Air Source Heating - Your opinion
- Thread starter kieran222
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Freeforester
Well-Known Member
This^
Discussing this aspect with a professional installer of Air to Air ( the cheaper and more efficient option), he said that once you have effectively insulated any property, it doesn’t really matter so
much what your heating method or system is, the principle being as far as possible to keep the cold from creeping in and the warmth from leaking away. Warm air never replaces cold air by choice, we have to effect that ourselves.
Some talk that air to air heat pumps will possibly become eligible for grant funding in the near future (they skip the turning warm water into warm air within the home, if you’re interested there’s a YT channel called something like Tim and Kat’s green walk, for geek level info) but, increasing the efficiency of a log burner will do great and especially inside a well insulated property, see Recoheat, which greatly increases your stove’s heating output and for a reduced amount of logs consumed:
How it works | Recoheat
How the Recoheat stove heat recovery accessory works to maximise your stove's output and warm your home
www.recoheat.co.uk
A bigger version of the back boiler; a barrowful of dry logs per day to keep the entire house cosy, rads, UFH, HW included.
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udderlyoffroad
Well-Known Member
As per my per my previous post, basically the objection from government is idealogical, in that air-to-air gives you air conditioning. The whole point, from the government's perspective, is to reduce CO2 emissions, so giving the plebs aircon will increase CO2, even though the use case for air con domestically in the UK is about 3 days a year. Especially if the house in question has a decent PV array, it could easily be configured to only run cooling using excess solar....but that would be too sensible.
Not sure about ASHP, but my GSHP is capable of colling as well as heating the floors.
shakey jake
Well-Known Member
From my understanding, this is against the terms of the grants!
Seems crazy to me, fine to use energy in the winter to cool but when loads of free solar cant use to cool in the summer?
Im not sure we are on the FIT for Solar PV and RHI for the GSHGP, we never asked about cooling when we had it installed so ours doesn't.
But i understand that they can cool as well as heat.
shakey jake
Well-Known Member
Yep they can, we were told that the gov want to keep it quiet though
A friend of mine has installed a water source heat pump. That's pretty amazing. Did all the installation himself. Big old stone house, now nice and warm.
Seems to be much better than air source when you really need it (ie, winter).
Might be worth considering if you've got a river or decent sized stream running past your house.
(His property was once a water mill).
Seems to be much better than air source when you really need it (ie, winter).
Might be worth considering if you've got a river or decent sized stream running past your house.
(His property was once a water mill).
LOL did consider it, we have a lake inour field, not entirley sure what size it is, the sales brochure says c.05acre IIRC, however it runs out of water in the summer as its fed with rain water runoff
Would have been a lot cheaper than having to hav400m of trenches dug to take the gournd coils!
jthyttin
Well-Known Member
Cooling with any system that cirulates liquid in radiators or floor, cannot be too good. I doubt you can even detect it.
You're effectively asking hot air to descent, and it's not going to do it. Also it does nothing (constructive) to get rid of the moisture that exists in hotter/warmer air (compared to cooler air).
You're effectively asking hot air to descent, and it's not going to do it. Also it does nothing (constructive) to get rid of the moisture that exists in hotter/warmer air (compared to cooler air).
A few neighbours have had ASHP installed in older houses as part of the econ 4 grant scheme. This scheme also provides insulation, but often people end up excluding areas of the house that would then be harder to reinstate - kitchens/bathrooms/behind cupboards/radiators. Plus the work is done by pretty sketchy tradesman. Without proper insulation, the ASHP is insufficient and they end up needing a wood stove.
I would suggest if the house is older than 5 years skip air to water and go air to air heat pumps instead. We have 1 large one downstairs that does pretty much the entire house and then 3 upstairs that does 3 out of 4 bedrooms. We use a log burner to make it extra cosy in the winter months and the electric immersion for hot water. We have town gas but rarely use it.
