Climate Change

[Grant Monkhouse]

ASPHP and GSHP are a really good thing, I have seen these work, especially the GSHP, the box of tricks that takes cool water from underground and takes the temp out and the. Returns cold water back to the ground is amazing, but these trying to produce electricity is laughable, the pumps require power (watts) to work.

My argument is mainly towards the electric producing parts, as I just can\'t see these units providing enough energy to supply microwaves, lighting, kettles, tvs, computers, computer consoles. People always want better things, you mention GSHP produce 1kw of power, how far will that go to working these 9kw power showers people have installed?

Using solar and HEat pumps for hot water is the best thing to do but for producing electricity they are just poor, all electrical equipement requires maintenance and testing at stated intervals, the 17th edition states the time scales between different installations, which depends on their use, a house hold is 25 years, I think, but even then if you have alterations to any electrical system you has to have it tested thus costing more money in top of the money already paid for the energy saving equipement.

Also electrical wiring has to be replaced over time because it degrades, becomes brittle etc due temperature, faults that may have occured, the demand in which the circuits are used for, costing more money. I just don\'t think using these things for generating electricity are quite there yet, but using these technologies for heating houses is good, it is practically free.

If this doesn\'t make sense it is because I am knackered, I have only just got back from work.

[Grant Monkhouse]

Using water heated from GSHP for underfloor heating is just the same as using radiators, except that there are huge lengths of pipe under your floor( It looks like crazy mazes in the floor when doing the piping) with the water running through it releasing the heat up into the house. These can be controlled by room stats so that you don\'t heat up the room to silly temperatures, I beleive though that that heating systems are still backed up with a boiler incase the temperature being taken out of the ground isn\'t reaching the wanted room temperature.

This is from my personal experience from work and talkin to the guys that install it, it is very good stuffand interesting how the heat is produced.  

I may be wrong about certain bits.

[skybusr34]

no problem chap. .   your right about the grants for installation cost. they dried up. some manufactures offer supposed grands. but all they do is up the price by 2 grand then knock it off at the end user. so a marketing ploy. the grid prices are very good still and dont look to be changing either

totally agree about the pollution it takes to make the panels. the tech is getting better by the year now though and the effeicency rates they produce.

i suppose ive just jumped onto the band wagon with it all but hey .  basically if you`ve got 10 > 15k in your savings account. in 10 years it`l earn alot more money by putting panels on your roof. thats the bottom line of it.


the solar for underfloor heating does work very well. the way i`ve installed it for my property was a bit of a test really to see how it would perform.  i`ve used 4 velux flat solar collectors on a true south facing roof with a 40 degree pitch..

ive used a 200litre buffer tank with a very high effiecency heat exchanger for the solar heat transfer. during the day the solar panels are easily heating this volume of water to 35>50 degree c. my underfloor heating is set at 35 degree c.

i have set the solar collectors to heat hot tap water as priority. it will only switch over to heating the underfloor water once the hot water cylinder demand is satisfied.  my secondary heat source for the buffer tank is  an ESP ASHP this is a 5kw and is amply powerful enough for extra heat input to the buffer tanks..

upstairs radiators are oversized by 0.595 . this allows me to run them using the same water temp as the underfloor heating water.

lower the temps the more effecient it will all be.. i only need to acheive 35 degree in the buffer tank and this house stays warm..

sorry if that sounds boring as hell to some. but im trying to develope a cheaper way for home heating. my complete install has prob cost  iirc 10k and has reduced my monthly outgoing by 80quid. not a quick recovery but  i get the rhi also with brings payback to 5 years give or take

[skybusr34]

ASPHP and GSHP are a really good thing, I have seen these work, especially the GSHP, the box of tricks that takes cool water from underground and takes the temp out and the. Returns cold water back to the ground is amazing, but these trying to produce electricity is laughable, the pumps require power (watts) to work.

.

ashp and gshp dont produce electricity in any form.  they use it..

this is why i dont class these items as renewable heating methods. these are just super effeicent.

eg..

a super duper electric shower... 10.5 kw make about 9kw of hot water per hour.

a kettle 3 kw.. produces about 2.6kw of hot water per hour.

ashp 1kw produces about 3.8 kw of  hot water.

they are still using electricity that a home PV system cannot provide. heck. you`d need £60,000 worth of solar panels to provide enough electric to  power a 10.5kw shower lol

how pv panels are good is but contributing. . while your all out at work during the day. peak demand. your pv panels could be prviding apprx 2 kw of electricity., this is plenty enough to run fridge freezer. applences on standby etc etc. and putting half back into the grid. then when everyones home. dependant on your tarif. can be offset by what you put into the grid  during the day.

i`ve have some better real world figures of my own in about 12 months once i`ve got 3kw of PV on my roof as well;)

[Competition PZ]

Thanks guys all good stuff.
Apartment in Germany uses the underfloor piping and it\'s THE way to heat houses for sure - it\'s from gas boiler though
Be good to see results in one year for sure.
Mate installed a large domestic wind generator and 18 months later he had made the sum total of £1.50 ... and had to listen to the throbbing sound and the huge vibrations when it over-revved. Pulled it down and he\'s a happier man
 
Moving heat around makes more sense to me than trying to generate electricity and maybe summer project to dig up the large garden and sink some deep heat recovery pipes.

