On 27/10/2020 15:14, Theo wrote:
"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote:
If you have a well insulated house in the UK, just how often would you
need air-con?

The problem is heat sources inside the house. If it's 25-30C outside and
someone's had a shower, you're roasting a joint in the oven, and the kids
are using their 600W gaming PCs, that's heat input and nowhere for it to go.

If its 25-30C outside and you're roasting a joint in the oven, and the
kids are using their 600W gaming PCs, you have a greater problem than
air conditioning or lack of it.


Plus solar gain (windows etc) can be a problem, even if you're well
insulated.

Not if you draw the heavily insulated curtains.

Theo



--
Any fool can believe in principles - and most of them do!

In message , Theo
writes
nightjar wrote:
Very difficult to retro-fit, so only really used in new builds. With
those, if you are going to go to all the trouble of fitting the ducting,
air conditioning makes more sense. It is much more energy efficient and
can cool in the summer as well as heat in the winter.

In a new build you can (and indeed have to) insulate such that you don't
need a lot of heat in the first place, which removes the need for a giant
furnace and duct system. Although central air has its advantages - can use
heat pumps to heat and cool. I wonder if we'll start seeing that coming
back for cooling purposes.

Umm. I sold a barn for part Q planning housing development. Architect
included air source heating (possibly to influence the planners). Part
way through the project he was informed it would require a new local
11kV transformer as there was insufficient power available from the
existing mains.

Rapid re-design to gas CH!

--
Tim Lamb

On 27/10/2020 15:14, Theo wrote:
"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote:
If you have a well insulated house in the UK, just how often would you
need air-con?

The problem is heat sources inside the house. If it's 25-30C outside and
someone's had a shower, you're roasting a joint in the oven, and the kids
are using their 600W gaming PCs, that's heat input and nowhere for it to go.

I haven't built a PC with that small a power supply for years.

Plus solar gain (windows etc) can be a problem, even if you're well
insulated.

Plus 100-120W per person :-)


--
Colin Bignell

On 27/10/2020 01:26:16, wrote:
On Monday, 26 October 2020 10:51:58 UTC, Vir Campestris wrote:
It used to be we had open fires. But then hot water radiators came in -
much cleaner, and easier to manage.

Nowadays we seem to be moving towards underfloor heating - where
effectively the entire floor is a radiator. Efficient, but slow to respond.

But there was a time when hot air systems were popular, and I think
still are in the USA.

Does anyone know why they went out of fashion? It can't just be because
they made a great place for spiders to hide!

Andy

IMLE noise & dust. Then there's fire.

And the increase in dust was correlated with an increase in Asthma.

In message , Paul
writes
One thing I've noticed, is the home heating people aren't
very good at design.

The ductwork on houses is seldom all that good. A long narrow
pipe is expected to deliver the same air as a short larger pipe.
All sorts of non-intuitive stuff going on.


It's just coming up 35 years since we swapped the tepid air for
radiators (and 31 years since we sold the place), so I can't give you
figures, but IIRC, the ducting would have been something like 8" x 6",
and I haven't a clue what the output of the heating unit was. The gas
boiler that replaced it (physically a similar size) was a vast
improvement.

Adrian
--
To Reply :
replace "diy" with "news" and reverse the domain

If you are reading this from a web interface eg DIY Banter,
DIY Forum or Google Groups, please be aware this is NOT a forum, and
you are merely using a web portal to a USENET group. Many people block
posters coming from web portals due to perceieved SPAM or inaneness.
For a better method of access, please see:

http://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/index.php?title=Usenet

On 27 Oct 2020, Paul wrote

HVS wrote:
On 26 Oct 2020, Vir Campestris wrote

It used to be we had open fires. But then hot water radiators
came in - much cleaner, and easier to manage.

Nowadays we seem to be moving towards underfloor heating - where
effectively the entire floor is a radiator. Efficient, but slow
to respond.

But there was a time when hot air systems were popular, and I
think still are in the USA.

Does anyone know why they went out of fashion? It can't just be
because they made a great place for spiders to hide!

I grew up in Canada in the 1950s and 1960s with oil-fired, forced
hot air heating, with a furnace and large oil tank in the
basement, and a fan forcing the hot air through ductwork running
to each room.

