Air Conditioner

C14N

Sleeper12 wrote: »

It's the heat pumps that will make domestic ac huge in Ireland. You might not spend a few thousand on ac but when it comes free as part of the heat pump then you will definitely use it at least a few times during the summer months.

Are most heatpumps that are put into homes these days reversible like that so they can both heat and cool?

Sleeper12

C14N wrote:

Are most heatpumps that are put into homes these days reversible like that so they can both heat and cool?

I can't answer that with certainty but I assumed all modern heat pumps work in this way

micosoft

Sleeper12 wrote: »

I've heard Polish say something similar about Ireland being colder than Poland in the winter even though actual temperatures say otherwise. Windchill and humidity I'm guessing

Damp. Nothing like Ireland to be damp. Dry cold of continental weather much more pleasant.

JimmyVik

C14N wrote: »

Are most heatpumps that are put into homes these days reversible like that so they can both heat and cool?

sssh.
Next you'll see the green party either disabling the Air con feature or more likely taxing the **** out of it.

Yellow_Fern

People who use the cooling feature in summer, is that via underfloor heating/ rads or a mini split system? I would have thought rads and UFH would be very slow to cool a very hot house

Sleeper12

Yellow_Fern wrote:

People who use the cooling feature in summer, is that via underfloor heating/ rads or a mini split system? I would have thought rads and UFH would be very slow to cool a very hot house

A heat pump uses reverse AC to heat the air. In summer this is reversed again to cool the air. For AC you need an Indoor unit. It blows heated & cooled air. It can be used as a fan, dehumidifier and some purity the air

Muahahaha

C14N wrote: »

Are most heatpumps that are put into homes these days reversible like that so they can both heat and cool?

Can only speak for the Mitsubishi air to air heat pump and indoor unit I have. I looked at three different Mitsubishi models and they all had a function for air con, dehumidifying and air purifying so it would seem standard at least with that brand. Id use the air con function maybe 8-10 days a year and even then only for an hour at a time. But its great to have it for the odd hot and stuffy day

0lddog

Yellow_Fern wrote: »

People who use the cooling feature in summer, is that via underfloor heating/ rads or a mini split system? I would have thought rads and UFH would be very slow to cool a very hot house

Cooling tends to create condensation on whatever is the cooled surface - Its not a great idea to cool floors / rads.

Cooling really works best with A2A units - The indoor units are designed to enable the condensate to be piped to a drain

Yellow_Fern

WantedPzen wrote: »

Ireland is a rich country, so it shouldn't surprise you that a lot of houses here have air conditioners. It's a normal situation for England or the US too.

US has a very different climate with much hotter summers and vastly cheaper electricity, so you expect it there. Plus they tend to use air instead of water heating so its less of a hassle. I think air con is rare in England.

Grawns

I must admit I'm intrigued. I've become a convert to air purification recently as I bought a phillips kit for the bedroom and my asthma symptoms have been significantly reduced. How does it work as an air conditioner if you don't have a central ventilation system. I'm in an a3 house with gfch and solar power. Would be happy to get rid of the gas if I could have heating and clean air. Worth the investment.

Yellow_Fern

Grawns wrote: »

I must admit I'm intrigued. I've become a convert to air purification recently as I bought a phillips kit for the bedroom and my asthma symptoms have been significantly reduced. How does it work as an air conditioner if you don't have a central ventilation system. I'm in an a3 house with gfch and solar power. Would be happy to get rid of the gas if I could have heating and clean air. Worth the investment.

One of the heat pumps experts could chime in about using heat pumps to purify the air but I will say many people like myself have gas and mechanical ventilation with purifies the air. I imagine its more effective solution than moving to a heat pump

Grawns

Yellow_Fern wrote: »

One of the heat pumps experts could chime in about using heat pumps to purify the air but I will say many people like myself have gas and mechanical ventilation with purifies the air. I imagine its more effective solution than moving to a heat pump

Thanks, mechanical ventilation is something I'm definitely interested in. They build these super insulated houses and then punch a hole in every room. I just love the idea of heat recovery as the solar is very efficient as we're fully south facing and triple glazed. Need to study all the options as there is definitely crossover. Filtered air is my ultimate goal though . So allergic.

