Heat in the home

Use this board for general non-cycling-related chat, or to introduce yourself to the forum.

My central heating is set for what range?

I don't have central heating
8
13%
below 18
22
36%
18-20
24
39%
21-22
2
3%
23-25
2
3%
25-plus
3
5%
 
Total votes: 61

User avatar
Mick F
Spambuster
Posts: 56359
Joined: 7 Jan 2007, 11:24am
Location: Tamar Valley, Cornwall

Re: Heat in the home

Post by Mick F »

We have climate control in our car, and the previous one too.

Clean dry air at whatever temperature you set it to.
Permanently on, 12months of the year.
Mick F. Cornwall
briansnail
Posts: 809
Joined: 1 Sep 2019, 3:07pm

Re: Heat in the home

Post by briansnail »

I was listening to BBC radio this morning.They said a new invention is coming.Wall paper that emits infra red.The theory is rather than conventional convection warming .Things like bodies can be heated directly and you can warm up just one room and use green energy.
Let us see what others report.The USA radium company many years ago said that walls could be painted with radium and promised free heating. That's before they realized the dangers.Workers in watch factories were still licking the brushes to paint radium onto watch dials at the time.
*********************************
I ride Brompton and a 100% British Vintage
rjb
Posts: 7200
Joined: 11 Jan 2007, 10:25am
Location: Somerset (originally 60/70's Plymouth)

Re: Heat in the home

Post by rjb »

Farewell radiators? Testing out electric infrared wallpaper - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64402524
Wall paper heating is costly in terms of running cost. Gas is less than 1/3 the cost of electric and a heat pump emits 3 times the heat it consumes. :wink:
It was suggested you could use PV panels to supply the electric. PV panels generate very little in the winter just when you need the heat. :lol:
Last edited by rjb on 5 Feb 2023, 2:11pm, edited 1 time in total.
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
User avatar
simonineaston
Posts: 8003
Joined: 9 May 2007, 1:06pm
Location: ...at a cricket ground

Re: Heat in the home

Post by simonineaston »

mini nuke-U-lah power plants in every home... oh yes!
S
(on the look out for Armageddon, on board a Brompton nano & ever-changing Moultons)
User avatar
mjr
Posts: 20308
Joined: 20 Jun 2011, 7:06pm
Location: Norfolk or Somerset, mostly
Contact:

Re: Heat in the home

Post by mjr »

briansnail wrote: 5 Feb 2023, 1:53pm The USA radium company many years ago said that walls could be painted with radium and promised free heating. That's before they realized the dangers.Workers in watch factories were still licking the brushes to paint radium onto watch dials at the time.
Meanwhile, Brits who grew up in radon-afflicted areas were rather sceptical of that. (Radon is the usual next decay product of radium. Afflicted areas are basically Wales, the West Country, the Cotswolds and midlands Wolds, the Pennines and Dover.)

But rjb hints at the basic flaw: the best any direct electric heating can do is 100% heat, but more often 90% or less. Better to use the electricity to pump more heat out of the air, ground or water and often get over 300% heat energy for each unit of electrical energy.
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk
All the above is CC-By-SA and no other implied copyright license to Cycle magazine.
User avatar
al_yrpal
Posts: 11537
Joined: 25 Jul 2007, 9:47pm
Location: Think Cheddar and Cider
Contact:

Re: Heat in the home

Post by al_yrpal »

A bit of heat outside the home today...After a morning spent hanging pictures and rearranging the furniture after delivery of the new cuddle sofa we repaired to the garden to do a bit of pottering. Suitably attired we took our lunch and a cuppa in the brilliant warm sunshine topping up the vitamin D. Might fit in a couple of rides this week...

Al
Reuse, recycle, thus do your bit to save the planet.... Get stuff at auctions, Dump, Charity Shops, Facebook Marketplace, Ebay, Car Boots. Choose an Old House, and a Banger ..... And cycle as often as you can......
Jdsk
Posts: 24640
Joined: 5 Mar 2019, 5:42pm

Re: Heat in the home

Post by Jdsk »

Image
User avatar
Cugel
Posts: 5430
Joined: 13 Nov 2017, 11:14am

Re: Heat in the home

Post by Cugel »

The string of sunny days have meant not just a resumption of more regular/frequent bike rides but have also given an opportunity to watch what happens with heat in the home following the installation of the new solar panel array & batteries, observing the software display which shows various parameters of energy generation and usage.

