We're thinking of buying a house. It's a terrace with a fairly large garden/jungle in front which needs clearing and might well be suitable for GSHP pipes.
Problem is, there's a road between the house and the garden. Not busy, not wide, just local in and outs, but nonetheless a public road.
Is it even worth asking about permission for a trench? There will almost certainly be other buried services.
There's never any harm in asking but if it's council adopted the costs could be prohibitive.
A few thoughts - more questions than answers:
a. the road is definitely "adopted"?
b. moling an option? Could avoid problems and costs (e.g. road closures, traffic management, signs)
c. does ownership of the road come with the house? If it does and you can mole through the subsoil well below the road's foundations, I'm not sure you'd even need a licence. But don't assume that! And there's still the issue of services under the road/verges.
How big is the house? How big is the garden?
I think for most terraces a GSHP would be overkill: you'd pay more in installation and equipment costs to get only slightly better efficiency than ASHP. It only really starts to make sense if the property is large.
If this is an old stone farmhouse or something then *maybe*, but if it's a bog standard suburban terrace then ASHP would be the way to go.
Theo
Five or six years ago, my manager at the time, arranged for a duct to be moled under the road, so as to gain access to broadband. It is certainly possible.
If the government are really serious about it, then there will have to be legislation to allow this sort of thing. Around here they are planning to use waste heat from sewage farm to heat and cool a range of buildings using heat pumps, and it will have to cross roads to be viable, I'd have thought.
I dare not ask how come you have a garden with a road across it, surely such a road must be private and owned by the people in that terrace at least. Brian
Indeed. A local pipe laying company moled a supply pipe across our lane (adopted) which has:-
150mm medium pressure gas main. 11kV 3 phase supply cable 415V 3 phase distribution supply 12" surface water drain >
You’d want to be *very* sure about the depths and positions of all those services before beginning to mole. Oh, and maybe have some spare clean underwear to hand. ;-)
Tim
As it happens, we've just been told that our bid was unsuccessful. I'm partly relieved, as there's over £100k work needed.
It's a public road. The house has a small front garden, maybe six feet, then the road, then a large garden. There are a few places like that around here. After all, it's not much different to having an allotment just across the road.
I think it's because the terrace commands a magnificent view, the large gardens slope down and can't be built on. If the road were at the bottom of the gardens, the postie would complain.
When using home serives and use the federal government rebates for the best kinds of people to learn and work together, we come here to find out more infomation and see how we can help one another for a more topical discussion. Thanks for getting the ball rolling on this and let's see how we can help one another for heat pumps are fairly new in the US and come here with the hopes of striking for gold.
It'll be absolutely fascinating to see this plonker explaining how we in uk.d-i-y can get US federal government rebates!
Andy
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