What sort of house?

[geoff]

Its Dennis the dim - what do you expect ?

[geoff]

In message , "dennis@home" writes

So who brings you your pills and empties your bedpan then Den ?

[geoff]

In message , "dennis@home" writes

Don't you know who your father is then den ?

Too much information

[Clot]

And generates heat that HWMBO'd will not countenance! ;)

[Owain]

And people here would have rather higher standards than most.

I've just done an "Energy Awareness" course and programmable thermostats weren't even mentioned.

Owain

[dennis]

Ah choosing a special case where you heat it up and turn it off once the temp is reached is the only time it is true. It does state maintaining it there.

[dennis]

Its easy to prove that you are the one that's wrong. Energy loss is higher with higher temp differences. The steady state has a higher temp difference so it *must* lose more energy, QED.

[dennis]

Heating systems are dumbed down so that the installers can do so. I would never accept a system that used TRVs to achieve its main controls for instance. Then you get the silly "plans" which are just dumbed down ways of explaining logic circuits.

[Owain]

The things I learned on the course include:

There's no such thing as a condensing boiler which isn't a combi Room thermostats control the pump You can tell a boiler is a combi because it has a water pressure gauge

And some confusion over whether solar can do central heating or is only for DHW.

Owain

[dennis]

Did they teach anything that was true?

[Roger Mills]

I hope you didn't have to *pay* to attend that!

Or was it a punishment for squandering energy, in the same vein as a speed awareness course for those caught doing thirty-one-and-a-half in a 30 limit?

[geoff]

In message , "dennis@home" writes

Rubbish, you eejit

The heat loss of a well insulated house at temperature is much less than the energy required to raise the temperature of the fabric of the building. There is still a delta T loss which is increasing as the building comes up to temperature

Go on then - do the calculation and present it here, since it is, as you say, easy to prove

[geoff]

In message , "dennis@home" writes

The special case he mentioned is what we have in the real world denboi

But you didn't even seem to be able to read what he wrote - where did he say about turning off ?

[Jules]

I'd actually wondered if they can be back-flushed to clear out accumulated debris (because gradual clogging of the screens seems to be what kills them, long before they rust out). I'm not sure it's possible for ours though - which is about 80' deep, but with the pump mounted at the surface (the pump delivers a portion of the pumped water back down a secondary pipe to the base of the well, and some form of venturi-effect head is used to get water back up the main 2" pipe).

It's done 24 years now, so in theory is getting on in lifespan - but there's no sign of it giving up yet; it still seems capable enough. The surface-pump dates from 1977, but that still functions quite happily. If flow starts going off I can always pump slowly into a large holding tank and have another pump drawing water from that tank for house supply - but I suppose failure mode might be that one day it just stops working altogether over a very short space of time.

cheers

Jules

[Owain]

No, I was paid to do it!

suspect the instructors had little practical experience and were teaching from rather amateurish handouts.

I'm sure the government are working towards that.

Owain

[Owain]

Micro windmills will save the world, aleluia.

Owain

[robgraham]

Hi OW - I cannot really add anything to all the good comments that have gone before, other than that I was forcibly retired at 63; forcibly in that carrying on was not good sense financially. At 63 that was relatively easy to accept.

What I'm coming round to is your husband's early retirement seems to have hit him hard, and unlike myself who welcomed it as an opportunity to extend all my hobbies, it would seem that he hasn't seen it this way, and is taking it as rejection.

I do think the advise to go and discuss what does seems like depression with your GP is a good one. Yes, your husband needs to acknowledge it, but the GP should be able to give you methods to help him with that.

The other thing is that the Rainy Day has come as I think you recognise; your husband's income will improve in 5+ year's time when he gets the state pension, but what actually is the purpose of the money he is setting currently aside? The amount is not that significant and the return equally isn't either in terms of daily living, so it would be better spent improving your 'now' life.

All the best Rob

[Roger Dewhurst]

That is the normal practice. It is called re-development. There is a chemical which will de-flocculate the clays and speed up redevelopment. I forget the name.

I'm not sure it's possible for ours

The well should have a stainless steel screen. With an 80' deep well you can use uPVC casing which is much cheaper than steel and will last forever. The screen should be telescoped inside the casing. When the time comes get an electro submersible pump. Much cheaper to run, a few pennies per cubic metre for the electricity.

R R