Heat Pumps again

Widget

I am not a bit technical but I have had a look at most of the postings dealing with geothermal heat pumps - my particular circumstances haven't been discussed but my gut instinct is that it may be too expensive. Our family home is an old, large Victorian house with minimal insulation. My parents still live there but in the Winter it is freezing. They spend a lot of the winter in sunnier climes but the lack of heat is causing the fabric of the house to deteriorate. They have Gas central heating which is getting more and more expensive plus their boiler is very inefficent. The parents are getting old and in the near future may need to spend the winter in Ireland - they would run the risk of hypothermia. My two questions are firstly is there a company that will do an insulation survey so that we can do what we can to bring the insulation up to an acceptable standard. I had thought we could have a dual system - heat pump in background with an oil fired boiler as a backup. We could have the pump on while house empty - keeping it warm at minimal cost but the actual cost of the electricity to run the pumping system + initial cost makes it sound an expensive option. What do the experts think?

CJhaughey

I am no expert but what you are suggesting makes no sense to me.
Better to knock/sell the old and inefficient building and start again with a smaller, highly insulated structure that needs small inputs to be warm.
Put simply I would seriously doubt whether bringing the Victorian era house up to modern insulation standards is even possible, and secondly would be so expensive as to nullify any possible cost savings that a GSHP may provide.

LMK

Hi Widget,
The first thing you should do is survey the building & decide if there are areas that you can increase/improve the insulation, if you have a poorly insulated structure it really dosen't make financial sense in putting in a heating system before fixing the underlying problem. The Dew point of air is 7Deg C so the temp in your rooms should be higher than this ~ 9deg C.
You could also consider electric storage heaters as an option.

josephd

Hi Widget,
I see a list (pdf) of energy consultants in Ireland here: http://82.195.132.38/uploadedfiles/Energyandbusiness/ListofEnergyAuditCompanies.pdf
IMO, because Ireland is small and word of mouth propels business, sites aren't optimised and difficult to find. Contact these maybe;
http://www.overy.ie and they should have some further contacts?
http://www.home-ideas.org/index.htm may have some insulation insight?

Maybe there are grants for a home of that type? http://www.heritagecouncil.ie/grants/index.html
Another option to seriously consider is something to supplement the cost like (suggestion only) "Duncan Stuart through his independent
production company, Earth Horizon.
E-mail: aboutthehouse@eircom.net
Address: 13 Windsor Place, Dublin 2.
Tel. 01-661.7475." In case you don't know, this company used to make t.v. about restoration and new building.

And leverage modern marketing practices to the maximum. Like drawing some sort of deal with any building suppliers/heating contractors/consultants, that may be viewed on such programme.

It might not be as bad as it looks though, renovation that is.

What age is the house?

Evergreen

Hi Widget,

All the other posts are correct, you need to tackle the problem of insulation as a priority. There is nothing that you can do about the walls because they are solid stone or blocks, however, it is possible to get insulation pumped into the gap between your ceiling and the outside roof.

A vast amount of heat escapes house through both the roof and windows, therefore you would also need to install highly efficient double or triple glazing windows and doors. Does not sound nice if you want to keep a Victorian feel to the house, but I am sure that there are window companied out there who will have a product that fits better with this style of house.

I don't know what the location of your house is, but I am dealing with some owners of Victorian and Georgian houses located in the country - old estate houses and the like that are being used as guest houses. They are currently being crippled with oil bills in the region of EUR 4,000 to EUR 6,000 per year for heating alone. What we are doing with them is installing highly efficient log boilers to heat their houses at a fraction of the cost. My brother recently both 120 tonnes of wood thinnings from Coilte for EUR 500 and we estimate that this is enough timber to heat an average sized 4 bed bungalow for about 15 years.

The boiler systems are more expensive than oil or gas, but if you have access to cheap or free fuel then it pays for itself in no time at all.

If you want more information on this or would like to see one of these in operation then send me a PM and we can make arrangements.

Widget

Thanks for all your help - will have chat with parents re best way to proceed

EireRoadUser

I Install heating systems in houses and have worked with people who have brought old houses up to insulation standard.

We did our calculations based on the finished job and the owner was worried that the radiators wouldn't heat the house.
To do this though the wiring in the house will all have to be changed ,everything thats wall mounted has to be changed in large house to this properly your looking at about 60,000

Viking House

My advise is to insulate the attic, put in new windows/doors and to insulate externally. These systems will probably cut 65% off your fuel bills.
If you did all these maybe the boiler you have is good enough if you got it serviced.