Perhaps there may be market for a retrofit system comprising wireless programmable roomstats and associated radiator valves (interchangeable with existing), together with a central unit triggering the boiler if there is demand anywhere.
Can't see it as a quick payback though.
Chris
On Wed, 24 Mar 2010 21:37:38 +0000 (UTC) someone who may be Al 1953 wrote this:-
What heating is in it at the moment? The best choices depend on what is there already.
There is something to be said for a mini CHP installation burning gas to produce electricity as well as hot water. However, if going for that the heating system needs to be designed for it, not a bog standard system installed by a plumber. Assuming a Stirling engine the key is to ensure the unit runs for long periods, with long off periods between, to maximise electricity generation. At least one of the manufacturers recommends a thermal store.
Electricity in southern Scotland used to be relatively cheap. The price was put up to pay for Torness and it is still high. Until the court case several years ago Scottish Power and Scottish Hydro Electric were forced to take all the electricity Hunterston B and Torness managed to produce under the "Nuclear Energy Agreement", whether they wanted it or not. The Tories claimed to be in favour of the free market, but not where nuclear was concerned.
thats nothing you can do yourself in a couole of days with a mini digger.
I di a load of reserach.
teh main costs were not in the ground loop - I coudld easily do that myself, and the people I spoke to were almost relieved that I would, but in te heat pump units themselves - at leats 5-6k, and probably more, and in the electricity supply - they really need a massive amount of startup power even on soft start units. In fact the guyt never did get back to me to explain why a 15Kw unit at an alleged 4:1 step up of input power to heat out, needed a 25Kw supply..
Finallyy, there is a hiddne cost that basically made the project unviable in my case. Although my ground floor is largely UFH and highly suitable, the hot water and upstairs circuits are radiators and a sealed tank, neither of which, or the ancillary pipework were sized for 'lots of warm' rather than ;'a little hot' water. Esssentially I would have had to rip out and replace the mains pressure tank, all the upstairs heating circuits and double up on the radiators and towel rails.
therss always a catch.
I have always found that any government grant costs precisely as much to achieve as it pays back, within 10%, every time I have investigated one.
I regard them as mere spin.
Parts are available, BUT the real problem is that its a totally green field install. Almost nothing you have in place will be suitable.
Retrofitting is not really an option. Its rip out, redesign and replace just about all the pipework and heating system.
Also note that if your ground goes below -5 at deep levels, it may not work at all.
British reactors are burning plutonium oxide ATM, there is enough here to keep us going for many decades, unless someone starts a war and we waste it on bombs.
But with oil I would be heating parts of my home that I don't reach! Therefore you are not comparing like with like. With CH you cannot 'dose' the heat like you can with a fan heater, whose heat is instantaneous (no pipes to heat up, etc). With CH you don't feel any benefit for at least 20 minutes, whereas with the fan heater you feel the benefit within about 10 seconds. Meanwhile I would be paying for the oil needed for those 20 minutes during which no benefit is perceived.
Exactly! You finally understood.
Oh, what a brilliant suggestion. So here I am in my workroom and it's cold, so I run down to the annexe to switch the CH on for 30 minutes, remembering to switch it off in good time so as not to build up too much residual heat that I have to open a window. Then I run back upstairs again and carry on working. Repeat as necessary.
Alternatively, I reach under my desk to the fan heater and press the switch...
MM
What would you be paying to the same supplier if you were in Spalding, though? Southern Electric has many different rates, depending on where one lives.
MM
I think there needs to be a lot more thought put into heating systems by the manufacturers. For instance, my Drayton timeswitch for my oil boiler only provides for three on/offs per day, but I reckon you should be able to program the boiler to come on/go off 20 times a day.
What I do for the hot water, since I don't need the one-hour button's worth (press the button and the boiler comes on for precisely one hour), is that I set my kitchen timer and time the boiler* "on" for 20 minutes, which is more than enough hot water for personal needs and for the washing up, even on the coldest days this winter. In the summer I get enough hot water from my DIY solar heating matrix. This summer I intend to experiment also with 30 metres of garden hose, since the water therein can get very hot on a really sunny day.
MM
*exactly*. Frost line's pretty deep around here though, so I'd probably be looking at putting loops 8' down or so - but it's still just "grunt work".
Ouch. What's the reasoning for the cost?
I went through this with wood-burning furnaces, which are similarly expensive - and there's really bugger-all to them. The cost seems to be just down to "that's what the market will take", rather than something that reflects construction time and materials costs. Heat exchangers for GSHPs may or may not be different...
