Heating an old building

FreeBear · 25 October 2016 at 2:27AM

jonnym00 wrote: »

I'm very interested in the insulated lime plaster, I hadn't heard of that. I'm not allowed to remove all the plaster as its listed but on some walls its already making its way onto the floor, so could be used.

Thermalime from Anglia Lime is one product, then there is ecoCORK made by Secil and supplied by Mike Wye (and others).

One of my work colleagues raves about the hemp plaster she got from Ty-Mawr, but I haven't been able to pin her down to how effective it was.

Best thing to do is have a chat with the above suppliers, compare the technical datasheets, and then talk to people that have used the stuff.

Just a random thought - You say you have a barn.. Would there be enough room in there to install a biomass combined heat & power boiler and fuel store ?
If so, you might be able to get a RHI grant along with some feed-in tariffs.

lovesgshp · 25 October 2016 at 9:53PM

What floor area is the house? Do you have the thermal load requirements?
We have a 1759' house with 2 ft thick walls, heated by a gshp. The electricity supply is 15kw and no problems with tripping out, even with washing machine, oven etc working.

farmerboy · 27 October 2016 at 7:15PM

FreeBear wrote: »

Just a random thought - You say you have a barn.. Would there be enough room in there to install a biomass combined heat & power boiler and fuel store ?
If so, you might be able to get a RHI grant along with some feed-in tariffs.

This is my thought. We have an 1850's farmhouse built in an open location with similar walls and floors, no insulation. Luckily we could install normal UPVC double glazing which helped a lot. We also installed a Okeofen 25kw pellet boiler and full central heating system for under £20K. Power consumption is minimal, currently using approx 8t of pellets per year (£1600 all bought in the summer when cheap as we have storage and handling space) The house has never been so warm, also heats our hot water (runs on this setting for an hour each morning and provides enough for the full day). We chose Okeofen as they have experience of linking solar to the system pretty easily, we had some preparation for this done just in case (the water cylinder is a twin coil one so one can come from the boiler and one from the solar, also the boiler software can be easily modified to allow for the solar input)

I was lucky and got on the RHI at the beginning meaning that over the 7 years of the scheme it will totally pay for itself in terms of paying back the original loan, fuel and servicing costs, but obviously now the RHI rate is a lot lower so not as attractive.

[Deleted User] · 28 October 2016 at 1:16PM

jonnym00 wrote: »

I did have a quick conversation with a green energy consultant a while ago and a heat pump specialist.

We ruled out heat source pumps as the company spec'ed the heat pump to run off two bore holes into the aquifer (we have one already which is capped which may be viable), which would take 250,000 liters a day from one bore hole and return it to the other extracting the heat in between. The consultant agreed with his sums but indicated the cost of the electricity alone to run the pump would make it impractical.

He felt very strongly it was the wrong technology, due to the age of the property, no damp course and part of the building being under ground the damp would always necessitate a higher temperature than the heat source could economically provide.

I ruled out air source for the same reason, but haven't done any research into it. Is it the same premise?

I forgot to mention we also need water heating as well.
thanks

Jon

We installed ASHP/Solar PV back in 2011. Our old cold house was transformed instantly with bills the same as our previous gas CH Wimpy semi with all the bonus FIT/RHI being ploughed back into savings

Heating an old building

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