When the sun shines brightly, the solar panels will, even with the relatively low winter sun, generate at their full-whack when there's no intervening thin cloud, mist or murk. In addition, the heat pump providing the house heating comes on far less frequently, as the passive-house features of the hoose themselves gather radiant heat from the sun to warm the interior of the house, meaning the heat pump-driven underfloor heating hardly needs to come on at all.

At present, the batteries are charged back up to 100% full overnight, using cheaper Economy-7 electricity 00:30 - 07:30. End of day battery content, just before recharging begins at 00:300, has varied from 10% after very dull, windy & cold days to 65% after sunnier yet still very cool but low wind days. Around 35% is the most usual level, perhaps.

The combination of sun on the solar panels plus passive heating of the house itself in the sun sees the battery climb from around 80% at 9am (before the sun comes up and after the time-we-get-up heating and hot water systems have taken 20% of the battery capacity) back up to 100% in not much time at all! Rather than feed any further solar energy into the grid for nowt, we plug in the e-car, put on the hot wash and otherwise use e-appliances that would otherwise be timed to come at night when the grid electricity price is at the Economy-7 overnight rate.

So, as the days lengthen, it'll become necessary to manage the battery charging and discharging on a daily basis, altering things depending on the weather, particularly the forecast sunny hours. We're hoping that the longer days will see enough solar energy to run the house but also charge the batteries up to enough during the day to avoid having to overnight-charge the batteries from the grid.

Spring to mid-autumn days see us use 10-15 WH per day so full batteries of 30WH should last for 2 -3 days without a need for recharging. If the solar panels still provide something significant even when there's cloud, we might get another day out of the system before the grid has to be called on.

Cugel, power station manager grade 4D.
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”.
John Maynard Keynes
Biospace
Posts: 2008
Joined: 24 Jun 2019, 12:23pm

Re: Heat in the home

Post by Biospace »

mjr wrote: 6 Feb 2023, 11:25am
But rjb hints at the basic flaw: the best any direct electric heating can do is 100% heat, but more often 90% or less. Better to use the electricity to pump more heat out of the air, ground or water and often get over 300% heat energy for each unit of electrical energy.
In considering 'efficiencies' it's useful to consider the different ways heat energy reaches us and that the term 'radiator' for a mass of piped water (or heat bricks, in the case of night storage heaters) sitting against a wall is a misnomer, it heats more through convection of warmed air. Radiation from a heated mass penetrates our flesh and warms us 'to the bone' whereas warm air heats surfaces only, relying on conduction of that heat through the body of material.

A large mass heated to 35C will heat almost imperceptibly and cause almost no air movement, we're increasingly heating concrete floor slabs. With air-tight well-insulated houses, the heating will be almost imperceptible which can lead to a cool feeling for those used to more intense heat sources, even though temperatures are comfortable.

A large radiative heat source (as with the wallpaper mentioned) can be very efficient as it directly heats bodies, but clearly it cannot make use of the efficiencies of a heat pump so the next most efficient method is to heat up a large mass like a concrete floor with a heat pump. I've seen traditional Spanish houses with a Gloria - underfloor and in-wall heating, typically burning straw through a fireplace in the courtyard which vents under the property and up through its walls, it acts to cool the building in summer.
User avatar
mjr
Posts: 20308
Joined: 20 Jun 2011, 7:06pm
Location: Norfolk or Somerset, mostly
Contact:

Re: Heat in the home

Post by mjr »

Biospace wrote: 6 Feb 2023, 4:41pm In considering 'efficiencies' it's useful to consider the different ways heat energy reaches us and that the term 'radiator' for a mass of piped water (or heat bricks, in the case of night storage heaters) sitting against a wall is a misnomer, it heats more through convection of warmed air. Radiation from a heated mass penetrates our flesh and warms us 'to the bone' whereas warm air heats surfaces only, relying on conduction of that heat through the body of material.

A large mass heated to 35C will heat almost imperceptibly and cause almost no air movement, we're increasingly heating concrete floor slabs. With air-tight well-insulated houses, the heating will be almost imperceptible which can lead to a cool feeling for those used to more intense heat sources, even though temperatures are comfortable.
OK, colour me confused: if you think the radiators convect, but my large 35ish C radiators "cause almost no air movement" then how do you think they transfer heat to the home and its inhabitants?
A large radiative heat source (as with the wallpaper mentioned) can be very efficient as it directly heats bodies, but [...]
Firstly, as the trimmed part said and I agree with, its efficiency is limited compared to pumping heat.