It worked fine[1], but I can think of a couple of disadvantages
for a lot of the UK housing stock: it would be a bugger to
retrofit in solid-wall house (rather than building it in too a
stick-built/balloon- framed house), and the furnace, tank, and
ductwork took up a lot of room. That's not much of a problem if
you have a full-size basement, but otherwise it needs a lot more
space than a boiler in a cupboard feeding CH pipes and radiators.

[1] Our cat certainly liked it: she'd lie on top of the hot-air
outlet.


In places that still have oil heating, the tank goes outdoors now.
The house I was born in, the tank is still inside, and it's
been highly reliable compared to the track record of
outdoor tanks. But if you want to save space on a 200 gallon tank,
you can do it.

The places using oil heating, would not be using it if natural
gas was available. The price of oil is astronomical. And electric
heating is similarly stratospheric pricing, so a non-starter
as an option. Electric heating was tried here (because, well, we
got a bunch of nuclear reactors and what are you doing to do?),
and a few people at work were always bitching about theirs.
The elements used to fail in the electric furnace. You won't
find many electric furnaces today (Bill Gates maybe?).

The biggest liability with oil heat, is leaking oil and cleanup
cost.

And before we got oil, some of the houses were still using coal.
I was lucky as a kid, I was down at my friends house when
a coal truck came up and delivered a load of coal. And we
watched while my friends dad shoveled coal through a basement
window, into the basement :-) Some of the members of the
family, use to have arguments about which person was
supposed to be cleaning out clinkers. Well, all that
changed when the oil came along. The coal room was re-finished
and became my friends bedroom. And we were careful to *never*
mention he was sleeping in the coal room. It's not like
he had a choice in the matter (big family).

*******

As for the routing of ductwork, my house has a 10"x20" rectangular
cross section pipe running along the spine of the house (in
the basement). There is also a steel I-beam that runs the length
of the house and it's near that pipe. Whereas other houses used
sistered wooden beams nailed to one another for the spin, this
house series they used a steel beam instead.

Smaller round pipes (6" diameter) feed from the 10"x20" galvanized
sheet metal pipe, and the round pipes run between floor joists.
This reduced the impact of the heating distribution in the
majority of the room area. The basement has the penalty of
headroom dropping to 6'3" below the rectangular pipe. Whereas the
rest of the basement has a ton of headroom.

In two story houses, the round pipes may be replaced with a
rectangular cross section pipe running vertically up the
walls. Which makes for a long run of pipe, and makes it
hard to balance the system. Each run of pipes has a "vane"
inside the pipe, and a lever on the outside which you can
rotate. You adjust the lever to get the degree of heat
you need in the room (with the second floor ones being
at a disadvantage because of the flow resistance). In the
dead of winter, the people on the second floor are freezing
to death :-) That's why they get extra blankets up there.
In late fall and spring, everything is fine.

The hot air vents go on the outside walls. The cold air return
are on the inside walls. The cold air returns get little
attention, so it's hard to say whether the flow rates
are really all that balanced between the two sides.
If you don't get that part done correctly, the furnace
starts sucking air through any available crack, from
basement air. Which isn't always the best thing.

The only draft in the house, comes from wall sockets. And
todays R2000 techniques (sealant and proper boxes for outlets)
helps control that kind of leakage. In the old days, the
build quality wasn't all that good on that sort of detail.

The combustion furnace has a range of delta_T it can handle.
You can damage the heat exchanger if the conditions are
not properly met. The speed of the motor (four speed motors
being typical) helps set the delta_T. The door of thr furnace
states how much temperature difference is allowed between
the "heat" central pipe and the cold air return pipe
(aka "ambient"). The speed requirements for heat and AC
are different. In some cases, the same speed used for
both, in other cases, one season runs the motor faster
than the other season. If you get this wrong, you can
crack the heat exchanger. (You would think moar air
for heat distribution would always be good, but
that's not the case.) Part of checking an air circulating
furnace, is making sure some wacko hasn't buggered the
delta_T. (Two furnace techs can get into a fight about
which wacko did it :-) That's why they work in pairs.)

The house that I remember having an oil tank was bought by my parents
in Ottawa in 1956-57, when I was 4 or 5 years old. It was a new
build, purchased off-plan. (I remember seeing photographs of my
parents visiting the site when the basement had been poured, but was
still an open hole in the ground.)

We lived there for about 10 years, when we moved a few streets away
in the same suburb. I can't say for certain, but I don't recall the
second house having a tank for fuel oil, so it may have been
converted to natural gas by then.

