For help, advice and discussion about stuff not related to aviation. Play nice: no religion, no politics and no axe grinding please.
By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1881474
The need for serious insulation and draught proofing gives me cause for pause at this point.

This winter I'll be going round the house sealing up every draught I can find, I've already made a start.

After that we'll be able to look at various options but electric boiler or air source heat pump are about the only practical options. We already have an immersion heater and whether solar panels become an option we don't yet know.
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By rikur_
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1881476
Nick wrote:Heat pumps explained. I must say most of these points have occurred to me. I certainly won't be going down that road.

yawn....
13 minutes that could have been covered in 30 seconds.
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By Flyin'Dutch'
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1881480
rikur_ wrote:
Nick wrote:Heat pumps explained. I must say most of these points have occurred to me. I certainly won't be going down that road.

yawn....
13 minutes that could have been covered in 30 seconds.


Go on (serious question)

I can see as drawbacks

1. HIgh installation cost
2. Need for well insulated house and need for ideally underfloor heating
3. Lack of efficiency during longer cold spells
4. Need for some 'back-up' in living room/bathrooms? <-not sure about those.
By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1881484
High installation cost might include needing bigger radiators on an existing installation because of the system running at lower temperatures???

Draught proofing a house built even in 2000 is tricky because the windows are poorly draught proofed despite double glazing because they were forced into timber by the planners (conservation area) and the wooden frames have shrunk slightly over time.

I think if we can successfully draught proof we might be OK but a heat pump plus new windows could be well into 6 figures.
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By Flyin'Dutch'
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1881502
Yup - hence underfloor heating preferred.

Groundsource heating is mucho better than airsource as ground temp is much more consistent, and never goes below zero. groundsource requires surface or depth either requires digging or drilling,

Air source is a gimmick if you ask me. Under 10-5 C expensive to run.
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By rikur_
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1881508
Flyin'Dutch' wrote:
rikur_ wrote:
Nick wrote:Heat pumps explained. I must say most of these points have occurred to me. I certainly won't be going down that road.

yawn....
13 minutes that could have been covered in 30 seconds.


Go on (serious question)

I can see as drawbacks

1. HIgh installation cost
2. Need for well insulated house and need for ideally underfloor heating
3. Lack of efficiency during longer cold spells
4. Need for some 'back-up' in living room/bathrooms? <-not sure about those.

My frustration is with polarised views for and against - it's actually a much more nuanced decision, and I don't think his sort of summary (or the heavy sales push for) are particularly helpful.

All he's basically said is a selection of common difficulties. The bit I do agree on is that lots of people will end-up with poorly spec'ed solutions that are not right for their need.

If you were going to do a more thorough comparison:
- existing heating & fuel type (gas CH, storage heaters, resistive electric, oil, coal, etc)
- fuel types available
- objectives (environmental, long term cost saving, short term cost saving, etc)
- status of existing installation (is it due for replacement, or plenty of life left, efficiency, etc)
- type of property and ease of retrofit
- how you use the property (are you there most of the day? most days? using all rooms, some rooms, etc)
- how well insulated is the property and extent of thermal mass
- availability of space (for hot water tank, value of freeing up space used by CH boiler, outdoor space for invertor, etc)
- any need for cooling as well as heating?
- types of air source heating (i.e. air to water vs air to air)

In our case I've got one house gas CH, and one air-to-air air-source.
The rationale for air-to-air air-source was:
- no mains gas, main alternatives were oil CH or air-to-water air-source
- objectives: long term cost saving (fuel & maintenance) and environmental benefits (and experiment with something new for personal curiosity)
- plenty of outdoor space for invertors, removing the CH boiler from the utility room removed a significant constraint on the layout
- house normally unoccupied during the day, or just one home office in use; home often unoccupied at weekends and holidays; 30% of floor space not used day-to-day;
- moderately well insulated, but not top spec.
- but nonetheless most of the year the CH was just 'taking the chill off' and rarely running full pelt (and only gets near stated efficiencies under heavy load)
- legacy CH not well suited for upgrade to wet air-source due to use of microbore pipes, small poorly placed radiators, etc. Lack of underfloor access meant upgrade would be disruptive. Conversely layout and loft access made air-to-air a relatively simple retrofit to most rooms.
- Low thermal mass meant some upstairs rooms struggled to keep cool in summer months, and would benefit from cooling
- Air-to-air gave us: individually controllable rooms; heat on demand (as opposed to continuously heating); cooling when required; most of the year it is very efficient (light load);
But on the flip side: Not cheap to install - and hence not cost effective for small rooms like toilets/store rooms; a separate solution is needed for hot water.
#1881518
Underfloor heating is ok, until you spring a leak. A flying buddy had one, dug down (tiled floor) where the wet area was but as with all things the bliddy leak was at the opposite end of the room. Cost £18 000 to put right.
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By OCB
#1881530
Bill McCarthy wrote:Underfloor heating is ok, until you spring a leak. A flying buddy had one, dug down (tiled floor) where the wet area was but as with all things the bliddy leak was at the opposite end of the room. Cost £18 000 to put right.


Mate of mine took a career change and became a plumber last year. The first tools his boss gave him were an endoscope camera thingy + an IR camera.

He has more than once had to finish jobs that other plumbers messed up, and indeed - leaking underfloor heating is one of his least favourite jobs.

For those discussing heat pump to hot water radiators, I’ve mentioned it on posts before - there do exist low temperature radiators specifically designed for heat pumps. The secret sauce is nothing more fancy than a small electric fan that pushes out the warm(ish) air. Apparently they can often be smaller in size than traditional radiators- but I’ve never seen an installation in real life, so would reserve judgement a bit.

If the price was “reasonable”, I definitely would get a ground source heat pump - but killer really is the cost of getting a couple of deep holes bored.

In my frequent pondering about life, the universe and engineering - I have attempted to solve that cost conundrum. If I came into a significant wodge of cash - I’d definitely hire a couple of engineers to come up with solutions for that. I like the idea of mini robots that do all the boring work :lol:
#1881537
I’d put an air source heat pump in a large greenhouse to capture solar heat energy - anything to bump up that ambient temperature.
I see that RR have been lashed up with funding to provide 16 modular reactors. That’ll mean that my shares will have gone down ! We will need much more generating capacity if we’re to have these heat pumps.
By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1881542
The trouble is that we no longer have the skills to co-ordinate a coherent plan. We're still stuck in a mindset that assumes that markets will sort everything out, but markets need a coherent framework to function effectively. Free trade is basically a synonym for piracy.....

We certainly need creativity and innovation from industry and that needs encouragement and support to take the kind of risks needed, because not every initiative will succeed. The RR activity is a good model combining skills and private investment with public support. More of that please....

We need building regs and planning policy to ensure buildings are designed and developed with the future in mind and that the evil stupidity that resulted in Grenfell and the aftermath is curbed.

We need food security policies and better guidance on diet and cooking.

We need transport infrastructure policies and support to motivate people in the right decisions in travelling.

We need power, water and drainage systems that work with the environment, not try vainly to subdue it.

etc.etc. etc.