Heating fuel access problems

[fernicarry]

Those off-peak cheap tariffs rely on you being able to store the cheap energy until you need it i.e. hot bricks inside a storage heater, hot water in a buffer tank, electrical batteries (EV's). There's quite a significant capital cost with that especially on the scale needed to make a meaningful dent in your space heating costs. In addition there will be a round trip cost that increases the effective rate. Converting electricity to heat is almost 100% efficient but putting it in a battery and getting it back out later definitely isn't. If you put all that together then your price per unit will be a lot less advantageous than first appears.

I'd much rather we have a more transparent and fairly priced energy market than all these games with weird tarriffs and windfall taxes and price capping so that we don't have to endure some of the most expensive rates in the world. I do however expect we'll continue to be scalped with a vague promise of it'll all be better at some unspecified time in the future once we have transitioned to net-nothing.

My own experience with storage heaters is from 1980's designs which frankly were rubbish as most of the heat had escaped by the following evening just when you needed it. Modern building standards might make them viable as a trickle of heat from the heater will be enough to counter the much lower heat loss from the building through the day. Since the OP is planning an extension then best approach would be to do all the disruptive stuff upgrading the building fabric at that time and design the heating system to match.

 

[Cubist]

Just out of interest what is your aversion to a heat pump based on?

Clearly I can't speak for ChillyGirl but I can tell you my reasons for turning my back on Ground and Air Source Heat Pumps. These included the ugly and, for the GSHPs in particular, quite large lumps of kit that would have to be sited beside the house. Also that these can only provide a fairly low and variable level of final heat for deployment indoors that would have to supplemented by other systems. There are, purportedly High Temp HPs that can produce better than 80c but these are likely much more expensive than their less efficient cousins but just as variable in terms of their final heat contribution.

Theres also the fact that in the summer months these systems processes 'invert' to cool the interior and this old place can get quite parky without any such help. Here, they would be switched off, but I can imagine that in many homes they would be left running through the summer to cool those houses - hmmm, wonder who benefits from that?

 

[a twig]

I’m not sure how an ASHP connected to a wet CH system would invert to cool a house during the summer so maybe we are talking about different things?

Out of nerdy interest I’ve been following heat pump development reasonably closely over the last few years and while initially incredibly sceptical, I think if you were to look at the results that companies like Heat Geek and Urban Plumbers have been getting with installs over the last few years I suspect they would come out pretty positively against even traditional gas these days.

The challenge is properly designing the system to run at maximum efficiency which a lot of cowboy installers won’t bother doing, but both the above companies have YouTube presences and are surprisingly honest about challenges faced as well as the usual “another great install” type videos.

For a typical draughty period home ASHP will likely not be the answer but when doing a lot of work on a property as many people here do, opportunities to add significant insulation present themselves and then it might all start to make sense.

 

[paulc]

Most inefficient or most expensive? It's a pedantic point but I've always thought of electric heating as being the most efficient form of heating, in the sense that 100% of every kW is converted into heat, unlike other forms of generating heat such as burning something and losing a proportion of the heat to the outside world in the form of flue/chimney gases and heat.

With electric heaters (panel, convector, etc), they deliver the heat at the point of use with ~100% efficiency.
An electric boiler first has to heat the water and then pump it to where it is needed. So there is pumping losses and heat loss in the pipes - Whilst these losses contribute slightly to heating the entire property, it is still a waste.

That's interesting, would you ever be able to heat with electricity at that cost using that sort of setup?

Storage heaters never used to anticipate how much heat to store for the upcoming weather, and could then be pretty much exhausted by the evening peak, but that could be improved with better materials and computer control.

Snug Octopus looks interesting for those with storage heaters. Main off-peak slot between 00:30 and 06:30 with an hour in the afternoon. Would an hour recharge be enough to get most people through a chilly evening would be my big question.

 

[Flyfisher]

I’m no expert in this stuff but am in the process of trying to get planning approval for a solar and battery setup.
From what I’m told, these newer systems work with AI which makes on the go computations on your personal demand, even looking at the upcoming weather forecasts!

I don't know about AI control systems but I'm sure they could play a role in controlling the system and there are various home automation systems now available. Personally, I'm using Home Assistant because it allows a very wide range of products from different manufacturers to be integrated and controlled. It is very powerful but the learning curve is reasonably steep and requires a level of enthusiasm to persevere with it.

