"MM" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 26 Mar 2010 10:09:30 -0000, "ARWadsworth"
wrote:


"MM" wrote in message
. ..
On Thu, 25 Mar 2010 21:50:45 +0000, (Steve Firth)
wrote:

MM wrote:


The way that you are making savings is to heat less of your home.

Exactly! You finally understood.

I understood from the begining, you apparently didn't.

Here's another clue, fit TRVs.

I have them already. They're Honeywell.

Or if that's beyond your limited talents, simply turn the radiators off
in the rooms that you don't use.

Oh, and when I'm not using the room I normally use, e.g. I've gone to
the shops or the library, then the room is still being heated? Have I
got that right? Are you recommending I do that? Heat an unoccupied
room for several hours?

'Cos I'd just like to make sure where you're coming from!

Heck, that was difficult.

But doesn't address my requirement to NOT heat parts of the house I am
not in, including not heating up the pipework unnecessarily. And if I
turned the rads off completely, how would I take the chill off to
protect against frost damage when it's really cold? (Recall that I
already said I'll switch on the CH during the night sometimes just for
that purpose.)

Or am I expected to set an alarm for 3am, then get up and go around
the house turning on all the turned off rads?

MM

Set the TRVs to the frost stat position.

Fine. And the room I am in? How does that get heated? Switch on the
oil boiler and wait 20 minutes, or switch on the fan heater and wait
10 seconds?

MM

It could be heated by turning the radiator on 20 minutes before you used it.
You are spending 8 hours a day in there so you should have a good idea of
when you need the heating to turn on. And use the fan heater if you go in
early and and need the quick heat.

Heating the HW also heats up pipework that is "wasted" but you accept that
it is cheaper to use oil than electricty for that purpose. It is probably
the same pipework that your CH uses for the most part (ie the bit between
the boiler and any control valves) that is heated and wasted.

I believe that with a good timed programmer and the use of your TRVs that
you could save more money by using oil for your heating than by using
electricity.

Cheers

Adam

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...

The lottery is a free choice.

Not anymore..
you used to be able to play the Euromillions but now you have to pay extra
to be put in the millionaire draw which is even higher odds than the
Euromillions just so they can pay for the olympics.

I just stopped playing as I don't want the olympics and I really do not want
to pay for professional athletes.

On Fri, 26 Mar 2010 12:25:59 -0000, "ARWadsworth"
wrote:

It could be heated by turning the radiator on 20 minutes before you used it.

Bit of a problem if I'm out at the shops.

You are spending 8 hours a day in there so you should have a good idea of
when you need the heating to turn on. And use the fan heater if you go in
early and and need the quick heat.

But as I've said before, my timeswitch only provides 3 on/offs per
day, so I cannot "dose" the CH for one particular room very precisely.
With a fan heater, I can.

Heating the HW also heats up pipework that is "wasted" but you accept that
it is cheaper to use oil than electricty for that purpose. It is probably
the same pipework that your CH uses for the most part (ie the bit between
the boiler and any control valves) that is heated and wasted.

As I am writing this I have just come into the room, well, about 5
minutes ago, and switched the fan heater on. Now I've just switched it
off as the room is already now comfortably warm. Try that with CH!

I believe that with a good timed programmer and the use of your TRVs that
you could save more money by using oil for your heating than by using
electricity.

The thing is, I'd have to suffer being extremely cold for some days
whilst making the comparison, since it takes far longer for the
benefit to be felt with the CH than with the fan heater.

MM

MM wrote:

Oh, and when I'm not using the room I normally use, e.g. I've gone to
the shops or the library, then the room is still being heated? Have I
got that right? Are you recommending I do that? Heat an unoccupied
room for several hours?

Are you on drugs?

On Fri, 26 Mar 2010 21:18:12 +0000, (Steve Firth)
wrote:

MM wrote:

Oh, and when I'm not using the room I normally use, e.g. I've gone to
the shops or the library, then the room is still being heated? Have I
got that right? Are you recommending I do that? Heat an unoccupied
room for several hours?

Are you on drugs?

Yes. But they don't prohibit me from driving or operating machinery,
so how does that impact on the question I asked:

"Oh, and when I'm not using the room I normally use, e.g. I've gone to
the shops or the library, then the room is still being heated? Have I
got that right? Are you recommending I do that? Heat an unoccupied
room for several hours?"

Just to make SURE you don't have an answer!

MM

MM wrote:

"Oh, and when I'm not using the room I normally use, e.g. I've gone to
the shops or the library, then the room is still being heated? Have I
got that right? Are you recommending I do that? Heat an unoccupied
room for several hours?"

Just to make SURE you don't have an answer!

I have an answer, it appears you don't have a clue.

If you have TRVs they have a frost stat setting. If you're that anal
that you want to micro-manage heating then use the TRVs to shut off the
heat in unused rooms (but to maintain frost protection). Set the time
clock to cope with your most likely hours of use. When you know that you
are leaving the one room that you wish to be in turn off the TRV in that
room.

