Druidic Dabblings and General Twaddle !!

[TiltyShaun]

im not a fan of heat pumps to be honest. We fit them to nearly all the new builds now as they help with the SAP and it saves having to do any solar.

The big downside to them, and we use air-source, is they don't work very well when it gets cold. They freeze up solid and an internal immersion kicks in to defrost them and away they go again. You can imaging the juice they draw. Driving underfloor heating they are fine as tepid is ok but for a family using it for a shower etc then they are pretty useless compared to a combi and a combi never runs out of hot water.

Groundsource i am told is a lot better as they don't freeze up the same and if you cant get gas then its a better option that oil for sure. If you have the land you can run the groundloops in a couple of long trenches to save the £££ of having a bore hole dug.

@fred talks sense. We have been involved on several new builds that have has air source or ground loop. The clients on ground source are happy the air source not so happy.
We have an air source heat pump on the swimming pool. We only use in during the summer and in that set up in is great as we also have PV on the roof. Running the air source pump when it is cold is like watching the meter going around and around!!

 

[TiltyShaun]

Just seen I have missed pages of debate on the cost of oil.
My take is that as soon as oil gets to $70 dollars a barrel, which equates to around 42-48p per litre for kero, the Americans start fracking and it keeps a lid of the price of oil. The days of $100 a barrel seem a long way off!! That will hopefully keep oil heating at a reasonable price.
Air source needs electric. The government has now a policy of having a price cap. That cap will go up and up to reflect the need and cost of the investment we need to make in this country to add to the generation capacity for the additional demand we are creating. I personal prefer my chances on oil in the international market rather than the whim of our government.

 

[V8Druid]

im not a fan of heat pumps to be honest. We fit them to nearly all the new builds now as they help with the SAP and it saves having to do any solar.

The big downside to them, and we use air-source, is they don't work very well when it gets cold. They freeze up solid and an internal immersion kicks in to defrost them and away they go again. You can imaging the juice they draw. Driving underfloor heating they are fine as tepid is ok but for a family using it for a shower etc then they are pretty useless compared to a combi and a combi never runs out of hot water.

Groundsource i am told is a lot better as they don't freeze up the same and if you cant get gas then its a better option that oil for sure. If you have the land you can run the groundloops in a couple of long trenches to save the £££ of having a bore hole dug.

what is the cost of a bore hole these days @fred ...... and is it still a large diameter, as opposed to a small dia. type for water?
I've considered a bore hole for a second water source here as although the spring is a pretty constant gallon a minute, it is limited.
biggest hassle with either, is laying in the infrastructure to make use of/connect to the existing systems in place at the house ... lorragrief

 

[sandy2210]

bore hole here is £10,000 with no guarantee of finding water but if they do its usually crystal clear that price is just for the borehole and not all the pumps filters etc

 

[V8Druid]

bore hole here is £10,000 with no guarantee of finding water but if they do its usually crystal clear that price is just for the borehole and not all the pumps filters etc

bloody hell .. that's gone up in the last ten years ..... used to do quite a bit for a company that did it .... were forever in me shop having something repaired .. name escapes me, but will come back to me at some point ..... in 2010 they were 1800 quid with good water guaranteed .... last time I saw them they were on their 6th hole at one job .... they'd got water in every hole ... all with e-coli ...... and were down between 200 and 400 feet said they'd never seen one as bad ... and weren't gonna make anything on that job

 

[V8Druid]

today's mission .... get the Husqy strimmer on the bench and sort out the centrifugal on it ..... have had it on the bench twice and been hijacked by one of Pam's 'can you justs' ....
engine note changed last time I was using it and the head is driving constantly, so my best guess was the spring(s) in the centrifugal had snapped.
so ... pull it to bits.

sure enough .. end missing off the spring .... and didn't find it either

glad those two screws were a good quality .... they were VFT ..

rang our local lads to see if they had one on the shelf, by some remote chance ..... nah and now't in the scrap pile to rob either ...... so out with me mini blowtorch and 'adjust' the last half coil on what I had

was a tad concerned it might be a bit too 'strong', so made the 'new end' a bit longer to compensate ..... cleaned it all off, 'fore it went back together .. 150psi and plenty of carb cleaner after a good scrape/brush out ..... looked a lot better getting re-assembled.

Clutch working fine, but a new spring ordered tonight, courtesy of Angus's (@modelman093 ) insider intelligence on where to find the bits -- not much he doesn't seem to know about garden machinery - his speciality for many years --- still knows his stuff too

Anyway ... clutch perfect -- more than I could say about how it was running .... think i've pee-ed off the fuel lines pulling it to bits, as it appears to be drawing air somewhere and won't 'rev out' - fuel starvation IMHDO ... was running fine prior to this episode ...

Clara collection curtailed progress this afternoon, so job for the morning .. have it to bits again and replace all the fuel lines ... they're all circa three year old and gone hard ... pretty sure I can see a crack in the pick up line and am getting air bubbles in the primer bulb.

Reo called round last night to say he'd be here this morning, as the weather seemed to have picked up and he wanted to get our's finished off
I'll swear his middle name is Jonah ... he'd no sooner arrived at five to eight this morning ....... and it rained .. looked grim, so he said he'd go back to his dry stone wall today and see us tomorrow ..... forecast looks good, but I am not gonna hold my breath, 'til I actually see the sun in the morning

 

[Cyberprog]

Have to order new lines too then. I trust you ordered two springs?

 

[bobthebuilder]

Nope...hot water is sound , got 300L tank heats it to 50 odd deg no worries seriously quick as well. upgraded all rads and this winter it's been ok after lot of faffing with settings and balancing etc. On a new build eco box be fine. Ours is ancient dormer bungalow that's been ripped apart multiple times so not ideal. The underfloor heating areas work sound, it's the older parts with rads it's struggles when temp gets -5c etc.

do you switch the immersion on now and again to combat the legionaires

 

[Lancs Lad]

do you switch the immersion on now and again to combat the legionaires

Does it itself on a program.

