Heat pumps

Farma Parma

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Northumberlandia
Another thread was on about this the other day & i think it all only works at best with a new build house with the very best of insulation & proper underfloor heating installed.
backed up with some solar panels too make it all run for next too nothing & likely pick up a few £££ back for all the green energy your generating.
 

Farma Parma

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Northumberlandia
Too sum up if your in an older house like poss a fair whack of us lot then its openfire/log burner or AGA/CH Boiler & or Electric heating & i cant see this changing any time soon.
I paid out of my pocket about 10yr ago now to install our first CH Oil Boiler & 17 rads throughout the house. removing the gas guzzler Rayburn oil cooker at same time. (No Regrets)
We still have an open fire & it will be here for a long time yet. Have access to plenty logs esp after last wkd.
Its not my farm so thats where the buck stops as no help from LL towards any heating upgrades.
 

flowerpot

Member
Seems a sensible compromise, interested to know if he has a newish house with underfloor heating, insulation etc.
It isn't a new house, but he spent most of last year (while furloughed!) taking the plaster off the inside walls and fitting breathable insulation and then having it replastered with lime that meant a specialist person.

There is underfloor heating in the kitchen extension but not the rest of the house.

When we lived there it felt as if the wind was blowing right through the walls, it was a very cold place. The insulation is only on the outside walls of course. It is much, much warmer and the central heating wasn't even on last week and siting in the living room was warm enough.

He used to work for a construction company that had been specifying heat pumps for large scale projects for several years. He did the calculations without including the woodburner as a safety-net. Also the electricity board wanted to charge £17,000 for a change to the power lines for the installation. That wasn't solved until the boss of the heat pump firm got in contact with whoever was in charge at the electricity supplier that they finally saw sense.
 

Mur Huwcun

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
North West Wales
Thankfully we didn’t have a power cut this time but had one during Beast from the east for about 36 hours. As heat pumps operate at much lower temperatures once we had power back onmwe had lost all the heat out of the house, floor slab and buffer tank so took hours to get any form of heat back in the floor slabs and days to get back to normal. Unfortunately we hadn’t finished renovating the house then and not touched the front room but now we have a wood burner in the lounge and wouldn’t be with out it.
 

manhill

Member
Just wondering how those new fangled heat pumps are coping with a shortage of electric, I have a feeling the governments hope of all log fires being ripped out of our houses have hit a bit of a brick wall in some areas!

People burning fossil fuel to keep warm in winter should be prosecuted. How dare they avoid hypothermia, they should just accept their fate and die.
I'll have another glass of your mulled wine thanks Boris.
 

BrianV

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Dartmoor
People burning fossil fuel to keep warm in winter should be prosecuted. How dare they avoid hypothermia, they should just accept their fate and die.
I'll have another glass of your mulled wine thanks Boris.
Wondering how Number 10 is heated, after all a fair chunk of money has recently been spent on the building I understand!
 

PostHarvest

Member
Location
Warwick
Supposedly, there is a legal requirement to replace all fossil fuel heating systems with heat pumps powered by either "safe" nuclear power or electricity produced from renewables or on calm overcast days in the winter - by burning fossil fuels. But who is going to enforce this law? If anyone claims that its their human right to keep warm, the whole thing falls apart. In any case, the power grid is struggling to cope with current demand, add a few million heat pumps running 24/7 and 20 million electric vehicles and the whole thing will just arc up and die.
 
It isn't a new house, but he spent most of last year (while furloughed!) taking the plaster off the inside walls and fitting breathable insulation and then having it replastered with lime that meant a specialist person.

There is underfloor heating in the kitchen extension but not the rest of the house.

When we lived there it felt as if the wind was blowing right through the walls, it was a very cold place. The insulation is only on the outside walls of course. It is much, much warmer and the central heating wasn't even on last week and siting in the living room was warm enough.

He used to work for a construction company that had been specifying heat pumps for large scale projects for several years. He did the calculations without including the woodburner as a safety-net. Also the electricity board wanted to charge £17,000 for a change to the power lines for the installation. That wasn't solved until the boss of the heat pump firm got in contact with whoever was in charge at the electricity supplier that they finally saw sense.

What breathable insulation product did you use?
 

BrianV

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Dartmoor
Downing street is infact graded an E rating on its epc.
As old Starmy says it's one rule for Tory toffs & one rule for the rest of us, how many Tory MPs do you think are already planning to rip out their boilers, wood burners etc & install these wonderful heat pumps, I bet you could count them on one hand!
 

Exfarmer

Member
Location
Bury St Edmunds
As old Starmy says it's one rule for Tory toffs & one rule for the rest of us, how many Tory MPs do you think are already planning to rip out their boilers, wood burners etc & install these wonderful heat pumps, I bet you could count them on one hand!
dont you believe it, I understand most Tory MPs have woodturners, merrily claiming their RHI ;)
 
Put an 11 Kw single phase ASHP in 4 years ago for the house I built in 1995 - The buildings inspector said we had overdone the insulation at the time .
Fitted u/floor heating up and down from new but that never worked well until fitting the heat pump.
Now the wood burner (not on RHI) is available but only used for show unless we had an outage longer than 24 hours ( not happened yet)
 

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