You seem to think that a heating bill of £100 per room is some sort of
significant saving. I've calculated my winter heating bill as £40 per
room, using oil fired CH. That ratio fits about correctly given the
inflated price per kWH that you are paying to heat your home using
electricity.

You're already using your oil fired boiler to provide DHW, so I suspect
that your "saving" is largely an illusion. The fact that you appear to
have a problem operating a mechnical control appears to be entirely your
problem.

"MM" wrote in message
news
On Fri, 26 Mar 2010 12:25:59 -0000, "ARWadsworth"
wrote:

It could be heated by turning the radiator on 20 minutes before you used
it.

Bit of a problem if I'm out at the shops.

You are spending 8 hours a day in there so you should have a good idea of
when you need the heating to turn on. And use the fan heater if you go in
early and and need the quick heat.

But as I've said before, my timeswitch only provides 3 on/offs per
day, so I cannot "dose" the CH for one particular room very precisely.
With a fan heater, I can.

And on a very cold day when you are going to spend 8 hours in that room why
not use the CH for the remaining seven and a half hours after the electric
fan has taken the chill off the room?

Cheers

Adam

On Mar 25, 5:47*am, Bruce wrote:
On Thu, 25 Mar 2010 02:19:17 +0000, Grimly Curmudgeon

wrote:
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember Al 1953 saying
something like:

I'm wondering whether I should fork out for gas central heating in my new
house. However, I wonder if elctric heating will be cheaper than gas
heating after they build the new nuclear power stations. I think that's
what happened in France, isn't it?

"Too cheap to meter", that rings a bell.

When they got past that particular barefaced lie, there was a
publicity drive stating that the prices of electricity generated from
nuclear, coal and oil were in the ratio 1:2:3. *

But that was also a barefaced lie, as nuclear power in the UK has
always cost more per kWh than electricity produced commercially from
any fossil fuel.

"Peak uranium" is not far behind "peak oil", which is going to happen
within the next decade. *The rush to nuclear power, the result of a
desire to lower CO2 emissions, will bring peak uranium ever closer.
Uranium prices will rocket and finding secure supplies will become
ever more difficult.

I wonder what the next "quick fix" will be after nuclear power? *Tidal
power, more wind power, perhaps, but these systems don't generate
power reliably when you need them. *Clean coal? *The first UK clean
coal station has just been denied planning permission on the basis of
a detailed report that showed the technology did not have a cat's
chance in hell of doing what was claimed for it. *Biomass? *The
proposed biomass power station on Anglesey would need most of its fuel
to be imported over long distances by sea, adding CO2 emissions.

So it looks like nuclear fusion will be needed to save the day. *But
it's 20-30 years away. *Funnily enough, they said the same 20-30 years
ago. *But 20-30 years on, it is still 20-30 years away. *

Must keep trying. *;-)

Here; a province in eastern Canada, with a population of approx. a
half million persons, almost all (about 95%) of our electrcity is
generated by hydro. With reasonable insulation levels, very tightly
sealed modern homes having heat recovery air exchangers etc, is
completely competitive with other fuels. Very few new homes now use
other than electricity for heating and it would be true that virtually
100% of new construction is electric. There are no supplies of piped
in gas; propane is used for BarBEQUes and/or delivered to 100 or 200
pound tanks for say a gas fireplace. The occasional restaurant use
propane for cooking stoves.

Electricity is without the complications/hazards of gas lines,
chimneys, combustion chambers, fuel tanks and the need for electricity
anyway to operate relays, pumps, ignition systems and blowers etc.
Electric heating is usually installed by the electricians at same that
they wire the house.

Our electrcity is generated several hundred miles away; a situation
similar to say using Scottish electrcity in Bristol?

Here there are no cheap rates, all domestic electrcity is rated the
same no matter when consumed. Taking an average domestic electrcity
bill (monthly billing) and dividing by the number of kilowatts used it
average to just over 10 cents per k.watt/hr (Unit). This takes into
account a monthly per account charge of about $16 (About ten quid even
if no electricity is used) and an overall sales-tax of, now, 13%.

Reliability of service is excellent, even with heavy icing and snow
storms. The general use of aerial lines and connections to individual
homes also allows very fast restoration. Imagine trying to dig up a
street with below freezing temps and traffic! Billing methods are
operated very fairly and speedily and phone access to power co.
service-reps. or maintenance depts. is good. Rates are regulated by a
provincial government Public Utilities Board.

Personal electric baseboard maintenance cost for this all-electric
house during the last 40 years has been less than $100; two
thermostats and one circuit breaker. None of the approx. dozen
baseboard heaters, ranging from 500 watt (bathroom) to 3000 watt (two
1500s end to end in the biggest room) have gone open or given other
trouble. We do use a small fan in the family room which is open to the
kitchen and also to the front hall/passage way to bedroom (all on one
floor bungalow) to help circulate the heat.

