Interesting, storage heaters ripped out and new electric boiler with air
transfer heat pump mounted in garden.

In article ,
Funny Lingus wrote:
Interesting, storage heaters ripped out and new electric boiler with air
transfer heat pump mounted in garden.

I'd guess anything better than storage heaters.

--
*I just got lost in thought. It was unfamiliar territory*

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

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Funny Lingus wrote:
Interesting, storage heaters ripped out and new electric boiler with air
transfer heat pump mounted in garden.

I'd guess anything better than storage heaters.

--
*I just got lost in thought. It was unfamiliar territory*

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

They were working fine......just a huge waste. It will take centuries before
any green savings are made, if ever, especially after manufacture of all
materials used

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Funny Lingus wrote:
Interesting, storage heaters ripped out and new electric boiler with air
transfer heat pump mounted in garden.

I'd guess anything better than storage heaters.

Apart from ducted-air/ My parents' house, built in 1972, had gas-fired
ducted-air and it was very underwhelming: a vague trickle of tepid air out
of the ducts, wafting dust everywhere. The house was always cold.

Storage heaters fail because they give out their heat too quickly in a
morning (even when the heat output control is turned right down) and there
isn't much left by the time you get home from work in an evening. Also there
is no way of programming the heat output to increase shortly before you get
home from work so the house is up to temperature. My first house had a
single storage heater (the house was open-plan so the heat rose from the
living room to the bedroom) but it also had a couple of panel radiators
(lounge and bedroom), supposedly just to provide "supplementary" heating,
though I needed them most of the time.

When my wife and I were looking for a new house, we saw one which had
central heating with an heat-transfer pump and radiators. The house was
perfectly warm, but we both agreed that the constant whine of the stale-air
extraction pump, audible in every room, would have driven us mad very
quickly. The boiler and floor-to-ceiling hot-water cylinder occupied most of
the utility room, and that was excluding the heat-exchanger (on the wall
outside) for extracting heat for the ground.

On Tue, 18 May 2021 10:54:03 +0100
"NY" wrote:

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Funny Lingus wrote:
Interesting, storage heaters ripped out and new electric boiler
with air transfer heat pump mounted in garden.

I'd guess anything better than storage heaters.

Apart from ducted-air/ My parents' house, built in 1972, had
gas-fired ducted-air and it was very underwhelming: a vague trickle
of tepid air out of the ducts, wafting dust everywhere. The house was
always cold.

snip

When my wife and I were looking for a new house, we saw one which had
central heating with an heat-transfer pump and radiators. The house
was perfectly warm, but we both agreed that the constant whine of the
stale-air extraction pump, audible in every room, would have driven
us mad very quickly. The boiler and floor-to-ceiling hot-water
cylinder occupied most of the utility room, and that was excluding
the heat-exchanger (on the wall outside) for extracting heat for the
ground.


For the thirty-odd years that I lived in America, the forced air
heating and cooling systems were always fine. Having done it that way
for years and years, they probably knew what to do. A heating system
could always have Air Conditioning added, and believe me, you need it
over there. In all of the places we lived, and there were many, none
ever had a problem keeping warm.
Often, the forced air fan was a bit noisy, but we got used to it, it
only came on when calling for heat.
The house we rented in Kansas City also had a 'whole-house fan', a
giant louvred extract fan mounted in the ceiling, and venting into the
loft. Adequate loft ventilation, always a given in American houses,
took care of the hot air. The fan could cool a hot house down in ten
minutes, you just needed earplugs while it was running.

--
Davey.

On Tue, 18 May 2021 10:54:03 +0100, "NY" wrote:

snip

Storage heaters fail because they give out their heat too quickly in a
morning (even when the heat output control is turned right down) and there
isn't much left by the time you get home from work in an evening.

So you mean 'some / the current range of storage heaters fail ...' as
it shouldn't be beyond the abilities of man to make them better? ;-)

Also there
is no way of programming the heat output to increase shortly before you get
home from work so the house is up to temperature.

See above.

snip

My storage rads are 'smart' in that they turn on automatically, after
receiving power (E7), but only when they determine that they still
need a recharge to be able to absorb the maximum required input to
(predictably) last them though the day.

No predictive system is ever perfect of course but they generally did
a good job, especially when the temperature was changing smoothly.

eg. In the summer they didn't come on at all, in spring / autumn they
might be on for a while towards the *end* of the E7 cutoff time (so
lasting best throughout the day) and during the winter they were often
on most of the E7 period and generally kept the room warm for the
entire day (correct size / room match, good insulation and efficient
thermostatic control).