One of my other businesses is an M&E contracting business and works alongside my M&E design consultancy. If you want a no obligation quote I can get someone who works for me to come and quote.
udderlyoffroad
Well-Known Member
I did rip out both kitchen and bathroom to ensure I had every wall insulated that could be insulated when I had my ECO4 insulation done. Both rooms were in sore need of a refresh anyway.
The IWI - Internal Wall Insulation - process is disruptive, no doubt about it, but if the house is a fixer-upper, might as well go for it. Gets you a decently insulated house - regardless of how you choose to heat it, and the inside of all your exterior facing walls plastered at £0 to you. If you're smart you can do a rewire if necessary without having to channel in anything. Obviously, if you've been living in the place for 20 years, it might be a different ball game. If you have small kids, definitely need to send them to the grandparents for a week or so!
As for the sketchy tradesmen, I had a coke-fiend plasterer, but actually the management of the company I used were very hot on quality of the finished item, and had people come back to redo things I hadn't picked up on.
First of all the cool liquid will reduce the temperature of the substance its buried in, we have soldi concrete floors across the whole of the downstairs. Upstairs is timber floors and the thermal mass would be far less effective in term of cooling the upper surfaces of the floor.
If the delta t is sufficient then the temperature of the air that comes into context with the floor, and the underside of the ceiling will cool.
If the amount of energy removed from the house is greater than the heat gains, it will cool the building and the air within it.
Using chilled slabs is a recognised method of achieving cooling, here's the 1st link on a google search Chilled Slabs - TechnologiesDetails - SLEB
So when you say tyou twont feel it, if you mean you wont get the ice cold drasft like when you tunr on a wall mounted Ac unit, you are correct.
If however, you're looking to cool a large volume and keep it cool then it is entirely feasible if the system is correctly designed/installed.
jthyttin
Well-Known Member
The subject was having AC / cooling in UK, using existing equipment. It was said you need it max few days per summer. IMHO it might be used bit more, to e.g. keep bedroom few degrees cooler.
But the problem still is that warm air rises up and cold air descends. Heating systems are designed around this (and some other considerations like how easy they are to maintain). Didn't really think about multi-storey, but even then I think most buildings have insulation and/or suspended ceilings to cut down the noise that is transferred from upstairs to downstairs.
While chilled slabs might surely work in climate where your goal is to keep the whole structure cool for several months, I still fail to see how they would be feasible when you want "instant" cooling. There'd be lag of one or two days, you'd be walking on chilly floors, and there would still be kind of thermocline between chilly floor and hot/warm upper air layers. Sure you could use fans to mix the air, but it would ruin the efficiency (temperature difference between cooling element and the air next to it would drop)
Also in your link they recommend combining the chill slab with air-to-air solutions. BTW their math is off, purposefully I guess. The cost of moving air (fans) is never in dominant role with air-to-air systems. It's running the compressor of cooling circuit.
But the problem still is that warm air rises up and cold air descends. Heating systems are designed around this (and some other considerations like how easy they are to maintain). Didn't really think about multi-storey, but even then I think most buildings have insulation and/or suspended ceilings to cut down the noise that is transferred from upstairs to downstairs.
While chilled slabs might surely work in climate where your goal is to keep the whole structure cool for several months, I still fail to see how they would be feasible when you want "instant" cooling. There'd be lag of one or two days, you'd be walking on chilly floors, and there would still be kind of thermocline between chilly floor and hot/warm upper air layers. Sure you could use fans to mix the air, but it would ruin the efficiency (temperature difference between cooling element and the air next to it would drop)
Also in your link they recommend combining the chill slab with air-to-air solutions. BTW their math is off, purposefully I guess. The cost of moving air (fans) is never in dominant role with air-to-air systems. It's running the compressor of cooling circuit.
I think the thread was about heat pumps, not AC.
I made the observation about heat pumps being able to cool, they can.
Your opinion is not relevant to whether they can cool or not, only whether you would wish to use it because they don't give you the instant hit you wish for.
no one said it was instant.
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