Heat pumps - ThisIsMoney

[alan_m]

On a dual fuel wood/coal burner coal gives a greater heat output.

[S Viemeister]

This is uk.d-i-y - make one yourself. Simple straight sewing, and poppers are easy to do.

[Alan Lee]

Installed correctly, and designed properly is the pre-requisite. Insulation isnt. The house will use the same amount of energy it always has whether it has a HP or Gas CH. Insulation helps both forms of heating. If fitted, and designed properly, the ASHP will cost the same to run as a gas boiler, as it is typically running at a coefficient of performance of 3 to 1 or better, on average. At current prices, the electric to gas prices are 3:1, so the cost to use is the same. Install cost are ridiculous though, so it is never going to be cost effective to take out a good boiler and replace it with a HP. If gas cost goes up compared to electric, it may become more attractive, and, with th number of people currently training on HP's, install costs should come down over time.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I don't think people today understand both how fuel hungry and high output open fires can be.

5-10Kw for a big grate and definitely 2-3 for a small grate with coal

[The Natural Philosopher]

Well not necessarily, but you need to really keep feeding a woodburner to get serious output.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Why didn't I think of that?

[Rod Speed]

Certainly will be interesting to watch.

Same with the ban on new IC cars

[Tim Streater]

New Zealand: 104k sq miles, population 5 million UK: 93k sq miles, poulation 68 million

So, shitloads more land per head than we have.

[jim.gm4dhj]

so why do few own their house but rent?

[Tim Streater]

Ours have buttons.

[Jeff Layman]

Absolutely! My small log burner (it's dual fuel but I've never used it for that) eats logs. That's not surprising as most of them are cypress. Cherry and birch burn much more slowly. Even so, it's no problem going through 20kg of logs in a day, and most of that is just for a lowish output.

[nothanks]

I could make one out of wood or metal but it wouldn't be very comfortable ;-)

[S Viemeister]

Sewing is just carpentry with floppy material, and sewing seams is like hammering nails, but much quieter...

[alan_m]

Where friends live the only way to purchase kiln dried hardwood logs at a reasonable cost is in bulk (currently 4.5m3 for around £450 and loose from the back of a tipper truck.). This is in a rural area where a lot of houses have log burners and no main gas so a large demand and the supplier is local.

Friends recently had their old wood burner changed for a modern wood/coal burner and, from memory, specified as 7kW maximum when burning wood. It can eat logs very fast when running at full output but once the room(s) are up to temperature it can be throttled back for a very much better log consumption. If required to be on all night they stoke it with coal before retiring for the night. Coal will last to the morning but if stoked with wood the fire will go out in around half the time as coal.

[RJH]

Quite - and I see that pressure coming if Labout get in next year.

The issue remains: if retrofitting, how can you demonstrate that thermal standards have been met? Most of the insulation materials are hidden behind plasterboard, flooring, slates etc. The presence of draught proofing strips is not evidence of draught proofing.

And even if you have receipts for work/materials and the promise of following regs/guidance by a relatively trusted contractor, is that enough?

They must have a way of checking all of this in other countries . . . thermal performance audits and air pressure testing? Just looking at the roofs around here after the recent snow is a start . . .

[brian]

My house in Edinburgh is 1907 and the bedrooms, all had open fireplaces . The one I use I think was originally an upstairs day-room and still has a fireplace. I'd been thinking of re-instating it but I've no idea what you're allowed to burn these days. I've taken to wearing more clothes rather than notching up the CH and wandering around in a Tee shirt. My parents house (1950s) had a coal fire in the sitting room , which provided hot water using a diverter thing and one in their bedroom

- they never used it. I had to use a paraffin heater in mine. If you wanted a bath in the summer, you had to set the fire earlier in the day, otherwise kettles had to be boiled . There was a gas copper boiler as per above in the kitchen for laundry , but I only ever saw it in use to make clouty dumplings as my mother also had an electric W/M. Central Heating has made us soft.

Brian

[The Natural Philosopher]

There are a few more tricks to it than that, but in essence, yes, how hard can it be? women can do it. :-)

[Tim+]

Move over heat pumps, you’re history. It’s domestic data centres now. ;-)

Tim

[SteveW]

A version of that was around probably 20 years ago. A company was putting servers into domestic premises. They were designed to look like radiators. The company paid for the electricity consumed and the server needed no cooling, as the heat warmed the room. In the summer, the server vented to outside, so as not to heat the room. If it lost comms, it would run dummy calcs to maintain the room heating.

[Theo]

You can get a decent picture from thermal camera images. The trouble is it's hard to do that on any random day - really needs to be cold outside.

The other way is fine grained energy monitoring: basically like a smart meter but taking account of the heat demand (thermostat etc) and the outside weather conditions. That gives you the energy consumption picture, and then the thermal camera says where the energy is going.

Pressure testing tells you about airtightness, which is one thing, but doesn't tell you if you have a tight envelope made of tinfoil.

Theo