 

[Cubist]

I’m not sure how an ASHP connected to a wet CH system would invert to cool a house during the summer so maybe we are talking about different things?

No, I don't think so. It's based on an design assumption that in the summer months external air will be warmer than air inside the house. The ASHP automatically goes into reverse to invert the process and draws the cooler air from indoors to use for its base function - but who wants their CH system running in summer? Most people will most likely switch off their CH systems and, with nowhere for this heat to go, the ASHP will shed that unwanted heat outdoors just as an Air Conditioning system does.

 

[Cubist]

Damn. It was inevitable I suppose given the nature of this thread that the terms 'Smart' and/or 'AI' would show up and trigger me but.....

For good or bad I happen to be a member of what used to be a very small, but now rapidly growing, community of people around the world who has direct personal experience of the development of modern AI systems and their direct forebears. I'm not sure now if I may have given some inkling of that background in my past contributions to this forum but some of the older hands here will know that I have often presented myself as something of a Luddite who pushes back on products and services that make some claim to being Smart or AI.

Of these terms there is some small nub of truth in the 'Smart' assertion but absolutely none that any product available for private and domestic use is genuinely AI - at least for today and hopefully for the foreseeable future too. My reason for saying this is very simple; Alan Turings suggestion for what conditions might represent the arrival of Machine Intelligence (AI) - which was passed by Googles Eugene Goostman Program a little while back - omitted one vitally important capacity - that product, and none of the others that have emerged since, can say, when asked to perform any function, "No, I don't want to do that. I'm going fishing".

But then, most of the organisations and people pouring billions into AI development do not want something that can possibly say "No" do they? In any event my worry is not the possibility of the fabled AI Armageddon. Rather, it is the question 'How will my granddaughter make an independent living?'.

Its reported that Elon Musk will soon begin deploying androgynous (human like) robots in his factories in Texas and this, coupled with the fact that many of the so called AI systems in development today are aimed at middle-class occupations such as business administration, accounting, law and medicine to name a few, leads to an inevitable conclusion. Given that any one of Musks robots could be granted the ability to call on the knowledge and skills of say a master plasterer or a brain surgeon what do you get?

And how long then until society as we know it collapses entirely? Its a grim picture and I see no-one even beginning to plan for it.

OK, depressing rant over. Sorry just had to get that off my chest welcome to my dark side.

 

[a twig]

No, I don't think so. It's based on an design assumption that in the summer months external air will be warmer than air inside the house. The ASHP automatically goes into reverse to invert the process and draws the cooler air from indoors to use for its base function - but who wants their CH system running in summer? Most people will most likely switch off their CH systems and, with nowhere for this heat to go, the ASHP will shed that unwanted heat outdoors just as an Air Conditioning system does.

But that would only work in an Air to Air system wouldn’t it? How would an Air to Water ASHP system draw air from indoors?

On most ASHPs sold in the UK for Air to Water the cooling mode is disabled and requires service access / a link on a PCB to enable it and essentially results in chilled water running round your CH system

 

[Stevers]

Radiators are usually about 65C when heating so probably 45C difference to room temperature to be effective. If temperatures in a room were 30C then to get similar cooling effect the water would need to be in the order of -15C (so plenty of antifreeze needed). At least the condensation on rads and pipes would be (mostly) frozen solid, not running down onto the floor!

 

[Cubist]

On most ASHPs sold in the UK for Air to Water the cooling mode is disabled and requires service access / a link on a PCB to enable it and essentially results in chilled water running round your CH system

Exactly so. Switching off the Cooling Mode ostensibly cuts all the Heat Pumps functions when its temperature sensors tell it that external air is warmer than indoors and it then stands idle. When Cooling is enabled the Heat Pumps operations are inverted with the result that cooler water is circulated through the radiators while unwanted heat is expelled outdoors.

 

[Flyfisher]

And how long then until society as we know it collapses entirely? Its a grim picture and I see no-one even beginning to plan for it.

OK, depressing rant over. Sorry just had to get that off my chest welcome to my dark side.

I prefer to be more optimistic because 'society as they knew it' has collapsed many times throughout history yet here we still are and, broadly speaking, we're all enjoying a much higher standard of living than the vast majority of humanity has ever experienced.

There's an interesting BBC Horizon programme on iPlayer from 1978, coincidentally the same year that I spent a large chunk of my student grant (remember those?) on an Apple ][ microcomputer, which set me on the path to a career that was so new it was not even a subject taught in schools at the time.

