[Tech1] Future heating

Thu Oct 21 08:16:32 CDT 2021

I recall learning as a young schoolboy about a Scandinavian school which was so well insulated that when it was cold they simply put the lights on and that was sufficient. Not much good with LED lighting, I suppose. 

Mike H

> On 21 Oct 2021, at 13:01, Chris Woolf via Tech1 <tech1 at tech-ops.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> 
> A good question. And the full answer is really what I was trying to get at - and which several others have twigged to. 
> 
> Originally this house was poorly insulated and used a classic radiator system, pumping pretty hot water round the house and trying to heat the air volume. Given a very old property that is hard work, and the heating would run for ages trying to evaporate water from the walls before the room temperature lifted discernibly. Heat transfer from a hot radiator to the bulk of a building is very poor.
> 
> The solution was not to just swap over to a heat pump (as the government would seem to have in its stupid mind) but to tackle the problem in a fully integrated fashion. We increased loft insulation and where there is no loft, used multi-layer metallised foil between the rafters. The slate floor came up, dug down, insulated, screeded, polypipe floor loops put in and the slates put back. Double-glazing isn't allowed in this listed property so we added internal wooden shutters (which actually work better). The domestic hot water system uses part ground-source, part solar hot water when it is available, and excess solar PV energy. The point of all that is that what you need is a wholesale re-think, not a bolt-on to what is there. The use of low temperature heating water running all the time means the temperature gradient to outside is less extreme, and you don't get a rush of hot air out every time you open a door or window. But the massive heat store of floor and stone walls makes the room comfortable again as soon as the door is shut.
> 
> Yes, it is capital intensive, and that to my mind, is where the government should be devoting its efforts. 
> 
> The result here, is a house that retains heat in the body of the structure. There is no damp to evaporate off, so low-level cosmetic heat from a wood fire adds to room temperature in minutes. The system runs automatically, completely silently within the house, and without any maintenance. Note that all this was carried out in a listed building without any planning officer even blinking. Nobody coming here is aware of any of this work, which is all invisible - it looks very C16th still.
> 
> We are indeed fortunate in having space, partly because that allows the use of a plant room to house all the techno stuff. As to ground source, we used boreholes - more expensive than curlies but more efficient too. The area under the foundations of a new house is ample to provide the source heat volume - it should be mandated on every new  estate. 
> 
> Retro-fitting old housing stock is clearly harder but it is surprising what can be done with (some) money and plenty of imagination. What doesn't work is the gradualist approach of swapping one piece of kit or trying to save money by using something that isn't really up to the mark.
> 
> The UK has atrocious quality housing, and is seriously behind the times working out how to build new houses that have any longevity or efficiency. We do need to look at other countries that have solved this problem, and embrace the rather more ambitious solutions.
> 
> Chris Woolf
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 20/10/2021 19:10, Dave Plowman via Tech1 wrote:
>> Chris, curious how a conventional boiler couldn't heat your house, but a heat pump can? Also I'd assume an old farmhouse has plenty land for a ground source system. This isn't the case for a big part of the housing stock. Of course decent insulation is the key. Sadly, again, this can be very difficult for much of our existing housing stock. 
>> 
>> On 20/10/2021 18:25, Chris Woolf via Tech1 wrote:
>>> Heat pumps aren't rubbish.
>>> 
>>> Half Europe has been using them for ages and it is only the pig-ignorant British that are just beginning to catch up with the technology. 
>>> 
>>> Since this country has never understood the need to keep expensive heat inside a house (using insulation) we have only considered the most ludicrous and wasteful ideas of blasting 10s of kWs into leaky boxes and then complaining about the cost.
>>> 
>>> Heat pumps are fabulously brilliant at producing 3-4 times the heat energy out that is put in - no other heating can beat that. And they run for years with no maintenance. The only thing about them that is important to understand is that they work best if you run them at a relatively low output temperature. If you have a house with acceptable insulation and thermal control this is not a problem. If you stick them in standard draughty, ill-constructed British home you do have a problem, but it isn't the heat pump.
>>> 
>>> My ground source heat pump has been running since 2013 and is doing exactly what it was intended to do very efficiently. And it does that in a very extensive, very old listed farmhouse that used to be unheatable with an oil boiler, despite vast amounts of fossil juice being fed in.
>>> 
>>> As a country we do need to re-educate ourselves in how to heat homes sensibly, and it isn't by just bolting on the cheapest replacement piece of kit. It needs the" leak out", as well as the "energy in" part of the equation to be considered.
>>> 
>>> And I agree that the government has absolutely no concept of this whatsoever.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Chris Woolf
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 20/10/2021 17:34, Bernard Newnham via Tech1 wrote:
>>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uNKPDREa-Q
>>>> 
>>>> It seems that everyone except the government knows that this stuff won't work. Heat pumps are rubbish, electric cars don't have enough charging points, and we don't make enough electric anyway.  
>>>> 
>>>> I remember about ten years ago wondering why we weren't developing the technology used in nuclear submarines.  This week we really have to have them - and we do.
>>>> 
>>>> B
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On 20/10/2021 17:08, doug prior via Tech1 wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> I have just watched an interesting conversation on youtube that you may be interested in.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Hydrogen boilers,heat pumps & the future of heating.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Doug Prior
>>>>> 
>>>>> Sent from OX Mail
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> 	Virus-free. www.avast.com
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
> -- 
> Tech1 mailing list
> Tech1 at tech-ops.co.uk
> http://tech-ops.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/tech1_tech-ops.co.uk
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://tech-ops.co.uk/pipermail/tech1_tech-ops.co.uk/attachments/20211021/fb69378b/attachment.html>