Allowing for other costs versus the low front end cost of an electric
heating installation (electrcity being needed anyway for other
household work) compared to the first costs and other trades need for
other fuels it would appear that, here, that basic electric heating
would be/is competitive up to somewhere around 1.5 times the cost of
the fuel.

Air and occasionally ground heat pumps are appearing in some newer
houses. First costs of a minimum additional $15,000 to $20,000 are
mentioned for an average 3 bedroom two storey house of around 2000 to
2500 sq. feet. They seem to work OK? Down to around minus 10 to 15
degrees Celsius? Especially when windy (not uncommon here next tot he
North Atlantic!) Below which it becomes electric heating. Much larger
homes are appearing with, rumoured heating installations costs much
higher!

We are, ironically, subjected to acid rain from North American
industrial pollution; which afterwards blows out over the Atlantic
towards Europe. There's no such thing IOHO, as 'clean coal'; as
British cities found out about a century ago? One does recall walking
right up to the side of a fully lit up a double decker bus (Unlike the
red London buses, were they green? Or was that only Liverpool buses
and trams,) in Manchester in 1955/56 and being a few feet away before
knowing what it was!

Anyway just for comparison-info/comment. BTW It's about plus 3 degrees
C. today (unusually mild for here) snow mostly gone it but feels damp
and bone chilling!

On Sat, 27 Mar 2010 12:12:42 -0000, "ARWadsworth"
wrote:


"MM" wrote in message
news
On Fri, 26 Mar 2010 12:25:59 -0000, "ARWadsworth"
wrote:

It could be heated by turning the radiator on 20 minutes before you used
it.

Bit of a problem if I'm out at the shops.

You are spending 8 hours a day in there so you should have a good idea of
when you need the heating to turn on. And use the fan heater if you go in
early and and need the quick heat.

But as I've said before, my timeswitch only provides 3 on/offs per
day, so I cannot "dose" the CH for one particular room very precisely.
With a fan heater, I can.

And on a very cold day when you are going to spend 8 hours in that room why
not use the CH for the remaining seven and a half hours after the electric
fan has taken the chill off the room?

Don't need any heating once the PCs get going. They keep the room nice
and warm, once the fan heater has done its job.

MM

On Sat, 27 Mar 2010 11:57:15 +0000, (Steve Firth)
wrote:

MM wrote:

"Oh, and when I'm not using the room I normally use, e.g. I've gone to
the shops or the library, then the room is still being heated? Have I
got that right? Are you recommending I do that? Heat an unoccupied
room for several hours?"

Just to make SURE you don't have an answer!

I have an answer, it appears you don't have a clue.

If you have TRVs they have a frost stat setting. If you're that anal
that you want to micro-manage heating then use the TRVs to shut off the
heat in unused rooms (but to maintain frost protection). Set the time
clock to cope with your most likely hours of use. When you know that you
are leaving the one room that you wish to be in turn off the TRV in that
room.

You seem to think that a heating bill of £100 per room is some sort of
significant saving. I've calculated my winter heating bill as £40 per
room, using oil fired CH. That ratio fits about correctly given the
inflated price per kWH that you are paying to heat your home using
electricity.

You're already using your oil fired boiler to provide DHW, so I suspect
that your "saving" is largely an illusion. The fact that you appear to
have a problem operating a mechnical control appears to be entirely your
problem.

What a ridiculous suggestion! You expect me to scrabble around turning
off the TRV in one room, turning another one on, spending 30 minutes
doing the supper, f'rinstance, then turn off the TRV...and so on...

This is crazy.

My fan heater switches ITSELF on and off once I choose the
temperature. (All immaterial now, as I need neither fan heater nor CH
since the weather warmed up.)

And it isn't £100 per room, anyway, since that amount is the total
extra amount over what I'd normally be paying. Moreover, I am not
"heating my home" as you put it. The fan heater gets used in any one
room, but only where I am at, including the bathroom. How can I get 10
minutes of warmth from the CH to have a shave and clean my teeth? I
can do that easily with a small fan heater.

MM

MM wrote:


What a ridiculous suggestion! You expect me to scrabble around turning
off the TRV in one room, turning another one on, spending 30 minutes
doing the supper, f'rinstance, then turn off the TRV...and so on...

Well no, I epxect you to be less of a tit than you have been, that's
about the long and short of it.

terry wrote:
On Mar 25, 5:47 am, Bruce wrote:
On Thu, 25 Mar 2010 02:19:17 +0000, Grimly Curmudgeon

wrote:
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember Al 1953 saying
something like:
I'm wondering whether I should fork out for gas central heating in my new
house. However, I wonder if elctric heating will be cheaper than gas
heating after they build the new nuclear power stations. I think that's
what happened in France, isn't it?
"Too cheap to meter", that rings a bell.
When they got past that particular barefaced lie, there was a
publicity drive stating that the prices of electricity generated from
nuclear, coal and oil were in the ratio 1:2:3.