As for inside/outside, I wonder if there was a climate thing going
on. Wouldn't an outdoor tank in a Canadian (or northern US midwest
states) winter need some sort of insulation to keep the fuel oil from
turning into treacle?

Alternatively, it may have been indoors simply because the builders
could easily put it there when the basement of the house was still
open; they then wouldn't need to insulate the thing.

Getting the tank into the basement after the house had been built
could have been a bit tricky.)

--
Cheers,
Harvey

On 27/10/2020 14:29, Paul wrote:
if there is a heat exchanger
failure and it's leaking CO

That's the second person who's mentioned that particularly nasty failure
mode!

That and that a lot of them were electric...

Thanks for all the replies.

Andy

On 27 Oct 2020 at 09:18:58, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

--
"Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They
always run out of other people's money. It's quite a characteristic of them"

Margaret Thatcher

But it takes a Tory government to spend tens of billions with nothing to show for it.
(Track and trace anyone?)

On 28/10/2020 07:24, Bob Martin wrote:
On 27 Oct 2020 at 09:18:58, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

--
"Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They
always run out of other people's money. It's quite a characteristic of them"

Margaret Thatcher

But it takes a Tory government to spend tens of billions with nothing to show for it.
(Track and trace anyone?)


And a Labour government to quadruple the NHS budget between 2001 and
2010 (without having a *clear* plan of what was needed), including
spending tens of billions on a (doomed to become) failed computer
system.

... And two illegal wars that have cost far, far more and are going to
continue to cost us for the indefinate future with extra security and
restrictions.

In article ,
Vir Campestris wrote:
On 27/10/2020 14:29, Paul wrote:
if there is a heat exchanger
failure and it's leaking CO

That's the second person who's mentioned that particularly nasty failure
mode!

That and that a lot of them were electric...

Thanks for all the replies.

An electric whole house system is going to cost an arm and a leg to run?

--
*And the cardiologist' s diet: - If it tastes good spit it out.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On 27/10/2020 14:29, Paul wrote:
Not too many people would necessarily
buy into the double-glazed-windows-that-don't-open.

Â*Â* Paul

That would not be allowed in the UK, because upstairs
windows have to be openable and allow 'means of escape'.

This specifies a minimum aperture size, including minimum
width and height so the people can get out and a burly
fireperson wearing breathing aperatus can climb in.

On 27/10/2020 08:53, Chris J Dixon wrote:
Vir Campestris wrote:

I had a gas-powered one in a small town house nearly 50 years
ago. Warm-up was fast, lack of radiators made room layout easier.

Builders of 60's and early 70's houses loved those floor to ceiling
'picture windows' made of cheap timber with single glazing. And
before the 1973 gulf war oil and electricity was cheap, while town
gas was never used for heating (much).

Every room was heated, including kitchen and bathroom, but these
two had no direct return duct.

The system was noisy, both air movement and fan vibrations;
cleaning filters, adjusting dampers and fan speeds never made
much difference. In three years we got through two transformers
and a fan motor.

In a family house, noise transmission along the ducts could have
been a problem, conversations could be heard around the house.

Water heating was by a large instantaneous gas heater, which gave
no trouble.

Chris

In article ,
Andrew wrote:
On 27/10/2020 08:53, Chris J Dixon wrote:
Vir Campestris wrote:

I had a gas-powered one in a small town house nearly 50 years
ago. Warm-up was fast, lack of radiators made room layout easier.

Builders of 60's and early 70's houses loved those floor to ceiling
'picture windows' made of cheap timber with single glazing. And
before the 1973 gulf war oil and electricity was cheap, while town
gas was never used for heating (much).

We had town gas when I installed my CH system in the late 60s. There must
have been quite a lot of boilers using it since 'conversion to natural'
kits were easily available.

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England
"I'd rather die of exhaustion than die of boredom" Thomas Carlyle

On 28/10/2020 13:20, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Vir Campestris wrote:
On 27/10/2020 14:29, Paul wrote:
if there is a heat exchanger
failure and it's leaking CO

That's the second person who's mentioned that particularly nasty failure
mode!

That and that a lot of them were electric...

Thanks for all the replies.

An electric whole house system is going to cost an arm and a leg to run?

Economy 7 and plenty of insulation helps. When this heating was
commonplace, off-peak electric was cheap.