Secondly, how much of the stuff in our homes now isn't designed to withstand direct heat? I doubt much of my furniture is. Some of the nice bits were never put near the fireplace. Will the plastic in the radiator-wallpaper off-gas nasty things? Or will things that people cover it with? I expect some horror stories in a year or two.
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk
All the above is CC-By-SA and no other implied copyright license to Cycle magazine.
Biospace
Posts: 2008
Joined: 24 Jun 2019, 12:23pm

Re: Heat in the home

Post by Biospace »

mjr wrote: 6 Feb 2023, 5:10pm
OK, colour me confused: if you think the radiators convect, but my large 35ish C radiators "cause almost no air movement" then how do you think they transfer heat to the home and its inhabitants?
They will convect warm air, but the larger size and lower temperatures mean the air movements will be significantly slower than for a small radiator running at 65-70C. The larger the heat source and the smaller the differential, the slower the speed of convection currents.

For the same amount of warming of a room, a heat source placed vertically will tend to create more vigorous air movement than from a heated floor as the air continues to be warmed as it rises.

https://www.warmup.co.uk/blog/underfloo ... ifferences
Biospace
Posts: 2008
Joined: 24 Jun 2019, 12:23pm

Re: Heat in the home

Post by Biospace »

Cugel wrote: 6 Feb 2023, 4:31pm The string of sunny days have meant not just a resumption of more regular/frequent bike rides but have also given an opportunity to watch what happens with heat in the home following the installation of the new solar panel array & batteries, observing the software display which shows various parameters of energy generation and usage.

When the sun shines brightly, the solar panels will, even with the relatively low winter sun, generate at their full-whack when there's no intervening thin cloud, mist or murk. In addition, the heat pump providing the house heating comes on far less frequently, as the passive-house features of the hoose themselves gather radiant heat from the sun to warm the interior of the house, meaning the heat pump-driven underfloor heating hardly needs to come on at all.

The combination of sun on the solar panels plus passive heating of the house itself in the sun sees the battery climb from around 80% at 9am (before the sun comes up and after the time-we-get-up heating and hot water systems have taken 20% of the battery capacity) back up to 100% in not much time at all! Rather than feed any further solar energy into the grid for nowt, we plug in the e-car, put on the hot wash and otherwise use e-appliances that would otherwise be timed to come at night when the grid electricity price is at the Economy-7 overnight rate.

So, as the days lengthen, it'll become necessary to manage the battery charging and discharging on a daily basis, altering things depending on the weather, particularly the forecast sunny hours. We're hoping that the longer days will see enough solar energy to run the house but also charge the batteries up to enough during the day to avoid having to overnight-charge the batteries from the grid.

Spring to mid-autumn days see us use 10-15 WH per day so full batteries of 30WH should last for 2 -3 days without a need for recharging. If the solar panels still provide something significant even when there's cloud, we might get another day out of the system before the grid has to be called on.

Cugel, power station manager grade 4D.
My emboldening

It's good to hear things are working well with the new kit, I'd expect to be able to rely without much/any grid input (car excepted) from late April to September with a 30KWh battery and 8KW of PV (I think this is right?) and 10KWh/day demand, what sort of passive solar heating are you using? We managed with PV (30%ENE/50%SSE/20%WSW) to reduce our reliance on non-solar electricity down to 2 months in the year by chasing down and replacing older inefficient electrical devices, we used wood for heating and a lot of cooking/baking.

Passive solar heating is the way to go as it needs no maintenance or electricity and is such a comfortable heat, quite remarkable just how much is available by late January when the sun shines, even here in the middle of Britain. Once March comes round, with good insulation a house should be capable of storing enough solar heat to see it through three dull days.
User avatar
853
Posts: 261
Joined: 23 Sep 2022, 6:01pm

Re: Heat in the home

Post by 853 »

I was speaking to someone today, and they mentioned Lot 20

I'd never heard of Lot 20, so I'm guessing many of you won't have either. It's all about legislation that aims to help manufacturers create EcoDesign products that use significantly less energy to provide heat to our homes. So the web site says ...

https://www.bestelectricradiators.co.uk ... ompliance/
User avatar
Cugel
Posts: 5430
Joined: 13 Nov 2017, 11:14am

Re: Heat in the home

Post by Cugel »

Biospace wrote: 7 Feb 2023, 2:25pm
It's good to hear things are working well with the new kit, I'd expect to be able to rely without much/any grid input (car excepted) from late April to September with a 30KWh battery and 8KW of PV (I think this is right?) and 10KWh/day demand, what sort of passive solar heating are you using? We managed with PV (30%ENE/50%SSE/20%WSW) to reduce our reliance on non-solar electricity down to 2 months in the year by chasing down and replacing older inefficient electrical devices, we used wood for heating and a lot of cooking/baking.

