I think it was 3 summers ago I fitted a split aircon unit in my
living room. It's 12,000 BTU (3.5kW cooling and a bit more
heating, 3.8kW IIRC). This was after fitting a similar unit
for my parents, and being very impressed with it.

I've had a power meter on it all this year. Started using it in
the early spring to heat the room when I didn't need to heat the
whole house. Through the summer, it did some cooling, although
not as much as in previous years as it wasn't very hot. Used it
again for heating this week. Just checked the power meter, and
it's clocked up 60kWhrs, which comes to about £6.50, which is
much lower than I would have guessed had I not measured it.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

Andrew Gabriel wrote:
I think it was 3 summers ago I fitted a split aircon unit in my
living room. It's 12,000 BTU (3.5kW cooling and a bit more
heating, 3.8kW IIRC). This was after fitting a similar unit
for my parents, and being very impressed with it.

I've had a power meter on it all this year. Started using it in
the early spring to heat the room when I didn't need to heat the
whole house. Through the summer, it did some cooling, although
not as much as in previous years as it wasn't very hot. Used it
again for heating this week. Just checked the power meter, and
it's clocked up 60kWhrs, which comes to about £6.50, which is
much lower than I would have guessed had I not measured it.

Blimey!

I have considered fitting on in our underground bathroom (if that's
"legal" ) to replace the KW electric wall fan thing which never really
gets used.

Trouble is I have too many un-finished projets to start another one.
:¬)

--
http://www.GymRatZ.co.uk - Fitness+Gym Equipment.
http://www.bodysolid-gym-equipment.co.uk
http://www.trade-price-supplements.co.uk
http://www.water-rower.co.uk

In article ,
"www.GymRatZ.co.uk" writes:


Andrew Gabriel wrote:
I think it was 3 summers ago I fitted a split aircon unit in my
living room. It's 12,000 BTU (3.5kW cooling and a bit more
heating, 3.8kW IIRC). This was after fitting a similar unit
for my parents, and being very impressed with it.

I've had a power meter on it all this year. Started using it in
the early spring to heat the room when I didn't need to heat the
whole house. Through the summer, it did some cooling, although
not as much as in previous years as it wasn't very hot. Used it
again for heating this week.

Should say last week (and today0.

Just checked the power meter, and
it's clocked up 60kWhrs, which comes to about £6.50, which is
much lower than I would have guessed had I not measured it.

Blimey!

I have considered fitting on in our underground bathroom (if that's
"legal" ) to replace the KW electric wall fan thing which never really
gets used.

If you don't use the fan heater, why do you need one?
I don't think I would use one for that purpose.
Aircon which has a reverse heating feature is useful for
supplementing heating at certain times of year, but it
doesn't work when outside temperature drops below around
5C, as it will spend more time (and likely power) deicing
the outside unit than it would heating indoors. So I
would not rely on it for primary heating.

Also beware that if installing in a basement, some units
which require the outdoor unit below the indoor unit may
not be suitable.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

"Andrew Gabriel" wrote in message
...
I think it was 3 summers ago I fitted a split aircon unit in my
living room. It's 12,000 BTU (3.5kW cooling and a bit more
heating, 3.8kW IIRC). This was after fitting a similar unit
for my parents, and being very impressed with it.

I've had a power meter on it all this year. Started using it in
the early spring to heat the room when I didn't need to heat the
whole house. Through the summer, it did some cooling, although
not as much as in previous years as it wasn't very hot. Used it
again for heating this week. Just checked the power meter, and
it's clocked up 60kWhrs, which comes to about £6.50, which is
much lower than I would have guessed had I not measured it.

Very interesting to know that.. I've always known Inverters are pretty good
at heating, but not how they compared with energy use to say oil / gas
etc...

What brand did you fit / have fitted?

Tim..

In article ,
"Tim.." writes:

Very interesting to know that.. I've always known Inverters are pretty good
at heating, but not how they compared with energy use to say oil / gas
etc...

What brand did you fit / have fitted?

Airforce (B&Q own). They were £100 off when I bought them.
They should be only 5% VAT, but B&Q hadn't done the necessary
paperwork to charge reduced VAT on them. With the £100 off,
they were cheaper than all the suppliers charging 5% VAT at
the time, but that may well not be the case now -- I haven't
looked recently. I installed the self-fit ones. (They also did
the same models as professional fit at the time.)

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

In article , Andrew Gabriel
scribeth thus
I think it was 3 summers ago I fitted a split aircon unit in my
living room. It's 12,000 BTU (3.5kW cooling and a bit more
heating, 3.8kW IIRC). This was after fitting a similar unit
for my parents, and being very impressed with it.