On 28 Oct 2020, Andrew wrote

On 28/10/2020 13:20, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Vir Campestris wrote:
On 27/10/2020 14:29, Paul wrote:
if there is a heat exchanger
failure and it's leaking CO

That's the second person who's mentioned that particularly nasty
failure mode!

That and that a lot of them were electric...

Thanks for all the replies.

An electric whole house system is going to cost an arm and a leg
to run?

Economy 7 and plenty of insulation helps. When this heating was
commonplace, off-peak electric was cheap.

Economy 7 was an interesting exercise, as the idea made sense -- heat
the storage heaters cheaply overnight, and let them passively release
the heat during the day.

My sister-in-law had it installed, and discovered the classic problem
with it: she was out of her house from about 0730 to 1730 (commuter),
so the place was warm when she wasn't there, and getting colder by the
time she got home.

Good value if you were retired and at home during the day; if your
house was empty for most of the day, not so good.

--
Cheers,
Harvey

On 28/10/2020 13:11, Andrew wrote:
On 28/10/2020 07:24, Bob Martin wrote:
On 27 Oct 2020 at 09:18:58, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:
--
"Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They
always run out of other people's money. It's quite a characteristic
of them"

Margaret Thatcher
But it takes a Tory government to spend tens of billions with nothing
to show for it.
(Track and trace anyone?)


And a Labour government to quadruple the NHS budget between 2001 and
2010 (without having a *clear* plan of what was needed), including
spending tens of billions on a (doomed to become) failed computer
system.

snip

I can't say I have much faith in either of them.

Boris is a journalist with an education in the classics. His health
minister is an economist. The leader of the opposition is a lawyer. None
of them have a scientific education. It's no wonder we're in such a mess.

Andy

In article ,
HVS wrote:
Economy 7 and plenty of insulation helps. When this heating was
commonplace, off-peak electric was cheap.

Economy 7 was an interesting exercise, as the idea made sense -- heat
the storage heaters cheaply overnight, and let them passively release
the heat during the day.

Even then, Economy 7 was still more expensive than gas.

These electric systems were cheaper to install in a new house than wet
central heating. The only reason they were fitted. Unless there was no gas
supply. And not that many new estates were built with no gas.

--
*Some days you're the dog, some days the hydrant.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
Vir Campestris wrote:
On 28/10/2020 13:11, Andrew wrote:
On 28/10/2020 07:24, Bob Martin wrote:
On 27 Oct 2020 at 09:18:58, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:
--
"Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They
always run out of other people's money. It's quite a characteristic
of them"

Margaret Thatcher
But it takes a Tory government to spend tens of billions with nothing
to show for it.
(Track and trace anyone?)


And a Labour government to quadruple the NHS budget between 2001 and
2010 (without having a *clear* plan of what was needed), including
spending tens of billions on a (doomed to become) failed computer
system.

snip

I can't say I have much faith in either of them.

Boris is a journalist with an education in the classics. His health
minister is an economist. The leader of the opposition is a lawyer. None
of them have a scientific education. It's no wonder we're in such a mess.

A politician doesn't need to be an expert in his own right. Just know who
to take advice from.

Of course Brexiteers made a big point about not listening to experts.
Hence the much bigger mess we're in over Covid. With the Brexit mess yet
to come.

--
*Toilet stolen from police station. Cops have nothing to go on.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On 27/10/2020 15:14, Theo wrote:
"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote:
If you have a well insulated house in the UK, just how often would you
need air-con?

The problem is heat sources inside the house. If it's 25-30C outside and
someone's had a shower, you're roasting a joint in the oven, and the kids
are using their 600W gaming PCs, that's heat input and nowhere for it to go.

Plus solar gain (windows etc) can be a problem, even if you're well
insulated.

Not to mention that AC does mote than just cool - it also lowers RH
which can make a big difference to comfort levels, especially in a
typical hot wet UK summer.


--
Cheers,

John.

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

On 2020-10-28, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Vir Campestris wrote:
On 27/10/2020 14:29, Paul wrote:
if there is a heat exchanger
failure and it's leaking CO

That's the second person who's mentioned that particularly nasty failure
mode!

That and that a lot of them were electric...

Thanks for all the replies.

An electric whole house system is going to cost an arm and a leg to run?