Passive solar heating is the way to go as it needs no maintenance or electricity and is such a comfortable heat, quite remarkable just how much is available by late January when the sun shines, even here in the middle of Britain. Once March comes round, with good insulation a house should be capable of storing enough solar heat to see it through three dull days.
The passive heating elements of the hoose are not the full set, consisting of: large windows that gain some radiant heat from the sun; plus between-the-skins wall & roof insulation that tends to keep heat in the house for a long time and also prevent too much solar gain via the roof and sun-facing walls in summer.

In all events, it's very noticeable that even in cold (currently 5 degree C) outside temperatures, the ground source heat pump doesn't come on if the sun is shining brightly.

At the same outside temperature when it's dull and/or if the wind is very strong, the heat pump will come on several times a day as the various house thermostats give it information. The settings for the heat pump are such that it will allow the inner temperature of various rooms to drop only a degree or so below the ideal before it comes on. Typically, the gaps between it coming on to increase the falling temperatures will be around 3 - 4 hours or longer - depending on just how heat-sapping are conditions between the innards of the house and weather conditions outside. The heat pump tends to operate for only 30 minutes or less to bring the house temperatures back up.

Most of the electricity used in the house is to make hot water, to charge the e-car and to operate kitchen appliances (washing machine, dishwasher, all the much-used cooking stuff). Heat for the underfloor heating is also significant but less than that drawing electricity for those other uses.

We did think of mounting solar-gain panels of the sort that heat water, then using that warmed water to decrease the amount of heat needed to be generated by the heat pump for hot water in the house. However, the complexity of the necessary re-plumbing and the lack of roof space after mounting the solar panels for electricity prevents that.

*************

There's one 4K solar array that came with the house that puts all of it's output into the grid under a FiT agreement, via a dedicated inverter not part of the new additions. The new/additional 4K solar panel array is connected, by its own separate inverter, to 3 X 10WH batteries, which can be charged by both that new solar array but also from the grid.

At present, the batteries aren't filled enough by winter sunlight to provide for the house/car usage without also charging overnight from the grid, at Economy-7 rates. Once the batteries are full, they can be gradually discharged for the house use during the day. So far, they haven't got near being fully discharged by the end of the day.

In fact, on dawn-to-dusk sunny days (currently about 8 hours of sunlight on the solar panels) we have to be careful to ensure that either the batteries aren't fully charged from the grid by dawn or that we use enough electricity from the batteries during the day to avoid the new solar panels filling the batteries up to 100% with nowhere for the subsequent solar energy to go except the grid, for £0.00 return.

I'm expecting/hoping that the longer & warmer days will see many where we don't need to charge the batteries from the grid overnight at all as the solar panel production will be enough to run the house and charge the car.

Meanwhile we've been improving heat retention and other suckers of electricity in various ways, to try and get to the situation where we generate more electricity, over the whole year, than we use. We'd still need the grid as the electricity usage varies over the year and half our solar panel output goes directly into the grid under that FiT arrangement. But .....

In the first year we moved into this house, the annual electricity usage was just under 10,000 units. Last year it was 8000 units, due to various fiddlings with electricity-using stuff and elimination of draughts/cold spots within the house. We hope it'll drop to 7000 units this year (2023) which will be about equal to the total solar panel generation over the year.

Perhaps one day, we can add small low wind speed wind generators and produce more electricity than we use.

Cugel
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”.
John Maynard Keynes
User avatar
al_yrpal
Posts: 11537
Joined: 25 Jul 2007, 9:47pm
Location: Think Cheddar and Cider
Contact:

Re: Heat in the home

Post by al_yrpal »

Lovely today sitting in the garden for lunch in the warm sunshine. Lawns need cutting because the grass is growing strongly. Just watching bumble bees and midges making the best of it.

Al
Reuse, recycle, thus do your bit to save the planet.... Get stuff at auctions, Dump, Charity Shops, Facebook Marketplace, Ebay, Car Boots. Choose an Old House, and a Banger ..... And cycle as often as you can......
Post Reply