keitha
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Post by keitha on Jun 7, 2021 16:43:08 GMT
My understanding is that Ground source pumps require a machine about the size of a JCB to be brought close to the house to drill down for the pipework.
Of course whoever though of this thinks everyone has a front garden that can be accessed from the road. No thought then of the rows of terraced houses in industrial areas of England, Scotland and Wales and even parts of London when the front door opens onto the street. I assume that the machinery will be able to reach to properties like those opposite me where the house is 15 feet from the road but 5-6 feet higher.
But what about the back to backs with walls around the backyard and only a footpath between, or those that have been extended so there is a path to the backdoor but the rest is house, ie there is nowhere to put the heat exchanger.
Now one thought is many of the old mine workings dotted across the UK are often surrounded by this type of property perhaps a neighbourhood scheme of insulated pipes bringing the hot water to the house might solve the issue in some areas but it would be costly and you would need a mechanism to charge for the heat used.
But perhaps these properties are all doomed, I read today that homes with an EPC less than C may be banned from sale by 2020. My Property was given a rating of D to get to C I would need Low energy Lights throughout, room thermostat, Solar Water Heating ( cost circa £4k and would save me £36 a year) and underfloor insulation ( Ground floor is Solid concrete !).
I think that given the view is my rating could be increased by 10 points with a 2.5KWH solar array and I have a 4.2 K system. So I guess I actually verge on a B. I have all low energy lights, Hive control of heating., and I've replaced some of the windows with newer DG Units
External Insulation as its solid stone would come in at about £20,000, but it seems to cause a lot of damp issues. Solar Water heating, I'm not going for something with a 100 year return on investment.
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Greenwood2
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Post by Greenwood2 on Jun 7, 2021 17:07:53 GMT
My understanding is that Ground source pumps require a machine about the size of a JCB to be brought close to the house to drill down for the pipework. Of course whoever though of this thinks everyone has a front garden that can be accessed from the road. No thought then of the rows of terraced houses in industrial areas of England, Scotland and Wales and even parts of London when the front door opens onto the street. I assume that the machinery will be able to reach to properties like those opposite me where the house is 15 feet from the road but 5-6 feet higher. But what about the back to backs with walls around the backyard and only a footpath between, or those that have been extended so there is a path to the backdoor but the rest is house, ie there is nowhere to put the heat exchanger. Now one thought is many of the old mine workings dotted across the UK are often surrounded by this type of property perhaps a neighbourhood scheme of insulated pipes bringing the hot water to the house might solve the issue in some areas but it would be costly and you would need a mechanism to charge for the heat used. But perhaps these properties are all doomed, I read today that homes with an EPC less than C may be banned from sale by 2020. My Property was given a rating of D to get to C I would need Low energy Lights throughout, room thermostat, Solar Water Heating ( cost circa £4k and would save me £36 a year) and underfloor insulation ( Ground floor is Solid concrete !). I think that given the view is my rating could be increased by 10 points with a 2.5KWH solar array and I have a 4.2 K system. So I guess I actually verge on a B. I have all low energy lights, Hive control of heating., and I've replaced some of the windows with newer DG Units External Insulation as its solid stone would come in at about £20,000, but it seems to cause a lot of damp issues. Solar Water heating, I'm not going for something with a 100 year return on investment. Isn't stone actually very good cool in summer warm in winter, very slow to transfer heat/cold. Solar, watch out for making it difficult to sell/re-mortgage since you have 'rented out' your roof in many cases. If you have a back yard/garden crane the equipment over the house, may not be as expensive as you might think, our builder used a huge crane to bring in beams and reckoned it was as cheap as using a few men to carry them (he didn't charge extra). And there are small drilling rigs, I remember a 'minuteman' from years ago that you could possibly even take through the house with a bit of preparation! I don't think you actually need to go that deep for a heat pump, but I always fancied geothermal which is a bit more difficult.
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ptr120
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Post by ptr120 on Jun 7, 2021 20:11:11 GMT
Airsource heatpumps are increasingly common where I live, and the most common heating method for most newbuild properties. They can be wall or roof mounted in some cases.