Unfortunately, something went wrong in them all after a good few years
(15-20, I suspect the main relay) as they would repeatedly 'clonk'
when they should have just pulled in the once. I did track down a
replacement relay but it wasn't cheap and the postage from abroad made
it even more so. Things may be different now and so I may re-visit
that one.

Alternatively I could now probably integrate them into my Home
Automation system and make them even more 'intelligent. ;-)

Internal temperature probe measuring the core. External probe for the
room, controlling a servo on the heat outlet control flap and a solid
state relay for the heater element (it doesn't matter if it gets
warm). ;-)

Cheers, T i m

In article ,
Funny Lingus wrote:

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Funny Lingus wrote:
Interesting, storage heaters ripped out and new electric boiler with
air transfer heat pump mounted in garden.

I'd guess anything better than storage heaters.

They were working fine.

I suppose someone somewhere was pleased with storage heating. In the same
way as someone somewhere wins the lottery.



.....just a huge waste. It will take centuries
before any green savings are made, if ever, especially after
manufacture of all materials used

A decent heat pump system should have much lower running costs than
storage heaters. Which in the UK are about the most expensive to run house
heating.

--
*Snowmen fall from Heaven unassembled*

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

On 18 May 2021 at 10:54:03 BST, ""NY"" wrote:

When my wife and I were looking for a new house, we saw one which had
central heating with an heat-transfer pump and radiators. The house was
perfectly warm, but we both agreed that the constant whine of the stale-air
extraction pump, audible in every room, would have driven us mad very
quickly. The boiler and floor-to-ceiling hot-water cylinder occupied most of
the utility room, and that was excluding the heat-exchanger (on the wall
outside) for extracting heat for the ground.

Interesting. My sister is thinking of getting a ground source pumped system.
Are there any decent sources of experiences of them in use? Hadn't thought of
the pump before . . .

Also, does the cooling of the ground have any effect? I'd have thought
flora/fauna would suffer . . .
--
Cheers, Rob

RJH wrote:
On 18 May 2021 at 10:54:03 BST, ""NY"" wrote:

When my wife and I were looking for a new house, we saw one which had
central heating with an heat-transfer pump and radiators. The house was
perfectly warm, but we both agreed that the constant whine of the stale-air
extraction pump, audible in every room, would have driven us mad very
quickly. The boiler and floor-to-ceiling hot-water cylinder occupied most of
the utility room, and that was excluding the heat-exchanger (on the wall
outside) for extracting heat for the ground.

Interesting. My sister is thinking of getting a ground source pumped system.
Are there any decent sources of experiences of them in use? Hadn't thought of
the pump before . . .

No experience what what I have read is that you really need quite a lot of
ground OR you go for bore holes, both of which are expensive. For most
people , ground source just isnt economic due to lack of ground or very
long ROI due to high installation cost.


Also, does the cooling of the ground have any effect? I'd have thought
flora/fauna would suffer . . .

Cooling of the ground (and diminution in efficiency) can be an issue if you
dont have enough area or depth. Dunno about effects on flora/fauna.

Tim
--
Please don't feed the trolls

RJH wrote:
On 18 May 2021 at 10:54:03 BST, ""NY"" wrote:

When my wife and I were looking for a new house, we saw one which had
central heating with an heat-transfer pump and radiators. The house was
perfectly warm, but we both agreed that the constant whine of the stale-air
extraction pump, audible in every room, would have driven us mad very
quickly. The boiler and floor-to-ceiling hot-water cylinder occupied most of
the utility room, and that was excluding the heat-exchanger (on the wall
outside) for extracting heat for the ground.

'Stale air extraction pump', so you mean a MVHR (mechanical ventilation)
system? Or an ASHP (all the air stays outside)? MVHR typically has ducts
inside with fans in them. It sounds that's a ventilation system not a
heating system? (You can get MVHR integrated with an ASHP but only to a
limited heat output - which might be OK for small super-insulated
new-builds)

Interesting. My sister is thinking of getting a ground source pumped system.
Are there any decent sources of experiences of them in use? Hadn't thought of
the pump before . . .

https://forum.buildhub.org.uk/forum/...gy-generation/
https://renewableheatinghub.co.uk/ (the forum is a bit new but it's growing)

GSHP should be very quiet given it's just pumping fluid into the ground,
unlike ASHP where it's pumping air through heat exchange fins. It then
feeds into radiators or UFH - like any central heating there are water
pumps. Some are quieter than others (I heard Wilo recommended).

