Anyone for Gas?

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pwa
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Re: Anyone for Gas?

Post by pwa »

mjr wrote: 19 Oct 2021, 10:51am
pwa wrote: 19 Oct 2021, 8:01am I love the idea of a cleaner, greener alternative to gas for central heating, but I dread any of our neighbours getting an air source heat pump system installed. We live in the countryside and if I step out into the garden at 10pm, as I often do, and gaze up at the stars, it is often perfectly quiet. No human made noise at all. If our neighbours install what are basically reverse action refrigeration units in their back gardens that will be gone, forever. Outdoor silence will be replaced with a constant hum. I know it is coming and I find that depressing. I seriously hope my hearing begins to fail before that happens.
So it sounds like you've not heard them? There may well already be one near you. Domestic units can be 50dB max at 1m in front. At 2m or more, traffic on any road within a quarter mile will be louder. At 5m or from behind a fence or hedge, you pretty much have to look at the fan to see if it's running.

And it's not constant. The external fan only runs when heating, which is only when the hot water tank needs reheating or the low-temperature central heating loses some heat. Even in October, that is only about a quarter of the time. Its fan speed varies by demand: lower when windy and lower for central heating than hot water. So in summer, when you are more likely to be outside, it should run for about 20mins now and then for hot water.

Oil and gas boilers are far worse for noise, wheezing and whooshing for longer to heat less and blowing hot gas out small vents.
Thanks for those thoughts. I am perhaps a bit touchy on the subject because we recently had a neighbour install a hot tub near our boundary and it hums 24/7. It made it quite unpleasant to be in the garden. I read somewhere that heat pumps have to be at least 1 metre from your neighbour to avoid noise nuisance, but 1 metre is nothing. I have also heard that they are a bit noisier than a fridge, and I shut the kitchen door when I go to bed to keep the fridge noise from permeating the house.
Psamathe
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Re: Anyone for Gas?

Post by Psamathe »

pwa wrote: 19 Oct 2021, 11:04am .... we recently had a neighbour install a hot tub near our boundary and it hums 24/7. It made it quite unpleasant to be in the garden. I read somewhere that heat pumps have to be at least 1 metre from your neighbour to avoid noise nuisance, but 1 metre is nothing. I have also heard that they are a bit noisier than a fridge, and I shut the kitchen door when I go to bed to keep the fridge noise from permeating the house.
Hot tubs are a nightmare. My neighbour has one resting up against my house wall (or inches away) and through the winter it "fires up" every hour, all through the night and often wakes me up (vibrations passing through the wall as some sounding board (wooden house). Daft thing is they never use it so a complete waste of energy keeping it running and keeping we regularly waking-up.

(I'm not a fan of hot tubs anyway, never used one but the energy use in our current predicament).

Ian
geocycle
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Re: Anyone for Gas?

Post by geocycle »

If heat pumps had been readily available 3 years ago before I installed a gas boiler I would probably have gone down that route. We were also renovating a property so changing the radiators would not have been too bad. Now, I'll have to wait as it makes no sense on any grounds to rip out a newish efficient boiler. I also don't relish the prospect of changing the radiators (and pipes?) through the house.

I'd like to add solar panels and we had a quote from EOn for 18 panels on a SW aspect roof. Their models suggested it would take 25 years to break even at best as we don't use enough electricity. We don't want to make a profit but we need to see some advantage in compensation for the hassle of having them installed. Battery storage sounds good but even that doesn't mean you can feel smug during a power cut...

We need to be thinking at the community rather than individual level for energy. I know that is un-British and anathema to the present government, but lots of solar, ground source, biomass etc schemes work much better at scale.
Psamathe
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Re: Anyone for Gas?

Post by Psamathe »

I'm probably confused and/or out of date as I've looked into many different types of more renewable based heating over time but there was one type of renewable(ish) heating that requires larger boor pipework and larger radiators in the house (so not suited to properties that have standard central heating systems.

Is this out of date/wrong/specific to certain types of systems?

In some respects I'd love to get ground source heat pump as I have an ideal property (large garden with lawn near property, easy routes to house without excavating drives/concrete slabs, etc.) but, at the moment I don't use central heating (my oil tank delivery was over 5 years ago and the tank is still half full).

With all the talk in the press about installation prices dropping as more people install, will this encourage people to delay getting one as wait a couple of years and they'll be much cheaper (and Gov. support announced so far seems "minimal").

Ian
Oldjohnw
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Re: Anyone for Gas?

