We have a conservatory which as expected gets freezing cold in winter.
I need to heat it.
My understanding is that It is against the Building control exemption
to extend our gas central heating
At the home improvement show recently at Earls Court was a company
selling air con units which can run in reverse cycle The supplier
claims that these units working in reverse will give 3.5 usuable
units per unit of electricity used I am not interested in the cooling
prowess as this is not an issue
Does anyone have anyone have any real world view of this ? Do they
work properly?
It all sounds too good to be true

wrote in message
...
We have a conservatory which as expected gets freezing cold in winter.
I need to heat it.
My understanding is that It is against the Building control exemption
to extend our gas central heating

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.

At the home improvement show recently at Earls Court was a company
selling air con units which can run in reverse cycle The supplier
claims that these units working in reverse will give 3.5 usuable
units per unit of electricity used I am not interested in the cooling
prowess as this is not an issue
Does anyone have anyone have any real world view of this ? Do they
work properly?
It all sounds too good to be true

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

wrote:
We have a conservatory which as expected gets freezing cold in winter.
I need to heat it.
My understanding is that It is against the Building control exemption
to extend our gas central heating
At the home improvement show recently at Earls Court was a company
selling air con units which can run in reverse cycle The supplier
claims that these units working in reverse will give 3.5 usuable
units per unit of electricity used I am not interested in the cooling
prowess as this is not an issue
Does anyone have anyone have any real world view of this ? Do they
work properly?
It all sounds too good to be true

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.

On 20/10/2011 13:38, wrote:
We have a conservatory which as expected gets freezing cold in winter.
I need to heat it.
My understanding is that It is against the Building control exemption
to extend our gas central heating
At the home improvement show recently at Earls Court was a company
selling air con units which can run in reverse cycle The supplier
claims that these units working in reverse will give 3.5 usuable
units per unit of electricity used I am not interested in the cooling
prowess as this is not an issue
Does anyone have anyone have any real world view of this ? Do they
work properly?
It all sounds too good to be true

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

"AlanD" wrote in message
...
On 20/10/2011 13:38, wrote:
We have a conservatory which as expected gets freezing cold in winter.
I need to heat it.
My understanding is that It is against the Building control exemption
to extend our gas central heating
At the home improvement show recently at Earls Court was a company
selling air con units which can run in reverse cycle The supplier
claims that these units working in reverse will give 3.5 usuable
units per unit of electricity used I am not interested in the cooling
prowess as this is not an issue
Does anyone have anyone have any real world view of this ? Do they
work properly?
It all sounds too good to be true

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
--
No plan survives contact with the enemy.
[Not even bunny]

Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

(\__/)
(='.'=)
(")_(")

David WE Roberts wrote:

"AlanD" wrote in message
...
On 20/10/2011 13:38, wrote:
We have a conservatory which as expected gets freezing cold in winter.
I need to heat it.
My understanding is that It is against the Building control exemption
to extend our gas central heating
At the home improvement show recently at Earls Court was a company
selling air con units which can run in reverse cycle The supplier
claims that these units working in reverse will give 3.5 usuable
units per unit of electricity used I am not interested in the cooling
prowess as this is not an issue
Does anyone have anyone have any real world view of this ? Do they
work properly?
It all sounds too good to be true

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.

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


Presumably as you have UFH the conservatory was insulated to the then
current building regs as part of the house.


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

Cheers

Dave R

"David WE Roberts" wrote in message
...

"AlanD" wrote in message
...
On 20/10/2011 13:38, wrote:
We have a conservatory which as expected gets freezing cold in winter.
I need to heat it.
My understanding is that It is against the Building control exemption
to extend our gas central heating
At the home improvement show recently at Earls Court was a company
selling air con units which can run in reverse cycle The supplier
claims that these units working in reverse will give 3.5 usuable
units per unit of electricity used I am not interested in the cooling
prowess as this is not an issue
Does anyone have anyone have any real world view of this ? Do they
work properly?
It all sounds too good to be true

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
--
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.

SS wrote:

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
--
Chris J Dixon Nottingham UK


Have dancing shoes, will ceilidh.

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.


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

Philip

wrote in message
...
We have a conservatory which as expected gets freezing cold in winter.
I need to heat it.
My understanding is that It is against the Building control exemption
to extend our gas central heating
At the home improvement show recently at Earls Court was a company
selling air con units which can run in reverse cycle The supplier
claims that these units working in reverse will give 3.5 usuable
units per unit of electricity used I am not interested in the cooling
prowess as this is not an issue
Does anyone have anyone have any real world view of this ? Do they
work properly?
It all sounds too good to be true

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

On Oct 20, 1:47*pm, "dennis@home" wrote:
wrote in message

...