[Prof]

Moving heat around makes more sense to me than trying to generate electricity and maybe summer project to dig up the large garden and sink some deep heat recovery pipes.

I wonder if enough of us did this weather we would begin to cause a higher rate of cooling in the earth, eventually leading to the solidification of the core, loss of magnetic flux and more radiation able to penetrate the atmosphere (this is an extrapolation over millions of years :Giggle - probably not going to affect us, but at least your mortgages will be paid off !)

[skybusr34]

the pipework in the garden for GSHP is a very safe garenteed result as the ground has a very near constant temperature. only problem.. you need a huge back garden lol

eg for a GSHP large enough for a 3 bed house 140m2 eg  is approx 8kw. this size requires about 700m of 40mm pipe to be laid.

[Grant Monkhouse]

ashp and gshp dont produce electricity in any form.  they use it..

I do apologise I did actually mean the solar panels that try to produce electricity as you have just said don\'t produce anywhere near enough. I was tired when I wrote that last night

this is why i dont class these items as renewable heating methods. these are just super effeicent.


they are still using electricity that a home PV system cannot provide. heck. you`d need £60,000 worth of solar panels to provide enough electric to  power a 10.5kw shower lol

60k! Now who is going to be living in a house that long to reap the benefits. Lol.

[CharlieP]

We have a ground source heat pump...been in the building for a year now and has worked out really well...hence why another is going in our next renovation

I did read however though that, as with all renewables, if they are in the correct situation, I.e. New build or renovation with correct insulation etc they work well....but any more stress demand on them, then all efficiencies go out the window

[Competition PZ]

@prof: We use the energy we capture, so it goes back into te environment anyway.
 
@skybusr34: Got the space for sure ( some of it under where 6 cars are stored at the moment ). Just this seems a business area where the market is full of charlatans and carpet baggers Finding someone "good and trustworthy" is hard .... how far North you wiling to work ?

[CharlieP]

By the way...you don\'t have to have a garden for the pipework, it\'s the cheapest way, but alternatively you can use bore holes

[Prof]

@prof: We use the energy we capture, so it goes back into te environment anyway.

In absolute terms yes, but the energy has moved from one system/location to another.
 
You could argue that burning fossil fuels is using solar energy - the suns energy grew plants, they died, were squished/heated into oil over millions of years, then we dug it back out of the earth and released the captured energy by burning it.
 
I\'m all in favour of using the suns energy and wind and wave and what have you, but they must have some impact on the environment around them - a solar panel casts a shadow, so it\'s easy to see what the effect is here - if the panels on your roof then the sun\'s rays wouldn\'t have gone much further so the effect is inconsequential.
 
A windfarm, however, takes a large amount of energy out of the wind, and this must have a knock on effect on the surrounding flora / fauna.  They tend to site these things out to sea or in the middle of nowhere, but I wonder how much research is done around this.
 
With geothermal energy, you are extracting heat from the earths crust, which has come from the earths core, and you are exhausting the energy into the atmosphere.
 
Computer farms exhaust energy (heat from electrical) into the atmosphere as well, so that\'s another example of energy movement.
 
Long term these things must add up to an issue....

[Competition PZ]

Good point Prof, like all systems there are likely "costs" somewhere.
For PV for example there are HUGE costs in China to the environment and emissions.
Yes, PV example means less heat to the ground at that point, BUT I think that as there is still non-direct light and heat transfer the differences will be very small.
Does remind that another oft-missed aspect of our changes to the environment is the amount of heat captured and re-emitted by the massive cities of concrete and sprawling tarmac
 
Windfarm was mentioned in that book I cited previously (still cant find it in my library ) and that whilst a large energy capture will affect wind at ground level that most of our weather and global patterns are by high altitude winds and less affected.
 
The Ground Source as I understand it are VERY localised and a few hundred miles away from affect crust or core. Deepest I\'ve seen dug is 10m in the US may years ago at a work colleague\'s place.
 
The beauty of solar ( and indirectly near surface ground sources ) is that the source is emitting that energy anyway and all we do is capture it. If what we capture is the same as would have been captured by natural means then it\'s a near zero sum game.

[skybusr34]

few misconseptions about GSHPs . they absorb the heat energy the sun puts into the ground. not from the core rising up..

regarding how far from home base will i work. well i work anywhere. been sent to spain a few times lol..  as long as my travel time and costs are covered i`ll work where ever

if you fancy a chat about anything give me a buzz 07779703330 i have phone on till 10pm  after