But that was also a barefaced lie, as nuclear power in the UK has
always cost more per kWh than electricity produced commercially from
any fossil fuel.

"Peak uranium" is not far behind "peak oil", which is going to happen
within the next decade. The rush to nuclear power, the result of a
desire to lower CO2 emissions, will bring peak uranium ever closer.
Uranium prices will rocket and finding secure supplies will become
ever more difficult.

I wonder what the next "quick fix" will be after nuclear power? Tidal
power, more wind power, perhaps, but these systems don't generate
power reliably when you need them. Clean coal? The first UK clean
coal station has just been denied planning permission on the basis of
a detailed report that showed the technology did not have a cat's
chance in hell of doing what was claimed for it. Biomass? The
proposed biomass power station on Anglesey would need most of its fuel
to be imported over long distances by sea, adding CO2 emissions.

So it looks like nuclear fusion will be needed to save the day. But
it's 20-30 years away. Funnily enough, they said the same 20-30 years
ago. But 20-30 years on, it is still 20-30 years away.

Must keep trying. ;-)

Here; a province in eastern Canada, with a population of approx. a
half million persons, almost all (about 95%) of our electrcity is
generated by hydro. With reasonable insulation levels, very tightly
sealed modern homes having heat recovery air exchangers etc, is
completely competitive with other fuels. Very few new homes now use
other than electricity for heating and it would be true that virtually
100% of new construction is electric. There are no supplies of piped
in gas; propane is used for BarBEQUes and/or delivered to 100 or 200
pound tanks for say a gas fireplace. The occasional restaurant use
propane for cooking stoves.

Hydro, if you have the correct geography, is in fact dirty cheap, as teh
fuel is free. Its very similar to nuclear in that respect, although
nuclear has the added complexity of steam generation and the actual
reactor, so capital costs may be higher, depending on how big a dam has
to be built. Hydro dams though have longer lifetimes than most power
stations .



Electricity is without the complications/hazards of gas lines,
chimneys, combustion chambers, fuel tanks and the need for electricity
anyway to operate relays, pumps, ignition systems and blowers etc.
Electric heating is usually installed by the electricians at same that
they wire the house.

Our electrcity is generated several hundred miles away; a situation
similar to say using Scottish electrcity in Bristol?


a couple of hundred miles of RELIABLE generation to consumer adds about
10% typically to the cost at our rates here (UK)

The problem comes when you have to over specify that to use teh power
that e.g. a windfarm MIGHT generate. Or might not. Because the load
factor is around 30%, you need typically three times as much grid
capacity to fully utilise the windfarm, which is a hidden cost that is
almost never mentioned by anyone, and certainly never by the Dynamo
Devotees.


Here there are no cheap rates, all domestic electrcity is rated the
same no matter when consumed. Taking an average domestic electrcity
bill (monthly billing) and dividing by the number of kilowatts used it
average to just over 10 cents per k.watt/hr (Unit). This takes into
account a monthly per account charge of about $16 (About ten quid even
if no electricity is used) and an overall sales-tax of, now, 13%.


I suspect that because when its cold, people run heating 24x7, and when
its hot, aircon 24x7 :-)

Reliability of service is excellent, even with heavy icing and snow
storms. The general use of aerial lines and connections to individual
homes also allows very fast restoration. Imagine trying to dig up a
street with below freezing temps and traffic!

There you are wrong. Aerial lines may fix faster, but they need fixing
more often. For which reason the National Grid here no longer builds any
11KV overheads and all new build houses have underground feeders.

They almost never go wrong.

Whereas we get outages from the overhead 11KV stuff every year. Trees or
wing causing them to arc over., or simple insulator degradation causing
similar.


Although its 5 times more expensive to underground, in general, the cost
benefit from less maintenance makes it ultimately the cheaper way to
manage lines at these intermediate voltages.

At higher voltages the capacitative loss to ground makes it infeasible
sadly. Unless you use DC. But that has other problems.


Billing methods are
operated very fairly and speedily and phone access to power co.
service-reps. or maintenance depts. is good. Rates are regulated by a
provincial government Public Utilities Board.

Personal electric baseboard maintenance cost for this all-electric
house during the last 40 years has been less than $100; two
thermostats and one circuit breaker. None of the approx. dozen
baseboard heaters, ranging from 500 watt (bathroom) to 3000 watt (two
1500s end to end in the biggest room) have gone open or given other
trouble. We do use a small fan in the family room which is open to the
kitchen and also to the front hall/passage way to bedroom (all on one
floor bungalow) to help circulate the heat.

Allowing for other costs versus the low front end cost of an electric
heating installation (electrcity being needed anyway for other
household work) compared to the first costs and other trades need for
other fuels it would appear that, here, that basic electric heating
would be/is competitive up to somewhere around 1.5 times the cost of
the fuel.


Yes, its very cheap. I doubt even nuclear can match a good hydro power
installation.