I think my son's electricity costs in Northern Sweden were quite hefty.
But it is either electricity or wood burning - the Swedes don't seem to
do Gas or Oil heating. It makes it pay to buy super efficient equipment
and have the house well insulated.

On 2020-10-27, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 26/10/2020 20:13, Jim Jackson wrote:
On 2020-10-26, Brian Gaff (Sofa) wrote:
Noisy?
I would imagine if we go down the reversible heat pump route, then some
kind of air moving system is going to be needed again?
Brian

Out of fashion where? I understand that in Sweden they are the norm -

They are not.
All the houses I visited had UFH, many pure electric. Sweden has nuclear
and hydro power. Go figure.


Yes, underfloor heating, and _electric_ heated air taken by ducts around
the house and ducts taking stale air back, where heat exchanges extract
the heat. My son's house in northern Sweden had both and seemed very
typical.

His prebuilt flat pack house came with the air ducts built into the
walls all ready to join up. He laid the underfloow heating on the ground
floor himself, and got a professional electrician to check it over and
connect up. I understand they are as strict with electrical work as UK
is with gas.

On Monday, 26 October 2020 10:51:58 UTC, Vir Campestris wrote:
It used to be we had open fires. But then hot water radiators came in -
much cleaner, and easier to manage.

Nowadays we seem to be moving towards underfloor heating - where
effectively the entire floor is a radiator. Efficient, but slow to respond.

But there was a time when hot air systems were popular, and I think
still are in the USA.

Does anyone know why they went out of fashion? It can't just be because
they made a great place for spiders to hide!

Andy

Having lived in a house which was built with warm air heating, but at some point replaced with a radiator system, these are my observations:

There was a lot of asbestos involved! The whole boiler cupboard had asbestos dividers.

The remnant ducting was impossible to remove without major works.

There were vents all over the place. Annoying, unattractive. I ended up removing many of the actual vents, stuffing the holes and plastering over. (Not "real" plastering - repair.)

The ducting and things like vents in doors, or gaps under doors, can result in noise getting everywhere. Music in one room can become audible everywhere.

But underfloor heating is not the answer. While I would be happy enough with very mildly warmed floors, those who suffer from burning feet (however caused) would run a million miles - if they could run at all. They are a special form of torture to such sufferers.

On 28/10/2020 16:46, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

Of course Brexiteers made a big point about not listening to experts.
Hence the much bigger mess we're in over Covid. With the Brexit mess yet
to come.

Oh do 'shut the **** up'.

John Rumm wrote:
On 27/10/2020 15:14, Theo wrote:
"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote:
If you have a well insulated house in the UK, just how often would you
need air-con?

The problem is heat sources inside the house. If it's 25-30C outside and
someone's had a shower, you're roasting a joint in the oven, and the kids
are using their 600W gaming PCs, that's heat input and nowhere for it
to go.

Plus solar gain (windows etc) can be a problem, even if you're well
insulated.

Not to mention that AC does mote than just cool - it also lowers RH
which can make a big difference to comfort levels, especially in a
typical hot wet UK summer.

And this is why you don't want an AC system which is "over-capacity".

A high capacity system drops air temperature rapidly. Once the
air gets to around 22C or so, you don't want to go lower
so that the AC won't be damaged at the coil (freeze up).

If you drop the capacity of the system, there is sufficient
time for the dehumidification effect to take place.

On my current system, when it was new, it would remove a
summers-day of heat in 3 hours. This is too fast. The
air would feel clammy (still has moisture).

Now that the machine has aged, it takes 7 hours this year
to do the same thing. Now the household RH drops to 40%
or so, and the air is both dry and cool at the end of
the process.

The trick then, is to estimate the capacity required,
but also compensate for the aging effects on the equipment.
The newer systems seem to be pigs in this regard (big
performance drop after being new). Refilling them with
R134, doesn't seem to help all that much. (The refilling
process just does not seem to be good for the
equipment - the compressor is running while the
technician weighs in a charge. The pressures on either
side of the compressor are checked to determine when
sufficient material is inside the unit.)

Paul

In article ,
soup wrote:
On 28/10/2020 16:46, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

Of course Brexiteers made a big point about not listening to experts.
Hence the much bigger mess we're in over Covid. With the Brexit mess yet
to come.

Oh do 'shut the **** up'.

A typical Brexiteer answer to everything. Thanks for confirming it.