Post by Oldjohnw »

On the one hand, Johnson brings in an inadequate but better than nothing subsidy for heat pumps.

On the other he demonstrates his complete lack of commitment by writing this on the Sun:

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/16460794/ ... oiler-vow/

and:

https://www.nytimespost.com/boris-johns ... s-boilers/
John
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Paulatic
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Re: Anyone for Gas?

Post by Paulatic »

geocycle wrote: 19 Oct 2021, 11:45am If heat pumps had been readily available 3 years ago before I installed a gas boiler I would probably have gone down that route.
They were and have been for a very long time. Mine is over 10 now.
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[XAP]Bob
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Re: Anyone for Gas?

Post by [XAP]Bob »

geocycle wrote: 19 Oct 2021, 11:45am If heat pumps had been readily available 3 years ago before I installed a gas boiler I would probably have gone down that route. We were also renovating a property so changing the radiators would not have been too bad. Now, I'll have to wait as it makes no sense on any grounds to rip out a newish efficient boiler. I also don't relish the prospect of changing the radiators (and pipes?) through the house.

I'd like to add solar panels and we had a quote from EOn for 18 panels on a SW aspect roof. Their models suggested it would take 25 years to break even at best as we don't use enough electricity. We don't want to make a profit but we need to see some advantage in compensation for the hassle of having them installed. Battery storage sounds good but even that doesn't mean you can feel smug during a power cut...

We need to be thinking at the community rather than individual level for energy. I know that is un-British and anathema to the present government, but lots of solar, ground source, biomass etc schemes work much better at scale.

Some battery systems you absolutely can feel smug during a power cut.
Just don’t hook up all your lighting circuits, so that you can at least notice the cut
A shortcut has to be a challenge, otherwise it would just be the way. No situation is so dire that panic cannot make it worse.
There are two kinds of people in this world: those can extrapolate from incomplete data.
rjb
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Re: Anyone for Gas?

Post by rjb »

My solar PV on the roof wont operate during a power cut. They get disconnected automatically if they sense they cant deliver the output and risk overloading the house. Battery storage may get around this but i dont know. How about charging your EV. anyone know :?:
At the last count:- Peugeot 531 pro, Dawes Discovery Tandem, Dawes Kingpin X3, Raleigh 20 stowaway, 1965 Moulton deluxe, Falcon K2 MTB dropped bar tourer, Rudge Bi frame folder, Longstaff trike conversion on a Giant XTC 840 :D
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mjr
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Re: Anyone for Gas?

Post by mjr »

pwa wrote: 19 Oct 2021, 11:04am Thanks for those thoughts. I am perhaps a bit touchy on the subject because we recently had a neighbour install a hot tub near our boundary and it hums 24/7. It made it quite unpleasant to be in the garden. I read somewhere that heat pumps have to be at least 1 metre from your neighbour to avoid noise nuisance, but 1 metre is nothing. I have also heard that they are a bit noisier than a fridge, and I shut the kitchen door when I go to bed to keep the fridge noise from permeating the house.
My 20yo fridge is way noisier than 50dB. A lot of that noise is the pump. In a heat pump system, the pump will be in the airing cupboard or loft, just like a boiler central heating system.

I expect some people can screw up a heat pump installation, so there should be an enforceable rule against unpleasant constant noise audible from another home which would also deal with that hot tub but I don't think there is.
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mjr
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Re: Anyone for Gas?

Post by mjr »

geocycle wrote: 19 Oct 2021, 11:45am If heat pumps had been readily available 3 years ago before I installed a gas boiler I would probably have gone down that route. We were also renovating a property so changing the radiators would not have been too bad. Now, I'll have to wait as it makes no sense on any grounds to rip out a newish efficient boiler. I also don't relish the prospect of changing the radiators (and pipes?) through the house.
They are 150-year-old tech. Used in Norfolk since the 1950s at least. Lots of installers seem busy since the last grants scheme started, so maybe they are still not readily available.

Usually only radiators need replacing. Well, strictly speaking not even that but it would be much less efficient to run small high-temperature radiators from a heat pump so you could kiss almost all of the energy and cost savings goodbye.

I don't know if current systems don't work with microbore piping but I cannot think why that would be so.
I'd like to add solar panels and we had a quote from EOn for 18 panels on a SW aspect roof. Their models suggested it would take 25 years to break even at best as we don't use enough electricity. We don't want to make a profit but we need to see some advantage in compensation for the hassle of having them installed.
Yeah, I get that. Something is wrong with the market when it discourages switching to renewables like that.
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[XAP]Bob
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Re: Anyone for Gas?