And of course Canada is home to the CANDU reactor which is also very
cheap per Kwh as a generator.


Air and occasionally ground heat pumps are appearing in some newer
houses. First costs of a minimum additional $15,000 to $20,000 are
mentioned for an average 3 bedroom two storey house of around 2000 to
2500 sq. feet. They seem to work OK? Down to around minus 10 to 15
degrees Celsius? Especially when windy (not uncommon here next tot he
North Atlantic!) Below which it becomes electric heating. Much larger
homes are appearing with, rumoured heating installations costs much
higher!


yes, the heatpump doesn't do a good job at REALLY low temps.

We are, ironically, subjected to acid rain from North American
industrial pollution; which afterwards blows out over the Atlantic
towards Europe. There's no such thing IOHO, as 'clean coal'; as
British cities found out about a century ago? One does recall walking
right up to the side of a fully lit up a double decker bus (Unlike the
red London buses, were they green? Or was that only Liverpool buses
and trams,) in Manchester in 1955/56 and being a few feet away before
knowing what it was!

Anyway just for comparison-info/comment. BTW It's about plus 3 degrees
C. today (unusually mild for here) snow mostly gone it but feels damp
and bone chilling!

Steve Firth wrote:
MM wrote:

What a ridiculous suggestion! You expect me to scrabble around turning
off the TRV in one room, turning another one on, spending 30 minutes
doing the supper, f'rinstance, then turn off the TRV...and so on...

Well no, I epxect you to be less of a tit than you have been, that's
about the long and short of it.
Only one tit so far and that's you.

Sunk any good yachts recently?

"ARWadsworth" wrote in
:


The cats have fur and not my central
heating

My last c/h system had fur.. It used to clog up the heat exchanger. ;-)

Al

"MM" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 27 Mar 2010 11:57:15 +0000, (Steve Firth)
wrote:

MM wrote:

"Oh, and when I'm not using the room I normally use, e.g. I've gone to
the shops or the library, then the room is still being heated? Have I
got that right? Are you recommending I do that? Heat an unoccupied
room for several hours?"

Just to make SURE you don't have an answer!

I have an answer, it appears you don't have a clue.

If you have TRVs they have a frost stat setting. If you're that anal
that you want to micro-manage heating then use the TRVs to shut off the
heat in unused rooms (but to maintain frost protection). Set the time
clock to cope with your most likely hours of use. When you know that you
are leaving the one room that you wish to be in turn off the TRV in that
room.

You seem to think that a heating bill of £100 per room is some sort of
significant saving. I've calculated my winter heating bill as £40 per
room, using oil fired CH. That ratio fits about correctly given the
inflated price per kWH that you are paying to heat your home using
electricity.

You're already using your oil fired boiler to provide DHW, so I suspect
that your "saving" is largely an illusion. The fact that you appear to
have a problem operating a mechnical control appears to be entirely your
problem.

What a ridiculous suggestion! You expect me to scrabble around turning
off the TRV in one room, turning another one on, spending 30 minutes
doing the supper, f'rinstance, then turn off the TRV...and so on...

This is crazy.

My fan heater switches ITSELF on and off once I choose the
temperature. (All immaterial now, as I need neither fan heater nor CH
since the weather warmed up.)

And it isn't £100 per room, anyway, since that amount is the total
extra amount over what I'd normally be paying. Moreover, I am not
"heating my home" as you put it. The fan heater gets used in any one
room, but only where I am at, including the bathroom.

So it is £100 per room then. The paragraph above says so.

And then you turn your central heating on for the coldest nights to stop
pipes freezing. What a brilliant idea to waste money.

I suspect that you are tighter than the offspring made by a Yorkshireman and
a Scotswoman and you are living in a dream world.

Adam

In message , ARWadsworth
writes

"MM" wrote in message
.. .
On Sat, 27 Mar 2010 11:57:15 +0000, (Steve Firth)
wrote:

MM wrote:

"Oh, and when I'm not using the room I normally use, e.g. I've gone to
the shops or the library, then the room is still being heated? Have I
got that right? Are you recommending I do that? Heat an unoccupied
room for several hours?"

Just to make SURE you don't have an answer!

I have an answer, it appears you don't have a clue.

If you have TRVs they have a frost stat setting. If you're that anal
that you want to micro-manage heating then use the TRVs to shut off the
heat in unused rooms (but to maintain frost protection). Set the time
clock to cope with your most likely hours of use. When you know that you
are leaving the one room that you wish to be in turn off the TRV in that
room.

You seem to think that a heating bill of £100 per room is some sort of
significant saving. I've calculated my winter heating bill as £40 per
room, using oil fired CH. That ratio fits about correctly given the
inflated price per kWH that you are paying to heat your home using
electricity.

You're already using your oil fired boiler to provide DHW, so I suspect
that your "saving" is largely an illusion. The fact that you appear to
have a problem operating a mechnical control appears to be entirely your
problem.