Extra ouch :-) I'm not sure if our place would take that or not. We've got about 14Kw of electric heating at the mo, but I don't know how much spare capacity there is.
Yep. No doubt their list of approved installers all charge 30% over the going rate anyway...
Certainly seems the way for 'big stuff'. It's not so bad over here for things like installing energy-efficient doors and windows; I can do that myself and just wave a receipt for the materials under their noses and they seem to be happy.
It's not so bad at our place for the ground floor, because the basement (almost) covers the entire house footprint and isn't finished (yet - it's on my to-do list for this year), so I can easily get at the underside. The top floor would be more tricky, though (although to a certain extent I could rely on heat rising up from the floor below)
Yes - I meant to bury a few temperature sensors before winter hit, but never got the tuits together. The water we get out of the well sits at around 55F year-round though, which is promising - but the depth of the frost line over here makes things a bit more challenging.
Using bores rather than trenches for the loops would be better, perhaps - but there's no way to DIY that, so it's back to enormous costs again...
cheers
Jules
My Nuke (c) Microsoft ;-)
True, but it sounds like maintenance and decommissioning costs ought to be significantly cheaper. Its also a handy use of the DU from existing reactors.
TWR sounds a little more doable with the technology we have now thought.
Chris J Dixon wibbled on Thursday 25 March 2010 13:06
Assuming that's not tongue in cheek, Honeywell do exactly such a system :)
No idea. Lack of economy of scale I suspect.
same rules. Not enough of them, no real thought to cost reductuion, madee by hand somewhere..usually Germany or Sweden..
Im fused at 100A, so 25KW is my peak draw.. capability. Realistically they don't draw that for any time at all. Like fridges most of the time the compressor aint on.
Right. That is encouraging.
The fact that you can pump it in winter at all, means there is stability till quite near the surface.
In the UK frost doesnt generally reach more than a foot down. And that's unusual.
1-2meters is the recommended pipe depth. two meters is a bigger than mini digger, but its still a trivial trench with a decent bucket on a 3-5 ton machine.
No, not if you have the space. soggy ground is best. a meter down in a peat bog is the sort of thing to aim for, and anyway, you have very hot summers, so you should be starting from a decent level anyway.
I agree. It's well worth putting a billion into to see what the issues are. Along with pebble beds, and laser ignited reactors and the like. Both inerently stable and cant run away..
BUT in the meantime, we have enough expertise to utilise PWRS or whatever the latest stable technology is.
This is true and why I said that the OP ought to shop around rather than go for company X. My 9.03p/unit is Scottish Power, electricity only, paperless, online, fixed monthly DD, standing charge. Southern Electric for here best price is 10.09p/unit. Use one of the price comaprision sites.
Even Equipower is competative with the OP's rate for here at
12.14p/unit remember that with there is no standing charge at all not even a "hidden" one so thats about =A335/year cheaper straight off.MM, if you can super-insulate the room with spot-electric heating the payback can be quick.
Even if you already have loft & cavity wall insulation, it can be worth putting 25-50mm on the inside particularly if the room has 2 outside walls (many "home offices" do re thermal losses). It means faster warmup such that body heat and a PC is enough to get things warm.
Assuming 5,000kWhr/year a 1p saving on the unit price is =A350/year,
2p/unit =A3100. I consider that to be worthwhile.
Actually it is a brilliant suggestion. That is what I do in winter. I turn the radiators TRVs to the frost setting in the rooms that I am not using. Simples.
Buy a better programmer so that you can set the on/off times to suit your needs and install TRVs in the rooms you use.
And you press the switch that costs you more money than heating heating by oil.
Adam
You have a cr@p system if it takes that long to have an effect. Mine is 50,000 BTU into a copper heat exchanger into low water content radiators. It takes no more than a few minutes to warm up.
It doesn't hold the heat much either so it doesn't overshoot the programmed temp.
I think that's probably equally applicable to fuel cell based mCHP systems. Or will be, once/if household size ones reach production.
That's an accountant's result, because the nuclear industry has to factor in the cost of decommissioning but the fossil fuel industries don't have to factor in the cost of cleaning up the CO2 in the atmosphere.
Andy
Well it totally depends ..I calcilated the thermal time constant of my house - the mass inside the insulation, is about 3 days... yes, thats how long it takes to get up to 95% of its final temperature, and how long it takes to lose it again.
.Its a blessing and a curse. it makes it hard to just 'pop into' a room and get it warm in a hurry, but conversely, it eases the load on the system once its up to temperature. And its goregous in summer, because it stays at a constant cool temperatire +- 2 defgees or so when daytime temperatures soar up towards the 40's.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.