The programme itself is interesting enough (and these days quite amusing) but the most interesting part, I think, is at about 51 minutes where they have a studio discussion about the ramifications of this new technology with various experts including Barry Sherman, research director of the ASTMS union (headed by Clive Jenkins at the time) and author of "The Collapse of Work", which predicted various impacts on society some of which are very topical today, such as the idea of Universal Benefit.

Basically, we don't seem to be very good at predicting the future. If we were, we'd probably be better prepared for it. Fortunately, history has shown that we're a highly adapatable species, which is probably the most important trait we're going to need in the future.

Anyway, if anyone is interested the programme can be seen at https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01z4rrj/horizon-19771978-now-the-chips-are-down


PS: It's amusing/annoying to think that if I had not blown my grant money on an Apple ][ and had instead waited a couple of years until Apple went public and bought an equivalent value of shares instead, they would be worth a little over $2m today . C'est la vie!

 

[larry]

If ruling out a standard ASHP have you considered an air to air heat pump arrangement (i.e. the wall mounted air conditioning units). You won't get a grant but you will get the benefit of a CoP of 3+ for heating so cheaper to run than any direct electrical heating system.
I had a quote for install for one for approx £1k and you can get split system units.

 

[larry]

Also these guys

Can You Deliver Where the Hose Has to go Through a Dwelling/Living

Can You Deliver Where the Hose Has to go Through a Dwelling/Living Accommodation?

www.boilerjuice.com

Say that they do have some companies which will do through house oil deliveries. Worth a call?

 

[a twig]

My understanding is that if the oil company has a hand held wireless gauge system fitted in their tankers that the operator can have with them while they are at the other end of the hose filling the tank then they can run hoses through the house.

The reason companies won’t run pipes through the house is that safety guidelines now say you have to have sight of the gauge and the actual filling of the tank

 

[Chillygirl]

Well - the air conditioning units have just been mentioned to me by my nephew (whose also my builder and is renovating the cottage). He has been working on a property - large 4 bed- who have AC units fitted and they are presently heating the house to a steady 24 degrees. They have oil central heating system which they never use now. Got AC originally to cool the house but now use to heat. Works on a reverse
methodology. Amazing! Something we are going to look into. In the meantime have bought a £90 calor gas stove and £60 bottle of gas. Instant heat in my freezing hall-way!!

 

[paulc]

Something we are going to look into. In the meantime have bought a £90 calor gas stove and £60 bottle of gas. Instant heat in my freezing hall-way!!

Please, get yourself a carbon monoxide alarm to go near the Calor stove. The alarm could save your life as those stoves can pump out dangerous levels of CO under the wrong conditions.

 

[Flyfisher]

Good advice, though I'd extend it to any combustion device whatever the fuel - oil, gas, wood, coal. I've even got one in my shepherds hut. £15 is a small price to pay!

 

[Stevers]

Please, get yourself a carbon monoxide alarm to go near the Calor stove.

There really needs to one in each room with appliances that need monitoring.

My parent's CO alarm in their hall completely failed to detect high levels of CO in their living room where the flue to their radiant gas fire was blocked. They were very fond of using that gas fire pretty much all year round, and we suspect that the CO levels caused my mother's dreadful leg ulcer and then delayed it healing, and with no control, possibly some of their other health problems, though not their extreme old age!

 

[larry]

Well - the air conditioning units have just been mentioned to me by my nephew (whose also my builder and is renovating the cottage). He has been working on a property - large 4 bed- who have AC units fitted and they are presently heating the house to a steady 24 degrees. They have oil central heating system which they never use now. Got AC originally to cool the house but now use to heat. Works on a reverse
methodology. Amazing! Something we are going to look into. In the meantime have bought a £90 calor gas stove and £60 bottle of gas. Instant heat in my freezing hall-way!!

Well I'd love to hear your experiences when you decide,

Do tell your nephew to give their client who keeps their house at 24 degrees a clout around the ear from me, haven't they heard of thermal underwear!!

 

[Chillygirl]

Haha yes!! 24 degrees far too warm for me - 18 to 19 is my pref temperature! I have a carbon monoxide monitor almost directly over the stove and there is plenty of airflow around it. Interesting journey Im on! Never had to consider any of this when i lived in my 1965 'box' of a house with cavity wall, packed full of insulation and a gas boiler!!