Also, does the cooling of the ground have any effect? I'd have thought
flora/fauna would suffer . . .

The ground is a buffer between summer and winter. You extract heat from the
ground in winter, and the sun recharges it in summer. If you don't size
things right it doesn't recharge enough and it's harder to extract in future
winters. I don't think flora minds too much because most of the growing is
in the summer, and most fauna doesn't go down far enough to notice (unless
you have digging rodents), although I couldn't comment about earthworms.

THeo

On 18/05/2021 13:59, Tim+ wrote:
RJH wrote:
On 18 May 2021 at 10:54:03 BST, ""NY"" wrote:

When my wife and I were looking for a new house, we saw one which had
central heating with an heat-transfer pump and radiators. The house was
perfectly warm, but we both agreed that the constant whine of the stale-air
extraction pump, audible in every room, would have driven us mad very
quickly. The boiler and floor-to-ceiling hot-water cylinder occupied most of
the utility room, and that was excluding the heat-exchanger (on the wall
outside) for extracting heat for the ground.

Interesting. My sister is thinking of getting a ground source pumped system.
Are there any decent sources of experiences of them in use? Hadn't thought of
the pump before . . .

No experience what what I have read is that you really need quite a lot of
ground OR you go for bore holes, both of which are expensive. For most
people , ground source just isnt economic due to lack of ground or very
long ROI due to high installation cost.


Also, does the cooling of the ground have any effect? I'd have thought
flora/fauna would suffer . . .

Cooling of the ground (and diminution in efficiency) can be an issue if you
dont have enough area or depth. Dunno about effects on flora/fauna.

Tim

If you are on heavy clay soil then that is the best type for
a ground source heat pump where the primary loop is not far down
but spread over a large area.

You only get water at 50C at most, out of it so it works best
in new-build houses with underfloor heating and loads of
insulation. What it won't do is give you lashings of hot water
as you would get with a gas/oil boiler delivering water at
80 to 90C.

Also, remember the most effective refridgerants have been banned
so it is slightly crippled, efficiency-wise from the outset.

On Tue, 18 May 2021 12:45:56 +0000 (UTC), RJH
wrote:

On 18 May 2021 at 10:54:03 BST, ""NY"" wrote:

When my wife and I were looking for a new house, we saw one which had
central heating with an heat-transfer pump and radiators. The house was
perfectly warm, but we both agreed that the constant whine of the stale-air
extraction pump, audible in every room, would have driven us mad very
quickly. The boiler and floor-to-ceiling hot-water cylinder occupied most of
the utility room, and that was excluding the heat-exchanger (on the wall
outside) for extracting heat for the ground.

Interesting. My sister is thinking of getting a ground source pumped system.
Are there any decent sources of experiences of them in use? Hadn't thought of
the pump before . . .

Also, does the cooling of the ground have any effect? I'd have thought
flora/fauna would suffer . . .

I was party to various stages of a mate installing a GSHP system
himself (he's a Heating Eng) from getting the portable rig into the
back garden, to boring the holes, running the pipes back to the
manifold and hooking up the pump itself.

This was in the early days when GSHP was supposed to be the new
panacea of home heating but 1) the GSHP was something he imported
directly from China, had little in the way of instructions or support
(and he never got working, the last I heard) and 2) if he had going it
going and it had worked well, he would have offered it as an
installation service to others (and hence why he chose to import
directly as it meant better margins, had it worked etc).

It's quite possible that assuming it does actually work
(functionally), someone who knows what they are doing could fix /
commission it for him and at least he could be using it himself (even
if that meant replacing any control electronics etc).

It was interesting how they dealt with the pipes. These were vertical
deep bored (I think they went down 10m or so) and the slurry that
lubricated the drilling also stopped the hole falling in once drilled.
Then after sounding the final depth, two pipes were cut to length for
each hole and fitted a metal (I think) 'U bend' type fitting to the
end of both then they were fed them down the hole, displacing the
slurry. Two 90 Deg fittings on the top ends took the flow / return
along trenches in the garden and into the garage / manifold. The pipes
were then flooded with a suitable mix and the system pumped round. I
think he had 3 (possibly 4 holes).

