Heating Systems

Katz83

Hi i am all messed up about what heating system to put into our house . We are between heat pump air to water with underfloor heating or else oil and ratidators with back boiler stove in kitchen and insert stove in Sitting room and solar panels. Any advise would be much appreicated. We are planning on insolating well I think pumping a cavity with 150m insolation. the house is 2000 squre foot bungalow. We were thinking of going with triple glazed windows but have now decided to go with double as the price of triple is far too dear. We are also thinking of putting a HRV system instead of vent on the windows . Any advise or opinions much appreciated

sinnerboy

Same advice as here

Insulation , windows , air tightness , ventilation , heating all mix together differently for every one off house and every client .

I have literally worked on two identical houses side by side in the same development site . The details varied because the clients were different .

At the very least - do yourself a huge favour and hire a BER assessor to prepare a DEAP model to run the options for you .

kateof

I've been doing some research into home heating and the thing that keeps coming back to me is this
If you are in an existing house that is on the eclectric grid, solar systems etc are uneconomical and excessive.
If you are planning a new build, then all the eco options are worth putting in place, depending on your needs,
Don't know if this helps?
Good luck with it

sinnerboy

kateof wrote: »

If you are planning a new build, then all the eco options are worth putting in place,

If you are planning a new house - you HAVE TO install some renewable energy system or systems . When you decide on your spec - please take part here

imitation

Katz83 wrote: »

We were thinking of going with triple glazed windows but have now decided to go with double as the price of triple is far too dear.

How many quotes did you get for your windows ? I say this because in the end I found a few companies that were about 20-40% more expensive than double, but the first quote in from a well known company came in at 200% more expensive than next triple glazing company alone.

muffler

imitation wrote: »

How many quotes did you get for your windows ? I say this because in the end I found a few companies that were about 20-40% more expensive than double, but the first quote in from a well known company came in at 200% more expensive than next triple glazing company alone.

Please dont select one part of a post to discuss a different aspect of it as this drags the thread off topic. This is the Renewable Energies forum and if you want to discuss the price of windows then please open a thread in the Prices/costs forum.

Thanks.

kateof

Katz83 wrote: »

Hi i am all messed up about what heating system to put into our house . We are between heat pump air to water with underfloor heating or else oil and ratidators with back boiler stove in kitchen and insert stove in Sitting room and solar panels. Any advise would be much appreicated. We are planning on insolating well I think pumping a cavity with 150m insolation. the house is 2000 squre foot bungalow. We were thinking of going with triple glazed windows but have now decided to go with double as the price of triple is far too dear. We are also thinking of putting a HRV system instead of vent on the windows . Any advise or opinions much appreciated

I'm in desperate need of advice also regarding the heating system at my place, I want a range style cooker, and am choosing between oil and electricity, both to give background constant heating. Has anyone used the <SNIP> electric range cooker? and how does it compare financially to run, compared to oil fired?

PJMCKE

Your BER assessor with point you towards your minimum requirements to comply with part L in a new build. However this is not really helping you. Complying with part l is not nexessary what you are asking but it will help you in sizing your heating requirement and this i have found wearing as linking a deap calc to a plumber is a world of difference.
If you have excellent thermal insulation and low air infiltration and low thermal bridging then you are half way there. Unfortunately part L does not really help a well insulated house and in some ways it hinders your choices.

I exhausted 4-5 months on the heating and madly enough went back to oil. This was because the level of heat required to heat my home would have made geothermal and other options not economincal. The same can also be said sadly of the more reliable pellet systems.
I think I have some tab on my blog. please forgive my ranting in it.
again these are my own self build opinionated experiences.
best of luck
http://homewardbound-heatingplumbing.blogspot.com/

galwaytt

kateof wrote: »

I'm in desperate need of advice also regarding the heating system at my place, I want a range style cooker, and am choosing between oil and electricity, both to give background constant heating. Has anyone used the <SNIP> electric range cooker? and how does it compare financially to run, compared to oil fired?

Well, we've built 2 x houses, for 2 different clients, and both fitted AGA's. One, is oil, one is electric. The electric one cost's a fortune to run on ESB.
The oil one, is better.

However, and perhaps something to consider, is both of them are completely OTT for the houses they're in, as they provide too much heat for the house, even idling.............the houses being as efficient as they are, they actually don't need background heat at all.....so, if you just like the look of that style of cooker, just pick an energy efficient one that looks nice, and forget about using it as part of the heating system.

I'm going on the premise of a well insulated, highly airtight structure. If you are building something else, then, .............

beyondpassive

I'm finding more convergance in choice of heating systems for one offs. Once we've optimised the fabric, airtightness, cold bridge reduction, vapour permeable insulations, your heat load is greatly reduced to the point that renewables make less sense. Granted solar thermal is the choice to meet the mandatory threshold for renewables under Part L of the building regulations. But if your space heating and hot water bills are less than €700 on a 3000sq ft build, it becomes difficult to justify heat pumps.