We have a conservatory which as expected gets freezing cold in winter.
I need to heat it.
My understanding is that It is against the Building control exemption
to extend our gas central heating

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.

At the home improvement show recently at Earls Court was a company
selling air con units which can run in reverse cycle The supplier
claims that these units working in reverse will give 3.5 *usuable
units per unit of electricity used I am not interested in the cooling
prowess as this is not an issue
Does anyone have anyone have any real world view of this ? Do they
work properly?
It all sounds too good to be true

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

Heat pumps (which is what it is) can pump heat from outside to inside
or vice versa. They can shift up to 4X the energy expended through
them (Coefficient of performance)

There are a coupleof snags,one being as it gets colder outside they
work less well. How cold depends on the refrigerant gas used. There
some expensive ones that use CO2 that overcome this problem up to a
point.

The other snage is that on heating mode the evaporator (outside) ices
up in humid conditions (like we are having now) Some have a defrost
heater but I have heard they can be ineffective on some of them.

On Thu, 20 Oct 2011 05:38:16 -0700, wrote:

We have a conservatory which as expected gets freezing cold in winter. I
need to heat it.

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

wrote in message
...
We have a conservatory which as expected gets freezing cold in winter.
I need to heat it.
My understanding is that It is against the Building control exemption
to extend our gas central heating
At the home improvement show recently at Earls Court was a company
selling air con units which can run in reverse cycle The supplier
claims that these units working in reverse will give 3.5 usuable
units per unit of electricity used I am not interested in the cooling
prowess as this is not an issue
Does anyone have anyone have any real world view of this ? Do they
work properly?
It all sounds too good to be true

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.

On 20/10/2011 15:30, wrote:


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.


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

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.


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

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.



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;!...
--
Tony Sayer

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

Brian

--
Brian Gaff -
Note:- In order to reduce spam, any email without 'Brian Gaff'
in the display name may be lost.
Blind user, so no pictures please!
"dennis@home" wrote in message
eb.com...


wrote in message
...
We have a conservatory which as expected gets freezing cold in winter.
I need to heat it.
My understanding is that It is against the Building control exemption
to extend our gas central heating

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.

At the home improvement show recently at Earls Court was a company
selling air con units which can run in reverse cycle The supplier
claims that these units working in reverse will give 3.5 usuable
units per unit of electricity used I am not interested in the cooling
prowess as this is not an issue
Does anyone have anyone have any real world view of this ? Do they
work properly?
It all sounds too good to be true

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

Baz wrote:
wrote in message
...
We have a conservatory which as expected gets freezing cold in winter.
I need to heat it.
My understanding is that It is against the Building control exemption
to extend our gas central heating
At the home improvement show recently at Earls Court was a company
selling air con units which can run in reverse cycle The supplier
claims that these units working in reverse will give 3.5 usuable
units per unit of electricity used I am not interested in the cooling
prowess as this is not an issue
Does anyone have anyone have any real world view of this ? Do they
work properly?
It all sounds too good to be true

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


But is the conservatory insulated to 'house' standards.

On 20/10/2011 14:23, David WE Roberts wrote:

"AlanD" wrote in message
...
On 20/10/2011 13:38, wrote:
We have a conservatory which as expected gets freezing cold in winter.
I need to heat it.
My understanding is that It is against the Building control exemption
to extend our gas central heating
At the home improvement show recently at Earls Court was a company
selling air con units which can run in reverse cycle The supplier
claims that these units working in reverse will give 3.5 usuable
units per unit of electricity used I am not interested in the cooling
prowess as this is not an issue
Does anyone have anyone have any real world view of this ? Do they
work properly?
It all sounds too good to be true

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

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.

"Baz" wrote in message
...


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.

Don't invite the BCO around to dinner.

"Brian Gaff" wrote in message
...
So is this a way to cool the world and heat up your conservatory then?

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

On Oct 20, 3:34*pm, "Baz" wrote:
wrote in message

...

