Air heat exchanger’s

That's correct, you can combine the two. In some climates, the system can be configured to cool the house in the summer, and heat it in the winter.

In the summer, the system cools the house inside, by extracting heat from inside the house and transferring it to the ground outside. In doing so, it cannot significantly raise the ground temperature, because of the huge mass involved, but it does remove heat from inside while trying to do so.

In the winter, the system heats the house inside, by extracting heat from the ground outside and transferring it to the house inside. In doing so, it cannot significantly lower the ground temperature, because of the huge mass involved, but it does add heat inside while trying to do so.

 

Mileage tax will reduce vehicle usage; and it's coming, how else will they raise revenues for highway maintenance once fuel taxes rapidly start to diminish?

 

Another attempt to explain how this principle works. Here's how to make a DIY heat pump to heat up your house. It doesn't cost much to implement, but it will use a small amount of electricity. You do need a freezer though. Here goes....

First, get a large pile of bricks and stack them outside. After a few days, they will all be at whatever the outside temperature is. Say that is 10 degrees C, as an example.

Then, take a brick or two from the pile and put them in your freezer, and close the door. The freezer will then immediately start extracting heat from the bricks, and eventually the bricks will cool down from +10C to -18C or whatever your freezer is set to. During this time the freezer will remove heat from the bricks and emit it via the grille at the back, thereby heating (slightly) the room where the freezer is.

When the bricks are fully frozen, take them out and replace them with others from outside. Put the frozen bricks outside to warm up to the outside air temperature again.

If you keep doing this you will continuously transfer heat from the air outside to the inside of your house. While doing so, the freezer will use more electricity as it's working harder, but the electricity used would be less than that required if it were used for heating directly. That's the heat pump effect - the source of heat is the outside air temperature, NOT the electricity used to run the freezer.

This will work at any outside temperature, provided it's higher than your freezer temperature. For example, if it's -5C outside and -18C in your freezer, you will still get some heat from the bricks, but not as much as if the outside temperature was much warmer. In very cold (arctic) climates, only a ground source heat pump would work as the air temperature would at times be colder than your freezer.

 

But how do you get this mild heating effect to 45, 50 or 60 degrees for hot water or radiators?

 

Mainly because an actual heat pump is far more efficient than my home made example, which is just me trying to explain the point. If you actually try my idea and put a few bricks in your freezer, then feel the grille at the back after an hour or so, you will notice it is warm. The actual output temperature involved is a function of the power of the heat pump, which in this case is the freezing capacity of your freezer. A more powerful freezer would cool down the bricks more quickly, by extracting their heat more quickly, and produce a high temperature on the grille at the back.

I use this principle 2 or 3 times a week to transfer free heat from the Curry Mahal into my living room, by freezing leftover curries which are till warm when I put them in. It works very well, but the cost of the curries is of course far higher than if I just turned the heating up a bit.....

 

Burn the packaging it comes in in your living room / kitchen, this will off-set some of your heating costs. If you ask for a couple of extra plastic forks you can save even more money by burning these too. ;-)

 

We had a new Worcster/Bosch combi-boiler fitted this year for just over £2.5k including taking the old tank out of our loft, its going to have to be one hell of an incentive for me to scrap that and spend £15k on a replacement, including putting a bleeding tank back in the loft - given they had to cut it up in the loft to get it out through the hatch, I'm assuming it was fitted through the roof when the house had been originally built 25 years ago....

 

Actually, that's exactly what we do. We use the brown paper bag it comes in, together with the cardboard tops from the foil containers, to light our wood burning stove. Now if only there were a way to extract heat from those virulent green chillies........

 

Middle aged working class folk doing 35 in a 30 will take care of that for years to come

 

Due to the progress in solar technology, I think you'd be surprised how little difference there is between a north facing panel today and a south facing panel 10 years ago. But obviously if the trees block the light that will have a significant impact.

 

Can't help thinking of the endless rows of terraces where I was born and spent my childhood. As a kid, I can only think of the fridge, washing machine, telly and immersion heater being appliances that were plugged in. Maybe the record player, occasionally. Nothing was ever on 'standby'. In a few years, these will all have Electric car charging points with cables trailing all over (how's that going to work??), and gert big heat exchanger pumps in their back yard (middin?). Whilst inside, there will be tablets, phones, tellies, speakers, laptops, screens, fridges, freezers, washers, dryers, toys, appliances galore .........
Are we really going to be more efficient?

 

Another weakness for hydrogen is when burnt with air it reacts with the nitrogen in the air and produces nitrous oxide which then reacts in the atmosphere to produce acid rain (nitric acid). Im a gas fitter so hoping they can get around this by fitting a catalytic converter or something. Otherwise im out of a job

 

I think we're screwed. Mankind that is. And we're all guilty of this to varying degrees, self included.

If you think some years ago, there was a push for offices to become paperless. So digital and technology was the answer. We'd chopped too many trees down, we had to solve this problem. No more paper bags. Less paper generally. In doing so, we had a surge of plastic and need for electricity. From paper billboard stickers to bright electrified lightboxes.

Everything we do causes a new problem. And we likely won't know it til the future. What if burying carbon under the sea disrupts fissures or causes heating of the oceans, or who knows what else? What if this great electrification increases air temperature? Or the vast swathes of windfarms disrupt animal migrations, or stress fish (if offsea) or mimic something through its vibrations that offsets natures delicate balance?

Our hubris will be our downfall. Nature will correct itself well after humans have departed, whenever that is. We just can't help ourselves.

The most effective answers on how to instantly stop carbon emissions are beyond what we're willing to do. We've fallen in love with convenience and choice and hedonism. And we won't give that up until its way way way too late.

 

We're in a similar position, Combi, though I wish we'd have used someone more reputable. Pigs ear springs to mind. Instant hot water? Aye, if you call instant 2 minutes. We trusted him on output etc ..........

A lot of his labour time was taking a saw to the various original bits in the loft and disposing through the hatch. Like you I assume they were installed through the roof at build time. I can't see how a new tank can be put back in there without taking the roof off. 19 years old, this 'new' house. Designed specifically for everything to fail at or around the same time. We are on Gen 2 of doors, windows, boiler, kitchen. I could never have new build again - they are all designed to the minimum standard they can get away with at the time. It would be different if I could have a bespoke build to my own specification, but I'm minded towards older places. Our 200+ year old 2 bed cottage was bomb proof and will still be standing long after this Redrow 5h1te has collapsed to a pile of cheap rubble.

This thread by the way, is superb and I have learnt so much from so many. Thanks for that.

 

surprised you've not had food poisoning doing that!

 

So my house is 25 years old, still using the original boiler and radiators and pipework. Got the tank in the loft and a lovely warm airing cupboard.How much disruption would I be likely to face if I have a heatpump?

 

For those terraces, it might be more cost effective to take a bulldozer to them, and rebuild (to the same footprint) using modern materials and insulation than to try and retrofit a solution to the old housing stock.

 

You have exactly the same considerations as myself. I was a big believer in Windfarms being the answer, but I worry about bird migrations or fish getting dizzy watching them all day. And what if they disrupt wind patterns?

Maybe well controlled nuclear energy is the answer after all? But if only one station goes bang, we are screwed.

 

Do birds and fish watch them? Might explain why a flock of birds started off flying North overhead then 2 mins later came back flying south.