Heating system that is 20 times cheaper than gas, oil or electricity.

Furez

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/innovative-new-heating-system-may-yet-save-us-all-millions-29950123.html


I'm no engineer but using electricity, to run a noisy compressor, to produce heat, seems to involve a lot of energy wasting steps. I'd go with too good to be true. Especially when I see "heat produced in the most energy efficient manner possible".

Reminds me of that wetter water thing the indo published last year.

A2LUE42

Furez wrote: »

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/innovative-new-heating-system-may-yet-save-us-all-millions-29950123.html


I'm no engineer but using electricity, to run a noisy compressor, to produce heat, seems to involve a lot of energy wasting steps. I'd go with too good to be true. Especially when I see "heat produced in the most energy efficient manner possible".

Reminds me of that wetter water thing the indo published last year.

€7000 to install and no actual running or maintenance costs referenced for a normal size house.(Whatever the scientific dimensions and u values of a normal house are)

Ciaran

Is it a heat pump? The article doesn't give much detail, mostly a press release I'd imagine.

gctest50

Heat pump + slow news day

http://www.eurotechgroup.ie/products-heat-pumps.php


http://www.ochsner.com/en/


http://www.ochsnerireland.com/ochsner-heat-pumps-domestic.php?parent_id=3

Carawaystick

I suppose there's a method to this,
Heat pumps work best when there's a good temperature difference between the media - so if you're taking heat from the air to heat your house, it's best when the air temp is hotter than inside - but those days are like the middle of the summer and so, no need to heat house then.

When it's cold you're trying to get heat from 5 degree heat into a 20 degree house.

So I guess, using Charles Law, compressing the outside air, increases the temperature by Charles' Law, making the heat transfer more efficient.

Compressing air doesn't take much energy so I guess if the energy to compress air is << than the extra energy then you're up

djpbarry

Whatever about the feasibility of the system (I'll read up on it when I have the time), the standard of scientific/technical reporting in modern media makes me want to cry:

The revolutionary system works on the principal that the outside air – irrespective of how cold it is – contains some degree of heat in the form of solar energy from the sun which is trapped in the moisture.

long range shooter

It doesnt work very well in Norway though

http://theforeigner.no/pages/columns/norwegians-dont-save-money-with-heat-pumps/

Furez

That Norway report is interesting, in that it does seem to be more efficient, but people are more wasteful in proportion to negate the savings. Picturing half naked Nordic folk swanning around the house with open windows .

long range shooter

Furez wrote: »

That Norway report is interesting, in that it does seem to be more efficient, but people are more wasteful in proportion to negate the savings. Picturing half naked Nordic folk swanning around the house with open windows .

You wish,lol

Capt'n Midnight

long range shooter wrote: »

It doesnt work very well in Norway though

http://theforeigner.no/pages/columns/norwegians-dont-save-money-with-heat-pumps/

In 1865, English economist William Stanley Jevons observed that efficiency improvements in a resource’s use tend to increase rather decrease its use. The observation became known as the Jevons paradox.

The Jevons paradox is sometimes used in modern economics to suggest that energy conservation is futile.

Second point first. Go for insulation.

First point is really interesting when you look at lighting

http://www.sandia.gov/~jytsao/tsao_jy_2010_04_app_for_light_LEUKOS.pdf

We have self-consistently analyzed data for per-capita consumption of artificial
light, per-capita gross domestic product, and cost of light. The data span a wide
range: 3 centuries (1700–2006), 6 continents (Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe,
North America, South America), 5 types of fuel (tallow, whale oil, gas, petroleum,
electricity), 5 overall families of lighting technologies (candles, oil lamps, gas
lamps, electric incandescent bulbs, electric gas-discharge bulbs or tubes), 1.4
orders of magnitude in per-capita gross domestic product,
4.3 orders of magnitude in cost of light, and 5.4 orders of magnitude in per-capita consumption of light.

We find that the data are consistent with a simple expression in which
per-capita consumption of artificial light varies linearly with the ratio between
per-capita gross domestic product and cost of light.

Light is really cheap these days http://www.buyincoins.com/item/17637.html 10 Watt LED - €0.87 delivered :eek:

AngusB

djpbarry wrote: »

Whatever about the feasibility of the system (I'll read up on it when I have the time), the standard of scientific/technical reporting in modern media makes me want to cry:

These systems are all over the place already, and if you see a "cassett" in the ceiling of a store, for example, its usually connected to a compressor outdoors which either sends hot or cool air to the cassette.

If you google "Air source heat pumps explained - Creating an energy ..." you'll find an interesting article from Which? which explains how they work and explains "The Energy Saving Trust (EST) estimates that the cost of installing a typical ASHP system ranges between £7,000 and £14,000. "

"The EST says that an average performing air source heat pump in an average four-bedroom detached home could save:

between £545 to £880 a year if replacing oil
between £550 and £1,060 a year if replacing electric heating."

An interesting type of heating found in many Japanese homes is a paraffin inverter heater - if you go to youtube and search for "Inverter Paraffin Heaters Ireland" you'll see a form of heater which is inexpensive compared to an air source heat system, and the running costs are competitive.

J.O. Farmer

Carawaystick wrote: »

Compressing air doesn't take much energy so I guess if the energy to compress air is << than the extra energy then you're up

I fail to see how this would work in that energy cannot be created or destroyed just change form. Therefore the energy created would be equal what was used. Some of the energy may be converted to a form other than heat so you would in effect be down.

recedite

It works because it extracts heat from some place outside, either the air or a coil buried in the ground. It is just a fridge in reverse.

This is funny though;

...an engineering company in Castleblaney, Co Monaghan has designed a pioneering low-cost heating system ....
Its origins are fairly everyday: while pumping up a bicycle tyre one day, Gerry Duffy observed that the pump got very hot when too much air was pumped in.
Curious about the phenomenon, it led him to develop an amazing heating system using compressed air

.... and luckily Gerry was able to import his new "invention" from Austria where they have been making them for donkeys years :pac:

dlouth15

So why are they not more popular in Ireland? Do they involve a lot more work to install than central heating? Also how do they compare with ground loop systems in terms of efficiency?