Cheers, T i m

Bit odd. I have storage heaters, pretty basic technology really, but does
the job.
Brian

--

This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...

Blind user, so no pictures please
Note this Signature is meaningless.!
"Funny Lingus" wrote in message
...
Interesting, storage heaters ripped out and new electric boiler with air
transfer heat pump mounted in garden.

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Funny Lingus wrote:
Interesting, storage heaters ripped out and new electric boiler with air
transfer heat pump mounted in garden.

I'd guess anything better than storage heaters.

--
*I just got lost in thought. It was unfamiliar territory*

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

What an abortion:-

https://ibb.co/TrGnZrb

"Davey" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 18 May 2021 10:54:03 +0100
"NY" wrote:

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Funny Lingus wrote:
Interesting, storage heaters ripped out and new electric boiler
with air transfer heat pump mounted in garden.

I'd guess anything better than storage heaters.

Apart from ducted-air/ My parents' house, built in 1972, had
gas-fired ducted-air and it was very underwhelming: a vague trickle
of tepid air out of the ducts, wafting dust everywhere. The house was
always cold.

snip

When my wife and I were looking for a new house, we saw one which had
central heating with an heat-transfer pump and radiators. The house
was perfectly warm, but we both agreed that the constant whine of the
stale-air extraction pump, audible in every room, would have driven
us mad very quickly. The boiler and floor-to-ceiling hot-water
cylinder occupied most of the utility room, and that was excluding
the heat-exchanger (on the wall outside) for extracting heat for the
ground.

For the thirty-odd years that I lived in America, the forced
air heating and cooling systems were always fine.

And here too. Very few boiler/water circulating systems here either.

Having done it that way for years and years, they probably
knew what to do. A heating system could always have Air
Conditioning added, and believe me, you need it over there.

Depends on which part of it.

In all of the places we lived, and there were many,
none ever had a problem keeping warm.

Often, the forced air fan was a bit noisy, but we got
used to it, it only came on when calling for heat.

The house we rented in Kansas City also had a 'whole-house fan',
a giant louvred extract fan mounted in the ceiling, and venting into
the loft. Adequate loft ventilation, always a given in American houses,
took care of the hot air. The fan could cool a hot house down in ten
minutes, you just needed earplugs while it was running.

On 18/05/2021 13:45, RJH wrote:
On 18 May 2021 at 10:54:03 BST, ""NY"" wrote:

When my wife and I were looking for a new house, we saw one which had
central heating with an heat-transfer pump and radiators. The house was
perfectly warm, but we both agreed that the constant whine of the stale-air
extraction pump, audible in every room, would have driven us mad very
quickly. The boiler and floor-to-ceiling hot-water cylinder occupied most of
the utility room, and that was excluding the heat-exchanger (on the wall
outside) for extracting heat for the ground.

Interesting. My sister is thinking of getting a ground source pumped system.
Are there any decent sources of experiences of them in use? Hadn't thought of
the pump before . . .

Also, does the cooling of the ground have any effect? I'd have thought
flora/fauna would suffer . . .


We have a ground-source system installed here in South-West Ireland -
replacing the oil-fired boiler that was installed when the house was built..

The heatpump lives outside in my glass workshop, and there's 3 or 4 100m
coils of black plastic pipe in four separate trenches under the polytunnel.

In an ideal world, they say that the hot water (which isn't as hot as
you get from a conventional CH boiler) should be fed into wet
under-floor heating (so the floor-slab becomes a huge storage heater) -
but, as we were retro-fitting, we used the existing rads instead.

System works well, pretty-much zero-maintenance (had to fit a new
motor-start capacitor - ‚¬15) about three years back - but apart from
that it's run without issues for the last 15 years.

No noticeable effect on the local environment - there's a lot of heat
stored in the ground, and our coils are in some very soggy ground
adjacent to a stream - so this all helps.

On 19 May 2021 at 07:20:21 BST, "Adrian Brentnall"
wrote:

On 18/05/2021 13:45, RJH wrote:
On 18 May 2021 at 10:54:03 BST, ""NY"" wrote:

When my wife and I were looking for a new house, we saw one which had
central heating with an heat-transfer pump and radiators. The house was
perfectly warm, but we both agreed that the constant whine of the stale-air
extraction pump, audible in every room, would have driven us mad very
quickly. The boiler and floor-to-ceiling hot-water cylinder occupied most of
the utility room, and that was excluding the heat-exchanger (on the wall
outside) for extracting heat for the ground.