What a ridiculous suggestion! You expect me to scrabble around turning
off the TRV in one room, turning another one on, spending 30 minutes
doing the supper, f'rinstance, then turn off the TRV...and so on...

This is crazy.

My fan heater switches ITSELF on and off once I choose the
temperature. (All immaterial now, as I need neither fan heater nor CH
since the weather warmed up.)

And it isn't £100 per room, anyway, since that amount is the total
extra amount over what I'd normally be paying. Moreover, I am not
"heating my home" as you put it. The fan heater gets used in any one
room, but only where I am at, including the bathroom.

So it is £100 per room then. The paragraph above says so.

And then you turn your central heating on for the coldest nights to stop
pipes freezing. What a brilliant idea to waste money.

I suspect that you are tighter than the offspring made by a Yorkshireman and
a Scotswoman and you are living in a dream world.

This is the kerl who uses a single cup heating element for his coffee


--
geoff

On Sun, 28 Mar 2010 16:26:18 +0100, "ARWadsworth"
wrote:


"MM" wrote in message
.. .
On Sat, 27 Mar 2010 11:57:15 +0000, (Steve Firth)
wrote:

MM wrote:

"Oh, and when I'm not using the room I normally use, e.g. I've gone to
the shops or the library, then the room is still being heated? Have I
got that right? Are you recommending I do that? Heat an unoccupied
room for several hours?"

Just to make SURE you don't have an answer!

I have an answer, it appears you don't have a clue.

If you have TRVs they have a frost stat setting. If you're that anal
that you want to micro-manage heating then use the TRVs to shut off the
heat in unused rooms (but to maintain frost protection). Set the time
clock to cope with your most likely hours of use. When you know that you
are leaving the one room that you wish to be in turn off the TRV in that
room.

You seem to think that a heating bill of £100 per room is some sort of
significant saving. I've calculated my winter heating bill as £40 per
room, using oil fired CH. That ratio fits about correctly given the
inflated price per kWH that you are paying to heat your home using
electricity.

You're already using your oil fired boiler to provide DHW, so I suspect
that your "saving" is largely an illusion. The fact that you appear to
have a problem operating a mechnical control appears to be entirely your
problem.

What a ridiculous suggestion! You expect me to scrabble around turning
off the TRV in one room, turning another one on, spending 30 minutes
doing the supper, f'rinstance, then turn off the TRV...and so on...

This is crazy.

My fan heater switches ITSELF on and off once I choose the
temperature. (All immaterial now, as I need neither fan heater nor CH
since the weather warmed up.)

And it isn't £100 per room, anyway, since that amount is the total
extra amount over what I'd normally be paying. Moreover, I am not
"heating my home" as you put it. The fan heater gets used in any one
room, but only where I am at, including the bathroom.

So it is £100 per room then. The paragraph above says so.

The £100 is the TOTAL amount. The fan heater is used in the room I am
in. So when I am in the bathroom, it (obviously!) isn't on in the
computer room.

And then you turn your central heating on for the coldest nights to stop
pipes freezing.

But I'd turn them on anyway for an extra period even if I was using
the CH instead of the fan heater. Even if I used CH "all of the time",
my "all" would be considerably less than many householders, since (a)
I don't like an overheated environment and (b) I'd set the "off" time
for, say, 11pm anyway. But on the *coldest* nights (-7 deg or more) I
would still want to give extra protection to the pipes at 4am, even if
only for 30 minutes.

What a brilliant idea to waste money.

No one has yet proved to me that I am, since no one has yet explained
how I might have obtained *tageted* heating in the same way from £100
of heating oil over 110 days.

I suspect that you are tighter than the offspring made by a Yorkshireman and
a Scotswoman

There you are completely correct!

and you are living in a dream world.

Here you are not.

MM

"MM" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 28 Mar 2010 16:26:18 +0100, "ARWadsworth"
wrote:

No one has yet proved to me that I am, since no one has yet explained
how I might have obtained *tageted* heating in the same way from £100
of heating oil over 110 days.

Well you can shout at a deaf man all day long.

Adam

On Mar 29, 1:12*pm, "ARWadsworth"
wrote:
"MM" wrote in message

...

On Sun, 28 Mar 2010 16:26:18 +0100, "ARWadsworth"
wrote:

No one has yet proved to me that I am, since no one has yet explained
how I might have obtained *tageted* heating in the same way from 100
of heating oil over 110 days.

Well you can shout at a deaf man all day long.

Adam

What does seem to escape many is that with a reasonably insulated
home; this one is circa 1970 and NOT as well insulated as if I was
building it today, is that in an all electric house MOST of the energy
coming in, electrically, does some good towards heating the home
before escaping through walls ceilings etc. We have a bathroom, for
example, which is mostly heated by the six 40 watt incandescent bulbs
over the vanity mirror. The amount of electrically generated heat is
all a matter of degree (pun intended), the soldering iron very little
and the oven, if roasting/baking adds quite a lot.

