Energy bill increases

[SpokeyDokey]

70p per litre of oil yesterday - ordered enough to take us through to the start of next winter.

Beat today's crude oil surge to +100$ per barrel.

 

[mjr]

Hmm ! Heat pumps are heavily 'touted' as the panacea for all environmental 'ills' Kudos, to folk who want to do their 'bit' for the planet
but it seems they will need 'deep pockets'

Nope. Cheaper than oil to run if set up right, even before the latest surge. There are too many bad installers trying to treat them as boilers and too many users who've never used a good setup so don't realise they've been scammed. It's easier to blame the mature technology that works well in the colder Nordic countries than to accept you were conned. It's seen as foreign and rare here still, so plays into the tabloid scandal story nonsense.

Current technology and costs put heat pumps out of reach for the majority of the population
and therefore ineffective in the great scheme of things.

Installation costs on a generally-crap housing stock put it out of reach. I don't know if the government grant reforms in a month will change that and see more smaller cheaper heat pumps developed. The previous scheme favoured bigger homes.

 

[mjr]

Having experience of them I'm certainly not bothering again.
Our neighbors had it fitted few months back and are already disliking the costs and poor heat output on demand.

Running it "on demand" will suck. It doesn't respond fast enough for that. You should set the heating controller to predict and provide a temperature using weather compensation (and ideally forecasts) and once it's set up, basically leave it alone except for holidays or malfunctions.

Too many installers don't do that basic step, which I understand is mandatory in some countries. Instead, they install an old-fashioned on/off thermostat and fixed high radiator temperatures, wasting their customers' money just so they don't have to explain how it works and why big warm radiators cost less than short bursts of small hot ones.

With our fluctuations in temperature here we need heat on demand not just a static temperature.

What fluctuations in temperature? The UK has a less extreme climate than many heat pump using countries.

 

[Alex321]

What fluctuations in temperature? The UK has a less extreme climate than many heat pump using countries.

There is a difference between fluctuating and extreme. The countries which use them a lot tend to have sub-zero temperatures for weeks on end, and are likely to have a much more predictable pattern of when heat is needed.

 

[mjr]

There is a difference between fluctuating and extreme. The countries which use them a lot tend to have sub-zero temperatures for weeks on end, and are likely to have a much more predictable pattern of when heat is needed.

Right, but even though heat pump systems react more slowly than thrashed boiler ones, it's still an hour or two to react, not days, so the controllers are quite capable of predicting heat demand well enough. It doesn't really matter if it's 2 instead of 5 out, as long as it's not 2 when 22 was forecast.

Even boiler systems would be cheaper and less polluting if allowed to modulate and run lower-temperature heating with smart controllers.

Is one problem in this country that we've too many people who want to keep going "Ug cold, Ug press button, Ug make fire" instead of something more install-and-forget that can predict when you'll get cold and prevent it?

 

[gbb]

I'd be more interested in airsource systems if we actually knew the real cost of implementing them properly.
I assume its not just about the airsource system, proofing most older houses (mine for instance looks like a fairly modest, modern house, but was built late 60s with all the then acceptable, now not really suitable practices), supplementary heating ? upgrades to rads, solar panels ?
I assume there are many facets to it...and each facet is going to cost, is it affordable to the average householder ?

I suspect if you did it properly with a new build it's relatively easy and extremely efficient....on an older house ?

 

[Alex321]

Is one problem in this country that we've too many people who want to keep going "Ug cold, Ug press button, Ug make fire" instead of something more install-and-forget that can predict when you'll get cold and prevent it?

There is certainly something in that, though I suspect it is as much about not trusting the "can predict when you'll get cold" bit to be at all accurate.

 

[Roseland triker]

We can have differences of 25c over a day here. In the morning it can be 8c then by mid afternoon it can be 35c . Add wind and sideways hail the difference can be huge.
A constant temperature inside the house is difficult to achieve so with underfloor airsource heating it's constantly on off on off.
I find using the oil boiler much better and cheaper to run.

 

[Scaleyback]

We can have differences of 25c over a day here. In the morning it can be 8c then by mid afternoon it can be 35c . Add wind and sideways hail the difference can be huge.
A constant temperature inside the house is difficult to achieve so with underfloor airsource heating it's constantly on off on off.

Isn't that what a thermostat is for, to keep a relatively even temp ?

 

[Roseland triker]

Isn't that what a thermostat is for, to keep a relatively even temp ?

Yes but when the sun comes in the window it ruins the sensor then open the back door and minus 5 blows in it causes the airsource to keep goin on and off.
This causes demand for the electricity thus costing alot.


Have you ever had airsource heating?