Interesting. My sister is thinking of getting a ground source pumped system.
Are there any decent sources of experiences of them in use? Hadn't thought
of
the pump before . . .

Also, does the cooling of the ground have any effect? I'd have thought
flora/fauna would suffer . . .


We have a ground-source system installed here in South-West Ireland -
replacing the oil-fired boiler that was installed when the house was built..

The heatpump lives outside in my glass workshop, and there's 3 or 4 100m
coils of black plastic pipe in four separate trenches under the polytunnel.

That's a lot of pipe. I'd guess the garden's about 200m x 100m - not sure if
that's enough. But her husband's an environmental scientist, so I'd guess he
knows what he's doing.


In an ideal world, they say that the hot water (which isn't as hot as
you get from a conventional CH boiler) should be fed into wet
under-floor heating (so the floor-slab becomes a huge storage heater) -
but, as we were retro-fitting, we used the existing rads instead.

System works well, pretty-much zero-maintenance (had to fit a new
motor-start capacitor - ‚¬15) about three years back - but apart from
that it's run without issues for the last 15 years.

No noticeable effect on the local environment - there's a lot of heat
stored in the ground, and our coils are in some very soggy ground
adjacent to a stream - so this all helps.

Interesting, thanks. I was thinking about that whole subterranean life cycle
and any knock-ons. But to know would need some pretty involved research I'd
have thought.

--
Cheers, Rob

RJH wrote:

That's a lot of pipe. I'd guess the garden's about 200m x 100m - not sure if
that's enough.

I have an acre plot, and due to limitations such as not close to
boundary, not near maintained watercourse, not under tree shade, not
under house it's borderline whether enough slinkies can be installed,
and have heard a horror-story of a local install that turned out to have
an undersized collector.

Those factors, along with the high price, and the moving goalposts of
the RHI mean I probably won't fit heatpump as part of build, but LPG
boiler with UFH, but may fit GSHP with boreholes "later"

On 19/05/2021 08:09, RJH wrote:
On 19 May 2021 at 07:20:21 BST, "Adrian Brentnall"
wrote:

On 18/05/2021 13:45, RJH wrote:
On 18 May 2021 at 10:54:03 BST, ""NY"" wrote:

When my wife and I were looking for a new house, we saw one which had
central heating with an heat-transfer pump and radiators. The house was
perfectly warm, but we both agreed that the constant whine of the stale-air
extraction pump, audible in every room, would have driven us mad very
quickly. The boiler and floor-to-ceiling hot-water cylinder occupied most of
the utility room, and that was excluding the heat-exchanger (on the wall
outside) for extracting heat for the ground.

Interesting. My sister is thinking of getting a ground source pumped system.
Are there any decent sources of experiences of them in use? Hadn't thought
of
the pump before . . .

Also, does the cooling of the ground have any effect? I'd have thought
flora/fauna would suffer . . .


We have a ground-source system installed here in South-West Ireland -
replacing the oil-fired boiler that was installed when the house was built..

The heatpump lives outside in my glass workshop, and there's 3 or 4 100m
coils of black plastic pipe in four separate trenches under the polytunnel.

That's a lot of pipe. I'd guess the garden's about 200m x 100m - not sure if
that's enough. But her husband's an environmental scientist, so I'd guess he
knows what he's doing.

Yes - lots of pipe..
As luck would have it, there was some significant earth-moving going on
at the same time - so
the cost of the trenching got absorbed into that.

In tight spaces, they recommend a borehole rather than trenches and pipes.




In an ideal world, they say that the hot water (which isn't as hot as
you get from a conventional CH boiler) should be fed into wet
under-floor heating (so the floor-slab becomes a huge storage heater) -
but, as we were retro-fitting, we used the existing rads instead.

System works well, pretty-much zero-maintenance (had to fit a new
motor-start capacitor - ‚¬15) about three years back - but apart from
that it's run without issues for the last 15 years.

No noticeable effect on the local environment - there's a lot of heat
stored in the ground, and our coils are in some very soggy ground
adjacent to a stream - so this all helps.

Interesting, thanks. I was thinking about that whole subterranean life cycle
and any knock-ons. But to know would need some pretty involved research I'd
have thought.


Yes - could be quite a research project...
Most of the coil area is covered by our polytunnel - so I guess that
contributes to replenishing the heat a little..