One really wasteful item is the a clothes dryer which chucks its moist
warm air outside. Also outside lights, probably the one location where
CFLS or LEDs make sense?.

Getting up this morning with the electric heat turned down over night
to about 60F (it was minus 9 Celsius last night but not a lot of wind,
it's back up to minus one Celsius right now) I did turn on the
thermostat in the hallway for a few minutes, it had been completely
off and also turned on the electric oven for about ten minutes just to
speed things up.

While this house was/is built as all electric we did later add a very
inefficient rock faced fire-place (presently blocked off) and while
doing that, some 25 years ago, we added a separate flu to the basement
to which have connected an old Jotul wood stove which burns scrap wood
and left overs from the trees on this property and some of the wind-
fall trees from a few acres we own on back of this town. Basically
free firewood, plus the effort of getting it, offset, one hopes from a
carbon footprint viewpoint, by the re-growth and deliberate planting
of trees we have undertaken during the last 50+ years. In this
latitude we do not need air conditioning; it is rarely installed being
occasionally available the few days it MIGHT be nice to have it on by
some reversible heat pumps systems. However most months (about 9 or
10) here need some heating especially during cool/cold evenings when
lights/TV etc. tend to be on anyway.

Filled in one of those UK based 'Carbon footprint' surveys, our
results not being too bad despite our cold weather and long heating
season; and then realised that it must assume electrcity is generated
by burning gas or something? Also it made no allowance for the process
of planting trees. When we bought this land there wasn't a single tree
or bush. Now about 70 fair sized trees on this half acre or so. Some
are 35 feet/more high. But without leaves they don't provide much
shelter from winds during the winter!

BTW saw my first Robin other day! The North American variety, about
same size as a thrush, with a more orange breast than the British
'Robin Red Breast'. He/she seemed quite surprised by the snow falling
on the deck/patio (the day previous it had been completely clear and
had even got one of the folding chairs out to sit and drink a cuppa,
in the morning sun!

Robin maybe retreated a few hundred/thousand miles to the south back
to their migration zone in the USA? However the crows (actually a
variety of raven) are making quite fuss in one of the 30 foot plus
trees we planted some 40 years ago and in which they have nested at
least once previously; ensuring noisy mornings from the nest no more
than ten metres or so from daughters bedroom window!

Cheers.

Oh by the way thought we were finished with snow-blowing, but
yesterday had to use it again, not much snow but it had drifted a bit
and needed to move it before it gets warm slushy and heavy! S'posed to
go to plus 6 Celsius next day or so!

"terry" wrote in message
...
On Mar 29, 1:12 pm, "ARWadsworth"
wrote:
"MM" wrote in message

...

On Sun, 28 Mar 2010 16:26:18 +0100, "ARWadsworth"
wrote:

No one has yet proved to me that I am, since no one has yet explained
how I might have obtained *tageted* heating in the same way from 100
of heating oil over 110 days.

Well you can shout at a deaf man all day long.

Adam

What does seem to escape many is that with a reasonably insulated
home; this one is circa 1970 and NOT as well insulated as if I was
building it today, is that in an all electric house MOST of the energy
coming in, electrically, does some good towards heating the home
before escaping through walls ceilings etc.

Yes but see

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9svHH6SCZ4


Adam

ARWadsworth wrote:
"MM" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 28 Mar 2010 16:26:18 +0100, "ARWadsworth"
wrote:

No one has yet proved to me that I am, since no one has yet explained
how I might have obtained *tageted* heating in the same way from £100
of heating oil over 110 days.

Well you can shout at a deaf man all day long.

Adam


easy peasy, by spending £2000 on control gear.

On Mon, 29 Mar 2010 17:12:47 +0100, "ARWadsworth"
wrote:


"MM" wrote in message
.. .
On Sun, 28 Mar 2010 16:26:18 +0100, "ARWadsworth"
wrote:

No one has yet proved to me that I am, since no one has yet explained
how I might have obtained *tageted* heating in the same way from £100
of heating oil over 110 days.

Well you can shout at a deaf man all day long.

Interesting. But in what way does that comment explain how I might
have obtained *targeted* heating over said period from just a hundred
quid's worth of oil (2½ litres per day)?

MM

On Sun, 28 Mar 2010 15:06:13 +0000, Al 1953 wrote:
"ARWadsworth" wrote in
:

The cats have fur and not my central heating

My last c/h system had fur.. It used to clog up the heat exchanger. ;-)

It obviously wore the wrong type of shoes.

On 24/03/10 22:15, wrote:
On Wed, 24 Mar 2010 21:37:38 +0000 (UTC), Al
wrote:

I'm wondering whether I should fork out for gas central heating in my new
house. However, I wonder if elctric heating will be cheaper than gas
heating after they build the new nuclear power stations. I think that's
what happened in France, isn't it?

Al

Not likely. Electric is 3x 4x as expensive and that gap will not be
closed for the lifetime of any current type of gas/electric system.