 

[Scaleyback]

Yes but when the sun comes in the window it ruins the sensor then open the back door and minus 5 blows in it causes the airsource to keep goin on and off.
This causes demand for the electricity thus costing alot.


Have you ever had airsource heating?

No, no experience of heat pumps. My central heating room thermostat is free standing, (wireless) so even this time of the year the sun can play havoc with it's readings. i just move it out of the sun. It's called ' user intervention '

 

[mjr]

I'd be more interested in airsource systems if we actually knew the real cost of implementing them properly.
I assume its not just about the airsource system, proofing most older houses (mine for instance looks like a fairly modest, modern house, but was built late 60s with all the then acceptable, now not really suitable practices), supplementary heating ? upgrades to rads, solar panels ?
I assume there are many facets to it...and each facet is going to cost, is it affordable to the average householder ?

More than "it's not just about the airsource system"! It's not at all about the heat pump system. If you've got a leaky shoot house, it's going to cost you more no matter how you heat it. The only thing a heat pump adds to the problem is a slower heating response time which exposes that you've got a leaky shoot house by being more likely to fail to react fast enough... but blaming the heat pump for that is like saying a water tap is worse than a dung chute because you can't turn the water tap on fast enough to fill a sieve!

It's not affordable enough to the average householder yet. If it wasn't boiler replacement time, with a need to resite both boiler (the exhaust was melting the neighbour's guttering) and oil tank (too close to buildings for modern rules), even the government grants wouldn't have made it economic for us.

I suspect if you did it properly with a new build it's relatively easy and extremely efficient....on an older house ?

The best new builds should be easy (but even those get cocked up far too often, from what I read: cheap pumps installed badly and left on the factory settings, with no commissioning after the first owner moves in) but our house is a 40-year-old design. Retrofit was not as easy as it should be IMO but it's pretty efficient. Still nowhere near the extremely efficient ones with people reporting 700% efficiency on new-builds where I think they've got all the pipework as short and straight as possible, with the heat-pump indoor units in a ground floor room directly behind the ideally-positioned outdoor unit, powering underfloor heating mostly in neighbouring rooms.

There is certainly something in that, though I suspect it is as much about not trusting the "can predict when you'll get cold" bit to be at all accurate.

Would making manufacturers publish more of the control/prediction program, ideally in something graphical and easy to understand like Node-Red, help with that? Or do we just need more people to experience the better controls like ecodan and homely?

We can have differences of 25c over a day here. In the morning it can be 8c then by mid afternoon it can be 35c . Add wind and sideways hail the difference can be huge.
A constant temperature inside the house is difficult to achieve so with underfloor airsource heating it's constantly on off on off.

It should cope with 8 to 35 no problem, taking the edge off the morning chill and then using the hottest afternoon to heat enough water for the night.

I don't have underfloor but everything I've read tells me it should be more constantly on at low power than airsource radiators. If it was on off on off cycling a lot then it sounds like something was malfunctioning. In that situation, heating can eat a lot of money quickly and very few heating systems, whether electric, gas or oil, warn customers soon enough IMO. I guess at least with an oil tank, it can't keep wasting money beyond the tank running out, but that can still be hundreds of pounds!

Yes but when the sun comes in the window it ruins the sensor then open the back door and minus 5 blows in it causes the airsource to keep goin on and off.
This causes demand for the electricity thus costing alot.

Don't put the main heating sensors in direct sunlight or near a minus 5 draught! That'll waste your money no matter how you heat the home. What morons installed the sensors there? And was that where the surveyor recommended or did they ignore the survey?

Nearly every time someone grumbles about heat pumps, it seems to turn out that they had installation errors or were trying to use it as a boiler. Boiler's have got to go soon. We can't keep burning shoot for heat and transport, like that Fully Charged Show episode said.

(edited to fix a typo)

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

Our themostat is on the wall in the lounge - but is wireless so we can move it easily if we want to

Problem is that it reacts quite slowly - so it can be set to 20 but them thermometer a few feet below it drops to 19 then 18 then 17 before the thermostat realises and reacts
So we end up knocking it up() to 21 or 22 just to get it to react - then forget and the room gets to warm.
Hopefully the batroom are 'getting done' soon and we will get the whole control system replaced while they are here

 

[Roseland triker]

I'm going to drill into the diesel pipeline that runs 70miles underground here if I get stuck....

Got rustled by the mod last time I was digging near it so the task could be lucrative

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

I'm going to drill into the diesel pipeline that runs 70miles underground here if I get stuck....

Got rustled by the mod last time I was digging near it so the task could be lucrative

That's a long old drill you have there!