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Jun 8, 2021 9:19:58 GMT
My understanding is that Ground source pumps require a machine about the size of a JCB to be brought close to the house to drill down for the pipework. No reason a ground auger can't be used on a microdigger that'll fit through a normal domestic doorway. But there's also ASHP, it doesn't have to be GS. Even assuming you meant 2030, you read wrong. Let? Yes. Sold? No. Nothing new there, and C is required from 2025, B from 2030. Newly let properties after April 2018, all lets after last April, already have to meet EPC of E, or have a valid exemption. One exemption is that the work is not cost-effective. Cobblers. The north and west walls of our c.1700 solid stone house (walls about 45cm thick) are externally clad and insulated. No damp issues whatsoever. Timber frame, insulation, cedar weatherboarded. We have solar HW. It works... But nobody's installing that now - they're installing PV, with excess electricity diverted to an immersion in the HW. Solar doesn't have to be rent-a-roof leased, and install costs have plummeted in recent years. Most of those "install for free (we'll have the FIT)" scheme providers have closed down, because the FIT isn't lucrative any more and more people can afford to pay to install. For the existing ones, mortgage-compliant leases are the standard now, anyway, with non-compliant ones easy to change.
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keitha
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Post by keitha on Jun 8, 2021 9:41:23 GMT
adriancre the damp yes I've personally seen major issues with properties local to me apparently caused by the external insulation, but personally I think a lot of those properties were "jerry built" and I think but can't prove that there were a lot of cowboys doing external insulation. MY EPC says external insulation will save £450 a year on heating, that's interesting I pay £40 a month for gas and I can't see my bill going down to £3 a month. As I have a combi boiler diverting excess from panels to water heating would be costly to install, and to be honest given on average I export less that 10KWH not effective
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Jun 8, 2021 9:44:57 GMT
MY EPC says external insulation will save £450 a year on heating, that's interesting I pay £40 a month for gas and I can't see my bill going down to £3 a month. Obvs, it's all standardised figures... If you're starting off spending a lot less than they estimate, you'll save less than they estimate, too. EPCs are widely acknowledged as being somewhat less than accurate. Solar HW needs a cylinder, too.
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keitha
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Post by keitha on Jun 8, 2021 10:07:26 GMT
MY EPC says external insulation will save £450 a year on heating, that's interesting I pay £40 a month for gas and I can't see my bill going down to £3 a month. Obvs, it's all standardised figures... If you're starting off spending a lot less than they estimate, you'll save less than they estimate, too. EPCs are widely acknowledged as being somewhat less than accurate. Solar HW needs a cylinder, too. EPC says I will use about 17000 KWH for heating house and 2500 KWH for water, my usage in December and January was about 1800 KWH each, and in the summer drops to just over 200 KWH so my usage is about 1/3 lower than the EPC guesstimate ( assuming an even split over the year ) in fact it pretty much complies with my walls being insulated.
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Mike
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Post by Mike on Jun 9, 2021 14:48:28 GMT
Are heat pumps cost effective versus gas? I tried to do some calculations and the answer I got was that they are more efficient but the energy saving is offset by the higher cost of electricity (over gas) needed to run them.. I know there are grants availiable but in the long run (assuming all else equal) it appeared it would end up costing more not less
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michaelc
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Post by michaelc on Jun 9, 2021 15:36:41 GMT
Don't like solar panels. Apart from looking ugly, I'd worry about getting a roof leak in the future.
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pikestaff
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Post by pikestaff on Jun 9, 2021 15:48:45 GMT
All heating will end up being electric one way or another, but the solution (hydrogen, ground or air heat pump, solar, mains electricity) will depend on your situation.
My son's just bought a flat which was marked down for the EPC because it has electric heating, not gas. This is absurd because electric heating is future proof and will eventually be 100% green. It's just a matter of time.
Insulation is a different issue. Our housing stock is ageing and parts of it have been neglected for far too long. Hard decisions will have to be made about where to retrofit insulation (with grant funding where appropriate) and where to redevelop, with compulsory purchase when necessary. It won't be popular but it will have to come one day.
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keitha
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Post by keitha on Jun 9, 2021 17:26:06 GMT
Are heat pumps cost effective versus gas? I tried to do some calculations and the answer I got was that they are more efficient but the energy saving is offset by the higher cost of electricity (over gas) needed to run them.. I know there are grants available but in the long run (assuming all else equal) it appeared it would end up costing more not less At above 7 degrees C Both ground source and air source operate at about 3.2 Efficient ie for every KW input you get 3.2Kw Output. So assuming an average electricity price of 15P a Unit, and from my market knowledge the average is likely to go above that soon if it isn't already so divide 15 by 3.2 and you get a Unit cost of 4.68P My Gas tariff is currently 2.71P per KWH, The average newish boiler is 90% efficient so you get 9 units out per 10 input. So that makes the cost per Unit 3P. ( so for me my electric bill would go up by circa £500 to reduce my Gas bill by £330) The one saving I'm not factoring in is potentially only having 1 meter rather than 2 so a saving of £70 a year.