Post by [XAP]Bob »

rjb wrote: 19 Oct 2021, 2:49pm My solar PV on the roof wont operate during a power cut. They get disconnected automatically if they sense they cant deliver the output and risk overloading the house. Battery storage may get around this but i dont know. How about charging your EV. anyone know :?:
More importantly they will not energise the incoming cables in the event of a power cut to avoid electrocuting any power company workers trying to reconnect you.

Blackout capable battery systems have a disconnect box that completely isolates the grid connection if there is a blackout - the battery/solar/wind/CHP... can all carry on, with the battery responding to any imbalance between supply and demand.

In general you will have a few "canary" circuits, and possibly a few high load (e.g. electric oven or air conditioner) circuits which you don't have behind the battery, that allows you to a) spot that you have had a power cut and b) reduce your usage appropriately.
A shortcut has to be a challenge, otherwise it would just be the way. No situation is so dire that panic cannot make it worse.
There are two kinds of people in this world: those can extrapolate from incomplete data.
rjb
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Re: Anyone for Gas?

Post by rjb »

[XAP]Bob wrote: 19 Oct 2021, 3:34pm
rjb wrote: 19 Oct 2021, 2:49pm My solar PV on the roof wont operate during a power cut. They get disconnected automatically if they sense they cant deliver the output and risk overloading the house. Battery storage may get around this but i dont know. How about charging your EV. anyone know :?:
More importantly they will not energise the incoming cables in the event of a power cut to avoid electrocuting any power company workers trying to reconnect you.

Dont they wear rubber gloves. :shock:
At the last count:- Peugeot 531 pro, Dawes Discovery Tandem, Dawes Kingpin X3, Raleigh 20 stowaway, 1965 Moulton deluxe, Falcon K2 MTB dropped bar tourer, Rudge Bi frame folder, Longstaff trike conversion on a Giant XTC 840 :D
francovendee
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Re: Anyone for Gas?

Post by francovendee »

pwa wrote: 19 Oct 2021, 8:01am I love the idea of a cleaner, greener alternative to gas for central heating, but I dread any of our neighbours getting an air source heat pump system installed. We live in the countryside and if I step out into the garden at 10pm, as I often do, and gaze up at the stars, it is often perfectly quiet. No human made noise at all. If our neighbours install what are basically reverse action refrigeration units in their back gardens that will be gone, forever. Outdoor silence will be replaced with a constant hum. I know it is coming and I find that depressing. I seriously hope my hearing begins to fail before that happens.
I think you're right to be concerned. I've experienced two, one is at my daughters house and another when we were staying in a gite. Whilst I wouldn't say they were loud you can certainly hear them when in the garden. Far noisier than a gas boiler but quieter than an oil boiler.
I would imagine that in crowded housing estates if everyone used them the noise would be quite noticeable.
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[XAP]Bob
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Re: Anyone for Gas?

Post by [XAP]Bob »

rjb wrote: 19 Oct 2021, 3:45pm
[XAP]Bob wrote: 19 Oct 2021, 3:34pm
rjb wrote: 19 Oct 2021, 2:49pm My solar PV on the roof wont operate during a power cut. They get disconnected automatically if they sense they cant deliver the output and risk overloading the house. Battery storage may get around this but i dont know. How about charging your EV. anyone know :?:
More importantly they will not energise the incoming cables in the event of a power cut to avoid electrocuting any power company workers trying to reconnect you.

Dont they wear rubber gloves. :shock:
Usually, yes... but why risk putting power onto the grid from an uncontrollable source?

To be fair your neighbour's resistive load will also drop the voltage on your connection to the square root of naff all, so the disconnect works in your favour as well (no need to supply power to your neighbours after all).
A shortcut has to be a challenge, otherwise it would just be the way. No situation is so dire that panic cannot make it worse.
There are two kinds of people in this world: those can extrapolate from incomplete data.
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mjr
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Re: Anyone for Gas?

Post by mjr »

francovendee wrote: 19 Oct 2021, 7:20pm I think you're right to be concerned. I've experienced two, one is at my daughters house and another when we were staying in a gite. Whilst I wouldn't say they were loud you can certainly hear them when in the garden. Far noisier than a gas boiler but quieter than an oil boiler.
How long ago and how old were the units? I think they're improving over time.
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