--
*If tennis elbow is painful, imagine suffering with tennis balls *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On 29/10/2020 08:51, polygonum_on_google wrote:
But underfloor heating is not the answer. While I would be happy
enough with very mildly warmed floors, those who suffer from burning
feet (however caused) would run a million miles - if they could run
at all.
If your house is well insulated then UFH floor temps will seldom exceed
30°C except where covered up. Where you wont be walking on them anyway.

At full winter pelt, my floors are only warm to the touch under the
sofas and the rugs. Stuff that is directly exposed to the air is barely
warm at all. Except where I have ALL the house UFH pipes running down
one short corridor. THAT is a bit warm. But never HOT.
I think you don't appreciate the difference between a square meter of
radiator at 50°C and 30 sq m of floor at 30°C..

--
The biggest threat to humanity comes from socialism, which has utterly
diverted our attention away from what really matters to our existential
survival, to indulging in navel gazing and faux moral investigations
into what the world ought to be, whilst we fail utterly to deal with
what it actually is.

On 29/10/2020 13:40, Paul wrote:
John Rumm wrote:
On 27/10/2020 15:14, Theo wrote:
"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote:
If you have a well insulated house in the UK, just how often would you
need air-con?

The problem is heat sources inside the house.Â* If it's 25-30C outside
and
someone's had a shower, you're roasting a joint in the oven, and the
kids
are using their 600W gaming PCs, that's heat input and nowhere for it
to go.

Plus solar gain (windows etc) can be a problem, even if you're well
insulated.

Not to mention that AC does mote than just cool - it also lowers RH
which can make a big difference to comfort levels, especially in a
typical hot wet UK summer.

And this is why you don't want an AC system which is "over-capacity".

A high capacity system drops air temperature rapidly. Once the
air gets to around 22C or so, you don't want to go lower
so that the AC won't be damaged at the coil (freeze up).

Modern inverter based systems can help here, since they can change the
compressor speed to in effect lower the power of the unit to better
match the actual demands.

If you drop the capacity of the system, there is sufficient
time for the dehumidification effect to take place.

On my current system, when it was new, it would remove a
summers-day of heat in 3 hours. This is too fast. The
air would feel clammy (still has moisture).

Now that the machine has aged, it takes 7 hours this year
to do the same thing. Now the household RH drops to 40%
or so, and the air is both dry and cool at the end of
the process.

The trick then, is to estimate the capacity required,
but also compensate for the aging effects on the equipment.
The newer systems seem to be pigs in this regard (big
performance drop after being new). Refilling them with
R134, doesn't seem to help all that much. (The refilling
process just does not seem to be good for the
equipment - the compressor is running while the
technician weighs in a charge. The pressures on either
side of the compressor are checked to determine when
sufficient material is inside the unit.)

Â*Â* Paul


--
Cheers,

John.

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

On Thursday, 29 October 2020 14:48:47 UTC, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 29/10/2020 08:51, polygonum_on_google wrote:
But underfloor heating is not the answer. While I would be happy
enough with very mildly warmed floors, those who suffer from burning
feet (however caused) would run a million miles - if they could run
at all.
If your house is well insulated then UFH floor temps will seldom exceed
30°C except where covered up. Where you wont be walking on them anyway.

At full winter pelt, my floors are only warm to the touch under the
sofas and the rugs. Stuff that is directly exposed to the air is barely
warm at all. Except where I have ALL the house UFH pipes running down
one short corridor. THAT is a bit warm. But never HOT.
I think you don't appreciate the difference between a square meter of
radiator at 50°C and 30 sq m of floor at 30°C..

This house is pretty well insulated.

But what you seem not to appreciate is the extreme sensitivity that some people have.

She will often go to the kitchen in order to cool her feet down. Whether on the porcelain flooring or using a bowl of cold water. Even when the rest of her feels cool/cold.

30C would be far too high.

On Wednesday, 28 October 2020 16:46:53 UTC, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Vir Campestris wrote:
On 28/10/2020 13:11, Andrew wrote:
On 28/10/2020 07:24, Bob Martin wrote:
On 27 Oct 2020 at 09:18:58, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:
--
"Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They
always run out of other people's money. It's quite a characteristic
of them"

Margaret Thatcher
But it takes a Tory government to spend tens of billions with nothing
to show for it.
(Track and trace anyone?)


And a Labour government to quadruple the NHS budget between 2001 and
2010 (without having a *clear* plan of what was needed), including
spending tens of billions on a (doomed to become) failed computer
system.

snip

I can't say I have much faith in either of them.

