Octopus and out-of-date meter

I think that is offset by using a heat source that is much more efficient at a constant low setting (like a heat pump).

Tim

In message <v160nr$1acmn$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me, at 20:02:19 on Sat, 4 May

Scotland to London!! There's enough of a kerfuffle about proposals to transport energy from off the East Anglian coast to London.

Then there's the massive solar farm in your part of the woods that no-one seems to be able to take a planning decision about.

However, it is easier to insulate a hot water cylinder than a house.

Well in isolation, yes. BUT think about what you need to get a cold house up to temperature FAST. If its a timber house with good insulation, all well and good, but a house with cast floors and UFH takes getting on for a DAY. During that time you are running a powerful boiler flat out. And that may not be its best efficiency.

Especially if it's a heat pump.

Its the same simplistic thinking that leads to the assumption that 'windmills save gas'. Not if the gas power stations are constantly having to be started from cold, and then lose all their energy when the wind picks up and they are shut down. Or are kept as spinning reserve.

That's broadly why Scandinavian house are 24x7 heated.

In the case of a cylinder the heat required is so small its irrelevant.

In the case of a whole house the heat required is so large it can easily have knock on issues with heating *efficiency*.

Try not to be simple minded. It's how we got into this eco shithole in the first place

In winter my cold cylinder causes the boiler to run for about 20 minutes, In winter my cold UFH causes the boiler to run for about 12 hours, flat out.

Its all just a burden on the tax payer and electricity consumer. Planning officials have to decide between being petrol bombed by extinction rebellion, or being voted out of office in the next election in favour of a party that doesn't do 'green crap'

Or, slightly more politely, try to think about the whole problem, not just part of it, and avoid bumper stickers.

Due to the thermal mass of the floors, it's likely that the boiler would have lowish return temperatures and therefore run in its most efficient condensing mode, for much of that time and it would be far less likely to do so for short, top-up bursts throughout the day, when the floors are already warmed.

In message <v17hig$1ors5$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me, at 09:55:44 on Sun, 5 May

Officials are appointed not elected (unlike in the USA).

It depends on your heat plant. Heat pumps and condensing boilers prefer lower flow temperatures, so you get better efficiency out of them with 'little and often' cruise control versus 'pedal to the metal' when you're warming a cold house fast.

Depending on your plant and level of insulation, just matching losses (eg

Of course if you have a non-modulating, non-condensing cast iron lump then things are different. Although I'm not sure if warmup still affects your efficiency when short cycling (which you will be, on a mild day)

Theo

But the planning committee, which would take the decision in this matter, consists of elected councillors. Council officers can take a decision about a planning matter only if there were no objections, otherwise it would be "referred to committee".

In message snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net>, at 12:13:37 on Sun, 5 May

In the vast majority of cases, the officials decide and the councillors rubber stamp.

'QED'?

Agreed. But I imagine this would have been objected to -> committee.

In message snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net>, at 19:58:25 on Sun, 5 May

The Committee don't start from scratch. First they look at the officials' recommendations. They then have to weigh up the cost of an appeal to the Planning Inspectors, if they refuse.

I do, it just sits there and works, total repair cost over my 30+ years here is £5 for a new thermocouple.

Both my neighbours have replaced their combi boilers twice-over in that time ... that buys a lot of gas.

Nothing to stop them making the effort to improve the insulation of their house. Why should householders expect the same sort of fat juicy grants to improve their property, that are handed out like confetti to farmers ?.

Last saturdays BBC R4 'On your farm' was talking to Jeremy Clarkson about the best way to make a farm 'pay', and his reply was '1000 acres of subsidies to plant wild flowers'

But you can get cylinders with extra insulation, but unless you have put your HWC in an unheated space, the heat lost from the cylinder is inside the house anyway, so even if the water is heated but not used, it just becomes a water filled storage radiator, charged up off peak.