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keitha
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Post by keitha on Jun 9, 2021 17:39:14 GMT
All heating will end up being electric one way or another, but the solution (hydrogen, ground or air heat pump, solar, mains electricity) will depend on your situation. My son's just bought a flat which was marked down for the EPC because it has electric heating, not gas. This is absurd because electric heating is future proof and will eventually be 100% green. It's just a matter of time. Insulation is a different issue. Our housing stock is ageing and parts of it have been neglected for far too long. Hard decisions will have to be made about where to retrofit insulation (with grant funding where appropriate) and where to redevelop, with compulsory purchase when necessary. It won't be popular but it will have to come one day. And what will supply green electricity at midnight in the middle of December with no wind and a thick fog. Being pragmatic we need to get people off using Oil and Coal as a heat source before we even look at banning gas boilers. Where I live we have mains gas but there are still properties using coal to heat water and provide heat, The house next to mine has only had central heating in the last year, before that it was open coal fires. We need a lot more production near the consumption. There is a plan near me to erect some wind turbines, around an existing solar farm. The Solar Farm already produces enough power to supply all the houses in the County, I believe each county should be restricted as to how much green power it can produce via Solar Farms and turbines etc to say 250% of the usage for the County. Why should large swathes of the countryside be blighted to suit the townies.
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Jun 9, 2021 17:58:45 GMT
And what will supply green electricity at midnight in the middle of December with no wind and a thick fog. Hydro? Tidal? Nuclear...? The number of properties using coal for their primary heating is minimal. It's a rounding error, nationally. Conversion from coal to renewable biomass is not hard. Simply put logs on the fire instead of coal. Bingo. Converted. Want a massive efficiency gain? Put a stove in instead of an open fire. Oil is more of a thing. Yes, there's plenty of rural properties using oil as a primary heating fuel - about a million properties... so about 3% of the total nationally. Strangely enough, the other 97% are more of an issue. Bulk LPG is also an option for those off-mains properties, even before considering heat pumps or similar.
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Post by mfaxford on Jun 10, 2021 8:38:38 GMT
And what will supply green electricity at midnight in the middle of December with no wind and a thick fog. Being pragmatic we need to get people off using Oil and Coal as a heat source before we even look at banning gas boilers. Where I live we have mains gas but there are still properties using coal to heat water and provide heat, The house next to mine has only had central heating in the last year, before that it was open coal fires. We need a lot more production near the consumption. There is a plan near me to erect some wind turbines, around an existing solar farm. The Solar Farm already produces enough power to supply all the houses in the County, I believe each county should be restricted as to how much green power it can produce via Solar Farms and turbines etc to say 250% of the usage for the County. Why should large swathes of the countryside be blighted to suit the townies. Along with all that adrianc don't forget we also have (and will likely grow) our stored energy capability. Things like Electric Mountain might not be the most efficient form of storing energy but they're tried and tested and quick to respond (16 seconds for zero to maximum output). Add in large scale battery farms, Hydrogen powercells and anything else we come up with. We're also going to get a huge potential storage capacity in the form of personal electric vehicles and home scale power banks (like the Power Wall) which could potentially feed into the grid to cover peak demands. I'd like to see more localised generation and storage - If individuals can cover a lot of their own need from local solar and wind along with local storage then there's less demand on the grid and hopefully with fewer peaks. There's also a good case for district systems (especially in blocks of flats) where larger scale systems could be more efficient and/or more cost effective to install.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 10, 2021 9:15:24 GMT
I have external insulation on an old Yorkshire Farm building. No problems of damp.
I've had solar on the old slate roof for 8-10 years. There has been no leakage of water through the roof. When we next need to have the roof sorted (normally every 75 years or so on this sort of house) it will cost a bit more to take the solars off as well as the slate. But quotes so far suggest that the cost of the solar element will be marginal.
Does it look ugly. Well it might look less than pretty (eye of the beholder etc) until the house buyer sees that he is getting a free income from those things.
Heat pumps will need larger radiators. Other than that prices will fall as it becomes the norm.
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