So why is it not economical to generate one's own domestic electrickery from
a small mains gas-fired generator.

chunkyoldcortina wrote:
On 24/03/10 22:15, wrote:
On Wed, 24 Mar 2010 21:37:38 +0000 (UTC), Al
wrote:

I'm wondering whether I should fork out for gas central heating in my
new
house. However, I wonder if elctric heating will be cheaper than gas
heating after they build the new nuclear power stations. I think that's
what happened in France, isn't it?

Al

Not likely. Electric is 3x 4x as expensive and that gap will not be
closed for the lifetime of any current type of gas/electric system.

So why is it not economical to generate one's own domestic electrickery
from a small mains gas-fired generator.




If you use a heat pump, electricity is actually cheaper than gas or oil,
just about. its certainly in thee area where a blanket statement is not
true. The devil is in the details.

secondly, the efficiency you get from a petrol or diesel generator is
far less than you get from a properly constructed power station, and
you will almost certainly end up paying road fuel tax on the fuel. Even
if you don't, its very marginal. And you cant get a domestic nuclear
reactor, which is of course currently pipping the post as the cheapest
way to push electrons down wires.

you probably only get 20% eff. form a diesel generator, and that varies
with the load. A good power station averages the load of lots of people,
and achieves up to 60%. AND they can forward buy fuel in bulk.


You can get 80% eff* off a boiler heating water. Maybe more.

Compare that with 60% for the power station and 95% for the grid. No
point in direct electrical heating carbon wise unless you use nukes to
make it.

Finally, if nuclear power becomes widely adopted, and fossil fuel start
to get hard to extract, and or attracts a carbon tax, electricity will
in time be cheaper than fossil fuel.

*true thermal efficiency, not concocted figures by boiler manufacturers.

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

If you use a heat pump, electricity is actually cheaper than gas or oil,
just about. its certainly in thee area where a blanket statement is not
true. The devil is in the details.

secondly, the efficiency you get from a petrol or diesel generator is
far less than you get from a properly constructed power station, and
you will almost certainly end up paying road fuel tax on the fuel. Even
if you don't, its very marginal. And you cant get a domestic nuclear
reactor, which is of course currently pipping the post as the cheapest
way to push electrons down wires.

you probably only get 20% eff. form a diesel generator, and that varies
with the load. A good power station averages the load of lots of people,
and achieves up to 60%. AND they can forward buy fuel in bulk.


You can get 80% eff* off a boiler heating water. Maybe more.

Compare that with 60% for the power station and 95% for the grid. No
point in direct electrical heating carbon wise unless you use nukes to
make it.

Finally, if nuclear power becomes widely adopted, and fossil fuel start
to get hard to extract, and or attracts a carbon tax, electricity will
in time be cheaper than fossil fuel.

*true thermal efficiency, not concocted figures by boiler manufacturers.


Is a domestic scale CHP system feasible? (use the coolant and hot
exhaust from your diesel to heat the hot water / radiators)

Andy

Andy Champ wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

If you use a heat pump, electricity is actually cheaper than gas or
oil, just about. its certainly in thee area where a blanket statement
is not true. The devil is in the details.

secondly, the efficiency you get from a petrol or diesel generator is
far less than you get from a properly constructed power station, and
you will almost certainly end up paying road fuel tax on the fuel.
Even if you don't, its very marginal. And you cant get a domestic
nuclear reactor, which is of course currently pipping the post as the
cheapest way to push electrons down wires.

you probably only get 20% eff. form a diesel generator, and that
varies with the load. A good power station averages the load of lots
of people, and achieves up to 60%. AND they can forward buy fuel in bulk.


You can get 80% eff* off a boiler heating water. Maybe more.

Compare that with 60% for the power station and 95% for the grid. No
point in direct electrical heating carbon wise unless you use nukes to
make it.

Finally, if nuclear power becomes widely adopted, and fossil fuel
start to get hard to extract, and or attracts a carbon tax,
electricity will in time be cheaper than fossil fuel.

*true thermal efficiency, not concocted figures by boiler manufacturers.


Is a domestic scale CHP system feasible? (use the coolant and hot
exhaust from your diesel to heat the hot water / radiators)


Of course its feasible: whether its cost effective is quite another matter.

Its a bloody poor way to make watts in summer!

at 20% efficiency a 25bhp engine (small 2 liter non turbo diesel at say
3000 RPM) is generating 15Kw of electricity, and 60KW of heat!

I often need 15Kw electricity. I NEVER need 60KW of heat.


Andy

On 26 Jul,
chunkyoldcortina wrote:

Not likely. Electric is 3x 4x as expensive and that gap will not be
closed for the lifetime of any current type of gas/electric system.

So why is it not economical to generate one's own domestic electrickery
from a small mains gas-fired generator.

Cos it's limited in efficiency by thermodynamic constraints. If you use the
waste heat it's a different matter, hence the interest in CHP. Capital costs
will be high.

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