Sleeper12

Heat pumps can heat, cool, dry (dehumidify), fan & purify the air. They ain't cheap. Split unit covering 2 rooms costs 3500 to 4500 euro. This would be an air heat pump. Other heat pumps take heat from the ground and these are very expensive to retro fit. You are talking 15000 to 25000.

Muahahaha

Sleeper have you ever come across anyone using geothermal to heat their house? It seems pretty rare probably because the upfront cost of around 25k is so high. But I believe once installed your electricity bills go down to next to nothing as you're getting free heat from the ground.

There was a guy on that program Great Irish Houses who tried it but not all land is suitable for geothermal and his wasnt. It still cost him something like 5k to drill the holes to find out so it can be a risky prospect.

Sleeper12

Muahahaha wrote:

Sleeper have you ever come across anyone using geothermal to heat their house? It seems pretty rare probably because the upfront cost of around 25k is so high. But I believe once installed your electricity bills go down to next to nothing as you're getting free heat from the ground.

I don't do that type of plumbing & I don't usually see the inside of new homes until they are over 10 years old. I believe that geothermal /ground heat pumps are installed in some new homes. Part of the planning permission is that you must have some sort of green energy. Some have solar some heat pumps. They are very expensive to retro fit & I don't believe that the average home would recover the outlay in savings on bills.


Once installed the electricity bill will go up rather than down (unless you were already heating your home with electricity) but you will no longer need gas or oil. Your overall energy bill will go down

Muahahaha

Yeah it would be difficult to see a pay back of 25k from lower energy bills and then I guess you have the control units themselves which might need replacing over time.

There is another system called a water to water heat pump which extracts the heat from a body of water like a river or a lake and delivers it to the house via a heat pump. I wonder will that ever take off, in theory you could heat multiple houses from it and most large towns are built on rivers.

handlemaster

Muahahaha wrote: »

Yeah it would be difficult to see a pay back of 25k from lower energy bills and then I guess you have the control units themselves which might need replacing over time.

There is another system called a water to water heat pump which extracts the heat from a body of water like a river or a lake and delivers it to the house via a heat pump. I wonder will that ever take off, in theory you could heat multiple houses from it and most large towns are built on rivers.

https://www.gva.ch/en/Site/Geneve-Aeroport/News/2020-2016/Des-2025,-Geneve-Aeroport-rafraichira-et-chauffera

Muahahaha

Got home to a really stuffy house this evening and flicked on the air conditioner function on the air to air heat pump. My god it is just pure bliss, the house was 27c inside when I got home and now I have the living room and kitchen down to a cool 17c.

Went back upstairs to use the toilet and leaving the room was like getting hit with a blast of heat and then coming back down into the living room was like walking into a fridge. Its not that often you need air con in Ireland but when you do it makes stuffy hot days so much more comfortable.

Yellow_Fern

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117621895#Comment_117621895

No doubt. I think this kind of luxury could more and more seen as a must have, however, this type of lifestyle creep is so incongruent with climate goals. The gov is aiming to reduce our carbon emissions to 1960s levels within 9 years. No idea how that is going to happen.

Atlantic Dawn

One of the problems of the current madness to insulate olden days homes up like they are going to be moved to the Arctic permanently is during the summer when we get 25 degree plus they are pretty much uninhabitable.

Sleeper12

Been using the ac every night in the bedroom, to cool room down before bed time for around 2 months now. A few nights this week I've had it on all night on a very low energy setting. The Last few days we've used the one downstairs for an hour or so each day.

Pure bliss 😊

Muahahaha

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117622618#Comment_117622618

Its a heat pump I have which heats my house in winter, they are geared to reduce carbon emissions such are their efficiency. In winter for every 1Kw of electricity I use at the meter the heat pump is delivering 3kw of heat inside the house so Im using approx 66% less electricity than I would be if I had electric panel heaters. So the use of heat pumps reduces carbon emissions by virtue of using electricity in a very efficient manner. These heat pumps are part of the government climate change strategy to wean people off oil & gas to more efficient ways of heating a home.