I've had a power meter on it all this year. Started using it in
the early spring to heat the room when I didn't need to heat the
whole house. Through the summer, it did some cooling, although
not as much as in previous years as it wasn't very hot. Used it
again for heating this week. Just checked the power meter, and
it's clocked up 60kWhrs, which comes to about £6.50, which is
much lower than I would have guessed had I not measured it.


Heat pumps which is what that is are quite efficient and are getting
more so ..

Some interesting reading here on that sort of thing...

http://www.withouthotair.com/


--
Tony Sayer

Andrew Gabriel wrote:

Aircon which has a reverse heating feature is useful for
supplementing heating at certain times of year, but it
doesn't work when outside temperature drops below around
5C, as it will spend more time (and likely power) deicing
the outside unit than it would heating indoors. So I
would not rely on it for primary heating.

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, as you say, defrost cycles, but not to the extent that
it compromised heating performance.

Chris
--
Chris J Dixon Nottingham UK


Have dancing shoes, will ceilidh.

Andrew Gabriel wrote:

I think it was 3 summers ago I fitted a split aircon unit in my
living room. It's 12,000 BTU (3.5kW cooling and a bit more
heating, 3.8kW IIRC). This was after fitting a similar unit
for my parents, and being very impressed with it.

I've had a power meter on it all this year. Started using it in
the early spring to heat the room when I didn't need to heat the
whole house. Through the summer, it did some cooling, although
not as much as in previous years as it wasn't very hot. Used it
again for heating this week. Just checked the power meter, and
it's clocked up 60kWhrs, which comes to about £6.50, which is
much lower than I would have guessed had I not measured it.

Just a cautionary thought - if it is the popular plug-in meter,
it appears to reset if there is momentary loss of power. Did it
also show the expected number of hours?

Chris
--
Chris J Dixon Nottingham UK


Have dancing shoes, will ceilidh.

Andrew Gabriel wrote:

Just checked the power meter, and
it's clocked up 60kWhrs, which comes to about £6.50

Not on EON's whopping 33p per unit Primary Day Rate = of which there's
225 per quarter!

In article ,
Terry Fields writes:

Andrew Gabriel wrote:

Just checked the power meter, and
it's clocked up 60kWhrs, which comes to about £6.50

Not on EON's whopping 33p per unit Primary Day Rate = of which there's
225 per quarter!

Mine's Southern Electric, which is 10.65p for first 685 units,
and 10.10p thereafter. Actually, just noticed that went up to
12.59p for the last few days of the billing period.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

Terry Fields wrote:
Andrew Gabriel wrote:

Just checked the power meter, and
it's clocked up 60kWhrs, which comes to about £6.50

Not on EON's whopping 33p per unit Primary Day Rate = of which there's
225 per quarter!

Wow, that's like a £45 odd standing charge per quarter!

What is the rate after that?

Is it E7?

On 7 Oct, 09:04, Chris J Dixon wrote:
Andrew Gabriel wrote:
Aircon which has a reverse heating feature is useful for
supplementing heating at certain times of year, but it
doesn't work when outside temperature drops below around
5C, as it will spend more time (and likely power) deicing
the outside unit than it would heating indoors. So I
would not rely on it for primary heating.

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, as you say, defrost cycles, but not to the extent that
it compromised heating performance.

Chris
--
Chris J Dixon *Nottingham UK


Have dancing shoes, will ceilidh.

In our school the I.C.T rooms relies on the split system for heating,
to keep the outdoor unit at the right temperature a separate unit
called a crankcase heater stops the outdoor unit icing up.

Toby wrote:

Terry Fields wrote:
Andrew Gabriel wrote:

Just checked the power meter, and
it's clocked up 60kWhrs, which comes to about £6.50

Not on EON's whopping 33p per unit Primary Day Rate = of which there's
225 per quarter!

Wow, that's like a £45 odd standing charge per quarter!

What is the rate after that?

Is it E7?

About 12p, then 4.8p or so night rate.

In article ,
writes:
In our school the I.C.T rooms relies on the split system for heating,
to keep the outdoor unit at the right temperature a separate unit
called a crankcase heater stops the outdoor unit icing up.

Crackcase heater is just to stop the refrigerent condensing
in the crackcase (compressor outer case) when the unit isn't
operating for some time and cools right down in cold weather,
and also keeps the crankcase oil thin. It's not used when the
unit is operating (cycling on and off in normal operation) as
the compressor gets more than hot enough to prevent this.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

In article ,
Chris J Dixon writes:
Just a cautionary thought - if it is the popular plug-in meter,
it appears to reset if there is momentary loss of power. Did it
also show the expected number of hours?

3580, which sounds about right.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]