Great "Alternative Sources of Energy" Hunt

BFG_2

Very simply......you're wasting your time...

Domestic solar and wind [the two biggest alt energies] don't stack up from any point of view - financial, green or security.

It annoys me to see the money wasted by MPs [good PR you see], and local councils putting these types of schems into their premises...what a waste of the earth's valuable resources.

Brigantia_2

Does anyone know if there is a way to run just the hot tub just using solar energy?

thescouselander

harryhound wrote: »

How is the summer time heat getting into the house?
Sunshine via the windows? (fit shutters/canopy/deciduous trees)
Electrical equipment possibly left on standby?
Cooking without an extractor hood?

Ideally you would leave the ventilation open at night to cool a house with high thermal mass; then keep the windows shaded and closed in the day time.

The Italians have been doing this since Roman times.

Greenery helps too cool the air as its moisture is absorbing the heat as it vaporises. The centre of (say) London can be 5 degrees hotter than out in the green belt. That is before taking into account the extra cooling of the free movement of air round & through isolated buildings.

The house heats up for a number of reasons - mostly the sun coming through the windows although we keep the curtains and blinds shut in the day time to reduce this effect. We open the windows at night but even if we do this the internal temperature only drops by 1 or 2 degrees even if the air outside. The trouble is that the windows are small to increase insulation.

In insulating the house so well the builder has just caused a different problem.

Brigantia_2

Ours is a new chalet bungalow with similar problems due to insulation. We had a velux window put in at the top of the stairs - as heat rises we simply open the window as most of the heat escapes upwards and cools the house within about 15 minutes - no need for air conditioning. It also causes a through draft if the downstairs windows are open so the air keeps circulating.

Paulgmb

Hi,
I'll try typing all this again, last time it said I wasn't logged in when I had!
Talking of logs, thats exactly what I use. Nearly 4 years ago, fed up with huge gas bills, I decided to get a new gas boiler to replace the old gas guzzling back boiler. I was quoted betwen £4,000 to £7,000 for a replacement supplied and fitted so decided to look at alternatives.
I decided to fit a multi fuel burning stove which cost about £3,000 for everything. You can get them a lot cheaper than this but I wanted a quality model that I could rely on. It feeds 10 radiators and heats all the hot water you will ever need as well as the beautiful warm glow from the fire itself in the living room.
As I collect the wood myself, it costs me nothing. It literally grows on trees, but I only use dead wood from trees that have had to be felled.
Burning logs is carbon neutral too. Being a multi fuel stove you can use smokeless fuel as well if you want which gives you another option.
Being a stove you can also cook on it if you want, although I don't really like pots and pans bubbling away whilst trying to watch TV but regularly boil a kettle on it!
Theres obviously a bit of graft involved but the results are worth it. In the warmer months I have an electric immersion heater which is on a timer for 20 minutes a day and that gives me all the hot water I need.
The (4 bedroom) house is now totally gas free although the meter is still there, so I don't waste money on standing charges or to burn a pilot light.
I wood (sorry) recommend this to anyone looking for a very cheap way to heat their home.
Cheers,
Paul.

GaryGary

Hi,
We started a program several years ago to cut our energy use and CO2 emissions in half -- we did 23 projects, including insulating, weatherizing, some solar heating projects, efficient appliances & lights, more efficient car, ... The total dollar saving is $4,800 along with an 18 ton reduction CO2 emissions.
People don't realize how much energy expenses add up.

Payback period was just over 2 years for the whole package.
The payback period on the best 8 projects was less than 1 year.

The key to making this a good investment is to pick the projects carefully -- the ones that come to mind first, like solar electric have the worst payback.

Guess I'm not allowed to post links, but all the details are on the BuildItSolar web site (someone referenced it above -- thanks!) -- its under the "Half" program.


Gary

harryhound

barisax_al wrote: »

If only!