The choice for most is to have a large centralised dual function cylinder, which acts as both hot water store and buffer for excess heat from the solar panels and the back boiler from the solid fuel room sealed stove back boiler. An oil or (in rare cases) pellet stove boiler provides fast responce heat to the tank and the Heating system.

For the heating system we specify underfloor to the tiled areas with low temperature rads or towel rails to bedrooms and hot press. because the tank is stratified, underlfoor heat can be taken from the middle of the tank where it is always around 36 degrees, hot water from the top where it is 60 degrees.

Heat recovery ventilation makes sense when you have a tight fabric and a simplified wet heating system. The HRV ducts will equalise the temperature in the house. Our strategy provides seperate HRV systems to bedrooms and Living rooms. The main reason for this is to create 2 separate heating zones, where Living rooms can be set to 23 degrees and bedrooms to 19 degrees. The Heat recovery ventilation systems can also be integrated with the room thermostats to assist in maintaining the set point temperature in individual rooms, also preventing overheating in summer.

Evergreen

Katz83 wrote: »

Hi i am all messed up about what heating system to put into our house . We are between heat pump air to water with underfloor heating or else oil and ratidators with back boiler stove in kitchen and insert stove in Sitting room and solar panels. Any advise would be much appreicated. We are planning on insolating well I think pumping a cavity with 150m insolation. the house is 2000 squre foot bungalow. We were thinking of going with triple glazed windows but have now decided to go with double as the price of triple is far too dear. We are also thinking of putting a HRV system instead of vent on the windows . Any advise or opinions much appreciated

The only advice that I can offer you is to stay away from a stove with a back boiler, here are my reasons

• Building regaulations in this country say that you have to have an open vented heating system if you in stall a sold fuel burning stove with a back boiler in it for safety reasons - an open vented heating system is an old style technology best left in the past.
• An open vented system is less efficent at distributing heat than a modern sealed/pressureised system
• An open vented system will bring airated water back into the heating system that will at best cause problems with air locks and at worst cause internal corrosion of your heating system.
• A stove with a back boiler can use lot's of fuel throughout the night and often not have enough heat in the room it is in, whereas a non-back boiler stove will roast the room it is in and use very little fuel in comparison.
• Remember, a good stove rarely gets better than 75% efficeint whereas a bad stove can be 50% or lower

I'm sure that there are others that will disagree with me, but I have seen more than my fair share of relatively young heating systems with radiators falling off walls and heat exchangers with holes as big as a 2 euro coin in them thanks to open vented heating systems.

Case in point, my brother was always replacing radiators until he removed the stove with back boiler and sealed his system. He still has two space heating stoves and uses a fraction of the fuel he used to as a result.

beyondpassive

Intersting points there Evergreen.

What about, if the solid fuel boiler, which is open vented, has a heat exchange coil in the solar buffer/cylinder combination tank. It is seperate from the distribution circuit and has an expansion vessel.

YouWantWhat

Katz83 wrote: »

Hi i am all messed up about what heating system to put into our house . We are between heat pump air to water with underfloor heating or else oil and ratidators with back boiler stove in kitchen and insert stove in Sitting room and solar panels. Any advise would be much appreicated. We are planning on insolating well I think pumping a cavity with 150m insolation. the house is 2000 squre foot bungalow. We were thinking of going with triple glazed windows but have now decided to go with double as the price of triple is far too dear. We are also thinking of putting a HRV system instead of vent on the windows . Any advise or opinions much appreciated

Hi Katz83
I'm of the opinion that underfloor heating, heat recovery systems, solar power and all that stuff is a load of nonsense, and is just a huge money spinner for the manufactureres and installers. I'm currently working on a project where the client has insisted on a geothermal system, underfloor heating and a heating recovery system for the grand total of (wait for it..) €37,000!!!!!!!!!!. On top of this there will be the running costs of the heat recovery unit and the heat exchanger and the on-going maintenance costs, and lets face it, the electricity used for driving these units does not come from renewable sources.
In Ireland we do not suffer from extremes of weather or temperature, so we don't need fancy all singing and dancing heating systems. What you need to do is insulate your house well, and make it airtight, this way when you heat your house, the heat stays in it.
In my own house which is in an extremely exposed location, I insulated it well and have since improved the airtightness, we have a basic oil-fired heating system, zoned areas for the heating, and a good controller (cost about £5k to install at the time) - I topped up the oil tank last September (09) which cost about €600, and there's still a quarter of the tank full. The only other heating source we have is a wood burner, which we only light occasionally, normally on weekend nights (for that homely feel !!), and we can normally pick up enought timber for free to keep this going.

Do the maths yourself.