We have a conservatory which as expected gets freezing cold in winter.
I need to heat it.
My understanding is that It is against the Building control exemption
to extend our gas central heating
At the home improvement show recently at Earls Court was a company
selling air con units which can run in reverse cycle The supplier
claims that these units working in reverse will give 3.5 *usuable
units per unit of electricity used I am not interested in the cooling
prowess as this is not an issue
Does anyone have anyone have any real world view of this ? Do they
work properly?
It all sounds too good to be true

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

loss of heat & money


NT

On Thu, 20 Oct 2011 09:49:37 -0700, harry wrote:
There are a coupleof snags,one being as it gets colder outside they work
less well. How cold depends on the refrigerant gas used. There some
expensive ones that use CO2 that overcome this problem up to a point.

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...

In article ,
" writes:
We have a conservatory which as expected gets freezing cold in winter.
I need to heat it.
My understanding is that It is against the Building control exemption
to extend our gas central heating
At the home improvement show recently at Earls Court was a company
selling air con units which can run in reverse cycle The supplier
claims that these units working in reverse will give 3.5 usuable
units per unit of electricity used I am not interested in the cooling
prowess as this is not an issue
Does anyone have anyone have any real world view of this ? Do they
work properly?
It all sounds too good to be true

Yes, I DIY fitted one in my living room 5 or 6 years ago, which also
serves as my office during the day if I'm working at home (which I
usually do, unless I have a customer or meeting to attend). It
allows me to heat just the living room, and it is very efficient
and cheap to run. Also allows me to cool it in the summer, but to
be honest, there are usually just a few days of cooling required,
verses several weeks of heating through the winter.

For heating, it works well except for an outside temperature range
between 0C and 5C, where the outside evaporator will ice up with
condensation, requiring it to run through defrost cycles, at which
point it becomes inefficient. Once the outside temp drops below 0C,
it works fine again (although I didn't realise this for first couple
of years).

I have it plugged in to a power meter, and ISTR it used about £15
of electricity all through one winter.

So, very pleased with it. Mine came from B&Q when they had £200 off.
B&Q only did them for about 2 years, but were it not for the £200
off, specialist suppliers would have been cheaper, plus they go to
the effort to do the paperwork for 5% VAT on air-sourced heat pumps,
which B&Q didn't.

The other thing I looked at is these units were much cheaper if you
can drive down to some of the warmer parts of Europe and buy them
there, where they aren't seen as luxury items. Don't know if that's
still true today.

The DIY fitting isn't particularly easy (that's why B&Q stopped
doing them). You can get units professionally fitted too (a colleague
had that done), but the installation cost is several times the equipment
costs, so that works out much more expensive.

There are some rules on what you can and can't do with refrigerant
if you don't have the relevant C&G, but the rules do allow you to
fit preloaded aircon units with self-sealing connectors (although
bizzarely they don't allow you to check for leaks).

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

On Thu, 20 Oct 2011 16:55:30 +0000 (UTC), Jules Richardson wrote:

On Thu, 20 Oct 2011 05:38:16 -0700, wrote:

We have a conservatory which as expected gets freezing cold in winter. I
need to heat it.

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?



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).

I think I must be losing the plot a little ...

250w x 8 hours =2kwH so 60kwH/month £72/year at 10p/unit quite reasonable
for multiple family pets but ....
so 3% of monthly bill would imply 2000kwh per month (3/100*2000 = 60)
which is about 2000/30 =67kwH/day or about 24000kwH per year !!! at
10p/unit thats £2400 OMG I thought our 7600KwH was high :-(



--
(º€¢.¸(¨*€¢.¸ ¸.€¢*¨)¸.€¢Âº)
.€¢Â°€¢. Nik .€¢Â°€¢.
(¸.€¢Âº(¸.€¢Â¨* *¨€¢.¸)º€¢.¸)

On 20/10/2011 14:23, David WE Roberts wrote:

"AlanD" wrote in message
...
On 20/10/2011 13:38, wrote:
We have a conservatory which as expected gets freezing cold in winter.
I need to heat it.
My understanding is that It is against the Building control exemption
to extend our gas central heating
At the home improvement show recently at Earls Court was a company
selling air con units which can run in reverse cycle The supplier
claims that these units working in reverse will give 3.5 usuable
units per unit of electricity used I am not interested in the cooling
prowess as this is not an issue
Does anyone have anyone have any real world view of this ? Do they
work properly?
It all sounds too good to be true

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).

Correct and still the case I think.

If you were exempt from the insulation requirements you weren't supposed
to extend the central heating into the conservatory.

No. Only a requirement for separate controls.

Presumably as you have UFH the conservatory was insulated to the then
current building regs as part of the house.

The situation was due to change on the 1st October 2010 (hence why I
started construction on 28th September, so as to keep BC out of it as
once construction has started you are locked into the old regs and
exemptions). However, I think that the change was abandoned after the
new government came in.