Boris is a journalist with an education in the classics. His health
minister is an economist. The leader of the opposition is a lawyer. None
of them have a scientific education. It's no wonder we're in such a mess.

A politician doesn't need to be an expert in his own right. Just know who
to take advice from.

There's one fatal flaw with that idea. If you're not an expert you really don't know who to listen to.


NT

On 28/10/2020 16:42, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
HVS wrote:
Economy 7 and plenty of insulation helps. When this heating was
commonplace, off-peak electric was cheap.

Economy 7 was an interesting exercise, as the idea made sense -- heat
the storage heaters cheaply overnight, and let them passively release
the heat during the day.

Even then, Economy 7 was still more expensive than gas.

These electric systems were cheaper to install in a new house than wet
central heating. The only reason they were fitted. Unless there was no gas
supply. And not that many new estates were built with no gas.


After the Ronan point explosion, gas was not allowed in blocks of flats
over a certain height.

On Thursday, 29 October 2020 at 22:31:30 UTC, wrote:
On Wednesday, 28 October 2020 16:46:53 UTC, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Vir Campestris wrote:
On 28/10/2020 13:11, Andrew wrote:
On 28/10/2020 07:24, Bob Martin wrote:
On 27 Oct 2020 at 09:18:58, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:
--
"Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They
always run out of other people's money. It's quite a characteristic
of them"

Margaret Thatcher
But it takes a Tory government to spend tens of billions with nothing
to show for it.
(Track and trace anyone?)


And a Labour government to quadruple the NHS budget between 2001 and
2010 (without having a *clear* plan of what was needed), including
spending tens of billions on a (doomed to become) failed computer
system.

snip

I can't say I have much faith in either of them.

Boris is a journalist with an education in the classics. His health
minister is an economist. The leader of the opposition is a lawyer. None
of them have a scientific education. It's no wonder we're in such a mess.

A politician doesn't need to be an expert in his own right. Just know who
to take advice from.
There's one fatal flaw with that idea. If you're not an expert you really don't know who to listen to.


NT

You listen to the person that pays you ;-)

In article ,
wrote:
A politician doesn't need to be an expert in his own right. Just know
who to take advice from.

There's one fatal flaw with that idea. If you're not an expert you
really don't know who to listen to.


It's called good management. Knowing who to listen to.

Unless you expect every CEO to be familiar with every single aspect of his
company.

--
*Also too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Friday, 30 October 2020 16:40:25 UTC, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
tabbypurr wrote:

A politician doesn't need to be an expert in his own right. Just know
who to take advice from.

There's one fatal flaw with that idea. If you're not an expert you
really don't know who to listen to.


It's called good management. Knowing who to listen to.

Yup. And it often fails.
Some subjects it's easy, things are as they first appear. Some subjects are the opposite, on those people are much more likely to pick the wrong 'expert' the one that reflects their initial assumptions.

Unless you expect every CEO to be familiar with every single aspect of his
company.

Unlikely. But they'd better know as much as poss, business failure rates are high. And I've run into enough situations where not knowing a subject relevant to one's business could be a business ender or a big risk. Anyone can get into business, most don't survive it.


NT

wrote in message
...
On Friday, 30 October 2020 16:40:25 UTC, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
tabbypurr wrote:

A politician doesn't need to be an expert in his own right. Just know
who to take advice from.

There's one fatal flaw with that idea. If you're not an expert you
really don't know who to listen to.


It's called good management. Knowing who to listen to.

Yup. And it often fails.
Some subjects it's easy, things are as they first appear. Some subjects
are the opposite, on those people are much more likely to pick the wrong
'expert' the one that reflects their initial assumptions.

Unless you expect every CEO to be familiar with every single aspect of
his
company.

Unlikely. But they'd better know as much
as poss, business failure rates are high.

But failure isnt usually due to the CEO not understanding
the basic technical details well. Its much more often due
to bit being able to predict what the market or its
competitors will get up to.

Juan Trippe of Pan Am understood what the 747 would
do for the aviation market and encouraged Boeing to
make it very quickly, but then saw Pan Am go bust when
the entire market changed with low cost carriers.

And I've run into enough situations where not knowing a subject
relevant to one's business could be a business ender or a big risk.
Anyone can get into business, most don't survive it.