Reverse Air con

Your understanding is incorrect.. you can extend the heating but you have to have a better control system that can isolate the conservatory. A stat and a zone valve will fit the bill.

They can do that. They may not do that depending on the air temperature and humidity.

it should work.

For quantitois of warmish air, but check the limits over which it operates. Many air source heat pumps are almost totally useless at -10C outside or so.

You are in essence trying to pump from that to say - 30C -and that means your outside heat exchanger is going to be -30C or more. With every chance of severe icing up.

Aircon is fine..you can pump from say 20C inside to 40C outside by running the heat exchangers at say 60-80C..no freezing or boiling in that range.

What I suspect you will find is that its really good at this time of year. But come real winter, you will need to top up with electricity direct.

My gas CH also heats the UFH in my conservatory. It's an independent zone with it's own programmable 'stat.

IIRC the insulation requirements used to be different if the conservatory was part of the main house (no doors) or not part of the main house (doors between conservatory and house). If you were exempt from the insulation requirements you weren't supposed to extend the central heating into the conservatory. Presumably as you have UFH the conservatory was insulated to the then current building regs as part of the house.

Cheers

Dave R

That makes sense. Its now an unheated semi habitable greenhouse..not a 'room' as such in BCO terms.

I would say once again, that is sensibly likely to be true.

I am not sure of the technology but we have air con units in our foreign property and they also double as heaters. Now I dont know if its a reverse thing or just an element that heats up. At best they take the chill off a room with slight warmth. I wouldnt like to have them as my only source of heating for a room in winter. They were also expensive to run.

I have worked in offices with such a system as the only heat source. It appeared to operate quite well through the winter. There are defrost cycles, during which the mode reverses, in order to melt frost on the external heat exchanger. This means that the internal kit blows cool for a while, but not to the extent that it compromised overall heating performance.

Chris

So why won't a simple thermostatic radiator valve do?

Philip

Hi Guys. I have a conservatory with under floor heating controlled by two thermostats no zone valve I just extended the existing GCH and have no doors between the conservatory and the kitchen. So I don't think it is nowhere near Building control regs. So what are the Consequences.

Baz

Do you just need to keep stuff from freezing in there, or do you want to make it comfortable for people/pets?

Does it warm up on its own via heat from the sun during the day, or does it need heating 24x7?

Personally I wouldn't spend money on something relatively high-tech (and which will only get used for the colder months anyway) for something like this - just get something cheap and cheerful (resistive heater, IR heater, heat lamp etc.) and put it on a timer/thermostat as needed.

We run a 250W heat-lamp for our dogs and cats at night here which keeps the porch that they sleep in warm enough for them - 8 hours per 24hr period at whatever your local 'leccy rate is (I think it normally ends up being about 3% of our monthly bill).

If the unit that you mention is some form of air source heat pump, I think that it won't necessarily work at all on the colder days anyway, so you'd still be looking at some kind of backup system.

cheers

Jules

I once stopped over in a pub/hotel in Wales that had the same system. Utterly useless. I had to ask for a fan heater. The Old Red Lion, Blackwood. Don't go there.

Because that will mean the conservatory is still heated all the time the house is, and it is assumed that the use will not be full time and therefore wasteful.

FWIW we have a reversible Aircon unit for our office and its OK as long as its not too cold outside once its below freezing its not a lot of use as its forever stopping to de frost. It might not help but where the outside unit is its rather low down and a bit screened by a shed and bushes but as long as its above freezing then it does work fine, plus its Aircon which is useful but not required that many days this year;!...

So is this a way to cool the world and heat up your conservatory then?

Brian

But is the conservatory insulated to 'house' standards.

There are double uPVC doors between the house and conservatory, so I guess may be exempt? (they were there long before the conservatory) It was built 2 years ago by Everest with the current 'heat reflective glass'. Not sure what it complies with, I fitted the UFH pipes before the screed was laid over 4" kingspan. Seems to hold it's heat quite well anyway and no noticeable increase in the gas bill after it was installed.

Alan.

Don't invite the BCO around to dinner.

Its a way to heat up the world and the conservatory.

Do you know what that point is? I'd always heard that they all stop working at about -20 (considerably above how cold it gets where I am), but I've not looked in recent times - maybe the CO2 ones are newer and perform a bit better...