In summer you can reverse it and the heat pump can deliver proper air con on hot stuffy days. It is not as efficient at cooling as it is at heating but still for every 1kw of electricity used at the meter it is delivering approx 2kw of cool air into the house. I ran it for 30 mins yesterday with a 20c/kwh rate so to cool the ground floor of the house cost approx 5 cents of electricity.

usernamegoes

I'm considering buying a house which has storage heating. I hate storage heating so much that I wouldn't buy the house unless I could replace it somehow. I was considering if a heat pump could work, is the heat from an air to air system good? What about retro fitting an air to water system?

If I did go with an air to water system, could I also put a wall thing in some rooms to do cooling?

MrMusician18

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117622721#Comment_117622721

That's wrong. A well insulated house stays warm in winter and cool in summer.

Sleeper12

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117626918#Comment_117626918

Biggest question here is does the house have a water source? If you don't have access to a water source for the heat pump then it only leaves ground to air or air to air. Ground to air is expensive to retro fit, as in 10s of thousands.

Before any of these heatpump ideas are considered you need a very well insulated house or better still an airtight house.

usernamegoes

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117626993#Comment_117626993

So the plan would be to upgrade insulation and ideally make it airtight (but that might be a challenge).

When you say water source, my understanding was that it was just a heat pump outside that extracts the heat from the air to heat up water which is pump into radiators like a regular oil or gas central heating system. Have I misunderstood?

Sleeper12

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117627059#Comment_117627059

A water source heat pump takes heat from a well, river, lake etc.

Ground source heat pump takes heat from the ground. This is economical at lower temperature (below 5c) than the air pump. This heat pump is expensive to retro fit

Air source heat pump takes heat from the air

I have gas central heating but also have air heat pump. This is brilliant for air conditioning at the moment. I have a unit in my sitting room and my bedroom. It's cheaper to heat these rooms with heat pump compared to gas until the outside temperature is around 5c. Below this & gas is cheaper.

Muahahaha

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117626918#Comment_117626918

This is what I did- I replaced 3x 25 year old storage heaters with a single air to air heat pump, it has one unit outside on the wall and another inside providing warm or cool air as needed. Cost was just under 1,900 installed and worth every penny as the storage heaters were need in replacement anyway. My electricity bill went down a fair bit after installation, a direct comparison was a bill of 252 for Oct/Nov before installation and then the following Oct/Nov the electricity bill was 145.

But as Sleeper said the insulation of the house is important before installing any heat pump. They are remarkably efficient at providing heat but if your house is badly insulated and has draughts then they have to work extra hard to produce the same heat and they can actually turn out very inefficient and expensive to run.

cnocbui

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117223399#Comment_117223399

Absolute nonsense. I'm an Australian and didn't live in a house with an airconditioner until I was in my 30's. They are near universal now, but the idea you can't live without one is pure comedy. The one place on Earth I have experienced where I can't imagine life without one is Dubai. I once landed there at about 4:00 am and thought I had missheard when the temp was announces as 46°C. After disembarking, I realised it was accurate when the urinal flushed and a wave of heat and vapour came off the hot 'cold' water.

usernamegoes

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117627414#Comment_117627414

Maybe crossed wires, I am talking of air to water heat pumps, which are air source but use the heat to heat up water which is then pumped to radiators to heat them similar to a GFCH. It doesn't get as hot hence the need for good insulation.

Having both systems is interesting. Do you have your gas zoned or do you just turn off the radiators?

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117627547#Comment_117627547

This is very interesting, How do you find the hot air for heat as opposed to traditional radiators? €1,900 seems very reasonable for this. Do you live in an apartment or a house?

I've turned off any apartment that is based on storage heating as I figured I couldn't replace it because of the rules about drilling through external walls.