Autumn 2019 - General Discussion

highdef wrote: »

Heating is switched on 365 days a year. House is divided into zones and upstairs rads have individual stats. If temperature falls below a predetermined threshold in any zone, that zone calls for hear from the boiler.

None of this "ooooh, it's a bit chilly in the house today but it hasn't reached October yet so I'm leaving the heating off because I rather have a cold house in September than have the heating system making the house warm and cosy".

It's always the same comfortable temperature in my house, except upstairs during warmer spells in summer however in going to invest in air conditions for the upstairs bedrooms next year.

Many see this as wasteful.

highdef wrote: »

Heating is switched on 365 days a year. House is divided into zones and upstairs rads have individual stats. If temperature falls below a predetermined threshold in any zone, that zone calls for hear from the boiler.

None of this "ooooh, it's a bit chilly in the house today but it hasn't reached October yet so I'm leaving the heating off because I rather have a cold house in September than have the heating system making the house warm and cosy".

It's always the same comfortable temperature in my house, except upstairs during warmer spells in summer however in going to invest in air conditions for the upstairs bedrooms next year.

Heat doesn't go on here until November at least though probably the odd fire put in the evening (not by me). I like a cool house and fresh house, and at least when it is a bit too cool, you can put on the heat to warm it up a bit. In summer, when it is too hot, finding ways cool down is not quite so easy.

My heating thermometer is set at 17°C so it hardly ever turn on the boiler during the summer months. I tend to turn it up to 18 or 19°C in the cooler evenings when I am staying in. But it turns down to it's nighttime setting at 15° just before midnight which switches off the boiler. Seldom hear the heating coming on in the middle of the night unless it is extremely cold outside.

Jpmarn wrote: »

My heating thermometer is set at 17°C so it hardly ever turn on the boiler during the summer months. I tend to turn it up to 18 or 19°C in the cooler evenings when I am staying in. But it turns down to it's nighttime setting at 15° just before midnight which switches off the boiler. Seldom hear the heating coming on in the middle of the night unless it is extremely cold outside.

I guess the warmth (or coldness) that you are willing to tolerate is dependent on the individual. Below 20/21c would be very cool for me but is fine for the bedroom when going to bed, if not even a bit cooler but then I like to wake up to warm bedroom.

For main living spaces, stats are set to 22c and these areas usually vary between just under 22c and about 23c......very warm for some people but cosy for me.

If I were to heat the main downstairs living spaces with the heating system off-line, I'd need to light a fire in two stoves to get the temperature up to anything close to comfortable. The cost of fuel for this for one day would be more than the cost of the kerosene used to heat the whole house for the same time period.

Downstairs has underfloor heating. If I were to only switch the heating on when it felt perceptually cold, firstly the water in the system would most likely be cold so a lot of kerosene would be required just to get the water up to a temperature where it can be used for heating. The the heated up water takes another hour or two to warm up the floors that will in turn heat the rooms.
Having the system on all the time means that water circulating under the floor is always hot. A lot less energy is consumed to keep the water permanently hot than to heat it up from cold once or twice a day.

Similarly, the hot water immersion comes on for 1 hour every night (might be 2 hours....can't remember which). The cylinder holds 300L and is heavily insulated. There's ALWAYS hot water on tap. I did some testing in the past and I discovered that more electricity was used if the immersion was only turned on to heat cold water after the hot water had been depleted than if I left the immersion on all the time with hot water always available. With only 2 humans living in the house, a short period with the immersion on every night (on cheap night-rate electricity too) costs hardly anything as the thermostat in the immersion will switch off the element when the desired temperature is reached.
Of course, this efficiency would be a lot less on an older and/or smaller cylinder with only a cheap lagging jacket on it.

For the first time in a long time I can report that it's not an awful day in Letterkenny, bright with plenty of sunshine, first reasonably nice day since July. Some drizzle this morning so not a dry day and still cool and windy but a huge improvement

In saying that, it's now clouded over and I see on radar there's very heavy rain on the way soon :rolleyes:

Edit: Horrible evening with plenty of wind and rain

I checked Met Eireann website about 10min ago. It said there would be 0mm of rain every hour for my location right up until midnight.

It's currently bucketing from the heavens.

Oneiric 3 wrote: »

Your 'carbon footprint' must be through the roof.

Tut tut.

Not too bad - well maintained condensing boiler is the best I can afford at the moment. Don't burn solid fuel too often as it's less efficient than the kerosene boiler. All power for lighting and ancillaries in the gardens is supplied via solar panels and a battery bank - completely off-grid.

One of the two cars is an EV.

All heavy users of electricity (EV car, dishwasher, tumble dryer, immersion, washing machine, etc) are powered up at night when cheap night rate electricity is available to me - doesn't change my footprint but reduces costs for me and makes better use of the national grid. All of the above are a minimum of "A" rated for power consumption (the tumble dryer being the lowest, for obvious reasons).

Even with the car being charged fully from less than 10% every night of the week, my overall electricity bill is far lower than my next door neighbour as I make best use of cheap electricity.

Oneiric 3 wrote: »

Your 'carbon footprint' must be through the roof.

Tut tut.

Just googled a Carbon footprint test there and I'm 40% of the Irish Average of 17.5 tonnes at 7.5 tonnes. Its amazing the difference no commute by car or foreign holidays makes. Its a reminder of a sarky answer I gave an extended family member about 10 years ago when she lectured me about my carbon footprint because I was boiling more water in the kettle than I needed for the cup of tea I was making me and her."B1tch, Please!! You Fly off on 2 foreign holidays a year!! Theres no amount of me boiling a full kettle of water for 2 mugs of tea that gets anywhere near that!!". She wouldn't back down and lectured me that it was still wasteful to heat water I didn't need for the tea. I reminded her how both her and my central heating worked. A fuel source heats water which flows through our radiators which transfers the heat to the air inside our homes. I asked her where she thought the heat from the kettle water went as it cooled.

Another time I was lectured about how inefficient my renovated 1860's Victorian end of Terrace must be (with a likely B BER rating) compared to their upgraded A/B rated large 70's semi-d. "B1tch Please!! My house was built from materials most of which came from the local area and Horse drawn transport with maybe some on sailing ships or steam train. The materials used for building her house likely had a much larger carbon footprint coming from much further afield. 17 of my 18 Draft proof DG Sash windows are South and West facing giving me massive solar gain. The 2ft thick exterior walls are massive thermal heatsinks, soaking up the suns heat from E/S/W during the day and releasing it into the house at night. (North facing side of house is insulated by the terraced house next door). Our Hive Thermostats show the house stays a comfortable 21-22ºc without the Central Heating turned on 8-9 months of the year. It'd be 10 months of the year only for the feckin dogs wanting to go in and out all the time and the door being left open more than it should during Winter.

I've never gotten a BER assesment but if the BER website is anything to go by based on our gas CH bills which include Cooking or another simple calc based on our Gas and Electricity kwh numbers, this 200m² 1860 End of Terrace has a B3 BER Rating. All we've done that relates to heating is new wooden DG sash windows and doors, 100mm loft roll attic insulation, new groundfloor insulated slab and 2 zone Hive Thermostat controlled Gas CH.

However, I totally understand that based on the energy consumption numbers the house might achieve a B rating but an actual on-site tick the boxes BER assessment might give a much worse rating which brings us conveniently back to the Weather/Climate. Bray on the East Coast wrapped in the Wicklow and Dublin Mountains gets much less rain, wind and cold than much of the country meaning that a possible F rated house here has the same energy consumption as a similar sized house with a high B rating in Kerry for example.

Lovely evening