SteveW

wrote in message
...
We have a conservatory which as expected gets freezing cold in winter.
I need to heat it.
My understanding is that It is against the Building control exemption
to extend our gas central heating
At the home improvement show recently at Earls Court was a company
selling air con units which can run in reverse cycle The supplier
claims that these units working in reverse will give 3.5 usuable
units per unit of electricity used I am not interested in the cooling
prowess as this is not an issue
Does anyone have anyone have any real world view of this ? Do they
work properly?
It all sounds too good to be true


It's a heat pump

In message , Ghostrecon
writes
On Thu, 20 Oct 2011 16:55:30 +0000 (UTC), Jules Richardson wrote:

On Thu, 20 Oct 2011 05:38:16 -0700, wrote:

We have a conservatory which as expected gets freezing cold in winter. I
need to heat it.

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?



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).

I think I must be losing the plot a little ...

250w x 8 hours =2kwH so 60kwH/month £72/year at 10p/unit quite reasonable
for multiple family pets but ....
so 3% of monthly bill would imply 2000kwh per month (3/100*2000 = 60)
which is about 2000/30 =67kwH/day or about 24000kwH per year !!! at
10p/unit thats £2400 OMG I thought our 7600KwH was high :-(

IIRc Jules is in the USA somewhere.

--
Chris French

On Thu, 20 Oct 2011 22:21:19 +0100, chris French wrote:
In message , Ghostrecon
writes
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).

I think I must be losing the plot a little ...

250w x 8 hours =2kwH so 60kwH/month £72/year at 10p/unit quite
reasonable for multiple family pets but ....
so 3% of monthly bill would imply 2000kwh per month (3/100*2000 = 60)
which is about 2000/30 =67kwH/day or about 24000kwH per year !!! at
10p/unit thats £2400 OMG I thought our 7600KwH was high :-(

IIRc Jules is in the USA somewhere.

Yeah, up in the great frozen north :-) It gets pretty chilly here (-30
not unusual) and the cold season usually lasts 5 or 6 months. We've got
about 15kW of electric baseboard heat in the house, backed up by a
propane furnace.

I looked at last Feb's bill and it was a shade over 2700kWH - about
2000kWH of that was heating (I can't be exactly sure, because the water
heater and tumble dryer run from the same meter as the baseboards).

The baseboards are all on a load-controlled setup so the power company
can switch them off remotely during periods of peak demand (to avoid the
need to buy in extra power from elsewhere at great expense) - the theory
being that the propane furnace picks up the slack when they're off. In
return, we get charged about 5 cents per kWH for the baseboards; the
regular tariff is just over 8 cents.

cheers

Jules

On Fri, 21 Oct 2011 12:35:08 +0000 (UTC), Jules Richardson wrote:

On Thu, 20 Oct 2011 22:21:19 +0100, chris French wrote:
In message , Ghostrecon
writes
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).

I think I must be losing the plot a little ...

250w x 8 hours =2kwH so 60kwH/month £72/year at 10p/unit quite
reasonable for multiple family pets but ....
so 3% of monthly bill would imply 2000kwh per month (3/100*2000 = 60)
which is about 2000/30 =67kwH/day or about 24000kwH per year !!! at
10p/unit thats £2400 OMG I thought our 7600KwH was high :-(

IIRc Jules is in the USA somewhere.

Yeah, up in the great frozen north :-) It gets pretty chilly here (-30
not unusual) and the cold season usually lasts 5 or 6 months. We've got
about 15kW of electric baseboard heat in the house, backed up by a
propane furnace.

I looked at last Feb's bill and it was a shade over 2700kWH - about
2000kWH of that was heating (I can't be exactly sure, because the water
heater and tumble dryer run from the same meter as the baseboards).

The baseboards are all on a load-controlled setup so the power company
can switch them off remotely during periods of peak demand (to avoid the
need to buy in extra power from elsewhere at great expense) - the theory
being that the propane furnace picks up the slack when they're off. In
return, we get charged about 5 cents per kWH for the baseboards; the
regular tariff is just over 8 cents.

cheers

Jules

thanks for that I was wondering if my logic was wrong - can I plug my
extension lead into your baseboards - I'll pay you 10cents/kWH :-) umm on
second thoughts the voltage drop would mean I would need a big cable
several thousand miles long :-)
--
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.€¢Â°€¢. Nik .€¢Â°€¢.
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