 

[V8Druid]

Have to order new lines too then. I trust you ordered two springs?

nah that spring's been in there donkey's .... be very unlucky to have that let go again this decade ..... by which time I'll be past caring, or the strimmer'll been retired for the latest hydrogen/fuel cell powered one
should have some fuel line here, if I haven't used it all on me BIL's chainsaw, a few months ago .... pretty sure I've still got enough in stock to sort a repair .... I know I have a couple of spare primer bulbs for sure.

 

[fred]

what is the cost of a bore hole these days @fred ...... and is it still a large diameter, as opposed to a small dia. type for water?
I've considered a bore hole for a second water source here as although the spring is a pretty constant gallon a minute, it is limited.
biggest hassle with either, is laying in the infrastructure to make use of/connect to the existing systems in place at the house ... lorragrief

Never had one done, it is fast though according to the lads who do the piling and they can do more than one bore depending on how deep they can get them.

If it was my place that i was going to leave from feet first eventually, I would definitely get ground source if gas wasnt an option and as much solar as could fit along with a couple tesla powerwalls or equiv. Yes a good chunk of 20-25k but you would never get a fuel bill again.

 

[V8Druid]

Never had one done, it is fast though according to the lads who do the piling and they can do more than one bore depending on how deep they can get them.

If it was my place that i was going to leave from feet first eventually, I would definitely get ground source if gas wasnt an option and as much solar as could fit along with a couple tesla powerwalls or equiv. Yes a good chunk of 20-25k but you would never get a fuel bill again.

shed roof ... will also be a great buzz word for planning .... Tesla walls into it too and some solar water panels ... will have half a roof area of 14m x 8m facing in relatively the right direction ... the 'green' element should help a lot when applying

 

[fred]

the issue you may have, heat pump driven heating really needs underfloor. On an existing house this means taking up the floor as you need 150mm insulation for the pipes to be stapled too and then 75mm screed on top so 225m of depth needed. if you have ceiling height then it means adjusting all the doors to accommodate. Obviously a lot of work. They can make it work with rads using a cylinder to concentrate the heat to a higher temp but its not as good.

 

[GazCro]

the issue you may have, heat pump driven heating really needs underfloor. On an existing house this means taking up the floor as you need 150mm insulation for the pipes to be stapled too and then 75mm screed on top so 225m of depth needed. if you have ceiling height then it means adjusting all the doors to accommodate. Obviously a lot of work. They can make it work with rads using a cylinder to concentrate the heat to a higher temp but its not as good.

But it doesn't use a cylinder to concentrate the heat (that's salesman talk) it boosts it with electric from 45 deg up to cylinder temp, hence high running costs.

 

[fred]

But it doesn't use a cylinder to concentrate the heat (that's salesman talk) it boosts it with electric from 45 deg up to cylinder temp, hence high running costs.

no they do, they have a heat exchanger that gets it close to 50C, the cylinder immersion only comes on to do the weekly legionaries treatment.

 

[V8Druid]

the issue you may have, heat pump driven heating really needs underfloor. On an existing house this means taking up the floor as you need 150mm insulation for the pipes to be stapled too and then 75mm screed on top so 225m of depth needed. if you have ceiling height then it means adjusting all the doors to accommodate. Obviously a lot of work. They can make it work with rads using a cylinder to concentrate the heat to a higher temp but its not as good.

sod that ... with a roof full of PV and a wall couldn't you use leccy to raise it a bit and circulate it round constantly .....45-50C is pretty warm ...... we usually have the place at about 17-18C max .... so with constant circulation i'd have thought that was easily achievable and as for hot water ..... I don't like looking like a steamed lobster when I come out the shower .... warm is enough .... will see what temp the shower chucks out ??

 

[V8Druid]

Is the FIT still limited to to 4kva for domestic @fred ..... a roof full is gonna produce a lot more than that

 

[GazCro]

The thing you don't know/realise with ground source heat pumps is the amount of time the immersion is actually on during normal running. You'd be surprised how often they can be on the only way to know for sure is to meter the electric supply to it and monitor it.
The thing with rhi payments etc is that they have muddied the waters between greener energy or what many believe they are getting "free heating". Renewables may well be greener for the planet but to get your money back for the installation cost you've got to run it 24/7 ffs and even then you're looking at break even.

 

[Randla]

the issue you may have, heat pump driven heating really needs underfloor. On an existing house this means taking up the floor as you need 150mm insulation for the pipes to be stapled too and then 75mm screed on top so 225m of depth needed. if you have ceiling height then it means adjusting all the doors to accommodate. Obviously a lot of work. They can make it work with rads using a cylinder to concentrate the heat to a higher temp but its not as good.

Not strictly true, Fred. There are quite a few systems out there which use profiled insulation and a dry screed element which can get you down to around 50mm above FFL. Granted, the thermal efficiency/heat loss to the screed will be greater than going for 150mm of XPS or PU insulation, but they fill a gap in the market where floor height is an issue - particularly in retrofit.

HTH

Robert

 

[Lancs Lad]

sod that ... with a roof full of PV and a wall couldn't you use leccy to raise it a bit and circulate it round constantly .....45-50C is pretty warm ...... we usually have the place at about 17-18C max .... so with constant circulation i'd have thought that was easily achievable and as for hot water ..... I don't like looking like a steamed lobster when I come out the shower .... warm is enough .... will see what temp the shower chucks out ??

45-50c is the water temp in the rads...not the room 50c would be lobster temp.