. Monday night Kevin and I drove to Chester to deliver the truck. Rik is apparently giving up the corporate lifestyle to move to a remote area of France to try his hand at property development. So, it’s another of our possessions which is going to a great new life.

We have also finally received our Home Energy Assessment report via the addition of the graphs to our house brochure, although it seems that we got a must try harder, grade C (scale A-G). I was rather disappointed as we hoped that this would be a good selling point for the house as it by far the warmest that either of us have lived in. Closer inspection, driving to the estate agents to collect the accompanying report which they did not think to send to us, revealed that apparently the average rating for the UK housing stock is a grade E. Well, perhaps it’s the year on year increases in exam grades setting high expectations (25% A grades I think this year!), but I’m not sure that this will be a great hit with most home owners. Ours was apparently the highest the inspector has yet awarded (79), B grade is 81 and above, which we could have achieved by covering 25% of our roof area in solar panels (approx cost = £4k), for apparently a saving of £29 per year!

After a telephone call to the Energy Inspector, it seems we could never achieve an A grade no matter how much home work we did, as we are downgraded for having 3 external walls of a height of 3 storeys (we are in a 1 year old end terrace townhouse). So presumably, you’d need to live in a flat to get an A. However, the immediate problem is that the vast majority of the house buying public will not be privy to this information especially as ours is the only house at the estate agent which has had a HIP done and as such, we are apparently legally required to display the graphic of the results on the house brochure. I guess the only answer is to provide some text in the brochure to explain the result, so people are not put off by our C grade by a lack of any comparison. I can’t help but feel that there is going to be some serious kick back by the general public when these assessments start being used more widely. To put this into perspective, Kevin has trained at the UK Centre For Alternative Technology, we have 100% low energy light bulbs, A rated appliances and a condensing boiler in our house. We have not once switched on the central heating this winter because the house is so warm and we are still using a summer quilt since last summer. A 1920’s house which the inspector visited last week got a rating of between 20-30 and apparently the inherent way it was built means that it would not be able to improve on this. Having previously lived in a 1920’s house with drafts bad enough to blow my hair whilst standing in the bedroom and permanently cold despite radiators too hot to touch, I can understand the aims of these reports from a global warming perspective but I sense trouble nonetheless…

Finally, I have managed to complete assessment 1 of my RYA Coastal Skipper/ Yachtmaster Theory course to the National Marine Correspondence School for submission. I started the course at the same time as Kevin started his by evening class at Fleetwood Nautical College last year and for a long time it worked really well, we would do our homework independently and cross check. Although, I always said that my chart work was more authentic to navigation on board as I was completing mine on the rickety train across the Pennine’s on my then daily commute from Leeds to Preston. Sadly, work has got in the way with my course, working an average of 12-13 hours per day and catch up too at weekends. Still, I was determined to get my assessment in before my year’s subscription ends and so I can receive the second section of notes. I don’t think with the Southampton Boat Show this weekend that I will manage to complete the course in time, but a re-subscription is cheaper than a week off as I am self employed. So, I may decide to complete the course more leisurely when we get underway. I would say however that I am very impressed with the quality of the course from National Marine Correspondence School and would highly recommend it to anyone considering that option.

So, we finally get to go on board a Mahe again on Saturday, which we are all very excited about to prove this wasn’t all a dream. Plus, it might quieten down Kevin’s almost daily “I want my boat now!” pleading!