Katz83

YouWantWhat wrote: »

Hi Katz83
I'm of the opinion that underfloor heating, heat recovery systems, solar power and all that stuff is a load of nonsense, and is just a huge money spinner for the manufactureres and installers. I'm currently working on a project where the client has insisted on a geothermal system, underfloor heating and a heating recovery system for the grand total of (wait for it..) €37,000!!!!!!!!!!. On top of this there will be the running costs of the heat recovery unit and the heat exchanger and the on-going maintenance costs, and lets face it, the electricity used for driving these units does not come from renewable sources.
In Ireland we do not suffer from extremes of weather or temperature, so we don't need fancy all singing and dancing heating systems. What you need to do is insulate your house well, and make it airtight, this way when you heat your house, the heat stays in it.
In my own house which is in an extremely exposed location, I insulated it well and have since improved the airtightness, we have a basic oil-fired heating system, zoned areas for the heating, and a good controller (cost about £5k to install at the time) - I topped up the oil tank last September (09) which cost about €600, and there's still a quarter of the tank full. The only other heating source we have is a wood burner, which we only light occasionally, normally on weekend nights (for that homely feel !!), and we can normally pick up enought timber for free to keep this going.

Do the maths yourself.

What ventilation system do you use. do have vents in windows. Are you a plumber. Yes dont think we will got for underfloor heating. Not sure yet whether we put in back boiler. We have to go with some form of renewable though. So which one would you got for if you were in that predicament

L driver

beyondpassive wrote: »

I'm finding more convergance in choice of heating systems for one offs. Once we've optimised the fabric, airtightness, cold bridge reduction, vapour permeable insulations, your heat load is greatly reduced to the point that renewables make less sense. Granted solar thermal is the choice to meet the mandatory threshold for renewables under Part L of the building regulations. But if your space heating and hot water bills are less than €700 on a 3000sq ft build, it becomes difficult to justify heat pumps.

The choice for most is to have a large centralised dual function cylinder, which acts as both hot water store and buffer for excess heat from the solar panels and the back boiler from the solid fuel room sealed stove back boiler. An oil or (in rare cases) pellet stove boiler provides fast responce heat to the tank and the Heating system.

For the heating system we specify underfloor to the tiled areas with low temperature rads or towel rails to bedrooms and hot press. because the tank is stratified, underlfoor heat can be taken from the middle of the tank where it is always around 36 degrees, hot water from the top where it is 60 degrees.

Heat recovery ventilation makes sense when you have a tight fabric and a simplified wet heating system. The HRV ducts will equalise the temperature in the house. Our strategy provides seperate HRV systems to bedrooms and Living rooms. The main reason for this is to create 2 separate heating zones, where Living rooms can be set to 23 degrees and bedrooms to 19 degrees. The Heat recovery ventilation systems can also be integrated with the room thermostats to assist in maintaining the set point temperature in individual rooms, also preventing overheating in summer.

Hello,

Beyondpassive this seems to make sense. Get the structure/fabrics right first and then KISS. Now a few questions, I'm the last S on KISS
Is it possible to have a burner/stove in the garage to heat the stratified tank once or twice a week with timber, rather than oil. No need to have a full tank of hot water if you go to the gym/play sports a few times a week where you can shower for your membership fee.
Also is it possible to have solar panels on the garage and pump the free hot water to the stratified tank, I presume this is in the hotpress? Or would it be better having the big stratified tank in the garage and a small tank in the hp for showers when needed. Maybe I'm complicating things. I am talking about houses with little heat loss, have heard of houses that never use their upstairs heating, because of high levels of cellulose in the roof etc

nophd08

YouWantWhat wrote: »

Hi Katz83
I'm of the opinion that underfloor heating, heat recovery systems, solar power and all that stuff is a load of nonsense, and is just a huge money spinner for the manufactureres and installers. I'm currently working on a project where the client has insisted on a geothermal system, underfloor heating and a heating recovery system for the grand total of (wait for it..) €37,000!!!!!!!!!!. On top of this there will be the running costs of the heat recovery unit and the heat exchanger and the on-going maintenance costs, and lets face it, the electricity used for driving these units does not come from renewable sources.
In Ireland we do not suffer from extremes of weather or temperature, so we don't need fancy all singing and dancing heating systems. What you need to do is insulate your house well, and make it airtight, this way when you heat your house, the heat stays in it.
In my own house which is in an extremely exposed location, I insulated it well and have since improved the airtightness, we have a basic oil-fired heating system, zoned areas for the heating, and a good controller (cost about £5k to install at the time) - I topped up the oil tank last September (09) which cost about €600, and there's still a quarter of the tank full. The only other heating source we have is a wood burner, which we only light occasionally, normally on weekend nights (for that homely feel !!), and we can normally pick up enought timber for free to keep this going.

Do the maths yourself.

Just wondering, how did you improve air tightness. I'm in the process of topping up insulation and getting cavitys pumped. I have trickle wall vents which I know cause draughts.
Any suggestions welcome.