According to the energy saving trust the coefficient of performance is 2.5 (or 250%)

Also, fromt the information on the energy saving trust website I have extracted the following table which shows some interesting information, they also note an installation cost of between £5000 and £9000 for a typical range of detached house sizes:

Fuel Displaced £ Saving per year CO2 saving per year Gas £50 No saving Electricity £700 5 tonnes Oil £20 No saving Solid £460 4.6 tonnes All savings are approximate and are based on an air source heat pump providing 100% of space heating and up to 50% of hot water, with the additional 50% provided by electric heater, in a detached property

Obviously if you live in a remote area with oil heating saving £20 per year is pointless, and for the same money you could have installed a wind turbine, solar PV and solar hot water!

Also, they don't mention that they require an outside unit which has a big fan in it, this can be annoyingly noisy if you live next door to one, have thin walls or no double glazing.

http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/Generate-your-own-energy/Air-source-heat-pumps

I wonder how up to date these energysavingtrust figures are?
Perhaps I am out of date and the cost of heating oil has dropped considerably since last year?

There are two countries in Europe who have pointed the way to the future.

Denmark; while we were burning off oil and natural gas on the theory that tomorrow never comes, Denmark was economising:
Town Centres - District heating supplied by combined heat and power plants.
Suburbs - Natural gas via a condensing boiler.
Countryside, off the gas grid - Ground source heat pump.
Denmark is thus 25 years ahead of us.

France:
No gas or oil so Nuclear Power for 75% of the country backed up by hydro electric plants on nearly every weir in the country.
(Personally I'm not happy with leaving subsequent generations with a toxic waste inheritance for thousands of years even if it is only "the size of a tennis ball per person per generation" for the seriously radioactive stuff).

This is the future and if you are off the gas grid, a heat pump will be what you are using in 15 years time.
(Wood is wonderful, but in the UK we have about a million tonnes a year mainly going to land fill, we could grow and harvest another million tonnes BUT we need the equivalent of 60 million tonnes per year. Even Austria, somewhere with a well developed wood pellet heating business, can never provide for more than half its heating needs by burning wood from its extensive mountain forests. )

Switching back to Heat Pumps. The main problem is that they get less efficient just when they are needed in the really cold depth of winter. So there will be considerable extra demand for electricity, just when power cuts are likely. Perhaps we should all have a log burner as a back up and supplement for the occasions when the immersion heaters have to turn on to supplement the heat pump?

Quoting from the Mitsubishi "Ecodan" specification:
Input +5C output +45C efficiency (COP) 350% (3.5)
Input -5C output +45C efficiency (COP) 250% (2.5)
The advantage of using a ground source coil is that the input should never fall as low as -5C.
(In the UK only about 33% of the energy delivered to the power station arrives the other end of the pylon wire as electricity, the rest has been thrown away in the vapour cloud over the cooling towers or into the local river. That is why a 250% efficient heat pump is no better than a 90% efficient gas boiler. What ever became of the Battersea power station district heating scheme? Did you expect any different a result from a power system run by politicians?)

Note an air source heat pump is an air conditioning unit running in reverse; this means that there is a market for such manufacturers of millions of units a year. This volume is a factor contributing to the development and introduction of "Inverter Technology".
Instead of turning on and off, like my old fashioned fridge, the motor in the unit can run continuously simply speeding up or slowing down to match the demand for continuous heating.
Work in Germany with existing ground source heat pumps suggests that the mean time to failure of the pump is in excess of 20 years. Does anyone think that a condensing gas boiler is likely to still be giving trouble free performance in 20 years time?
As any BTL landlord can tell you the annual gas check can be as traumatic as getting an MOT on an elderly car..

Harry

Does this earth have a climate change problem or just a population control problem?
(Population now is x.x billion. Population 90 years ago was y.y billion and falling due to Spanish Flu.
Do you know the figures for x & y? If not perhaps you should "Google" find out)..

BFG_2

We're all doomed, I say we're all DOOMED!!!

DuggyMak

thescouselander wrote: »

I couldn't disagree more. our house is fairly new and very well insulated - now we need air conditioning as there is no other way to cool the house. Opening the windows has no effect.

To keep my house cool in summer I lower the hatch (Ramsay ladder) to the attic. Not only does this cool the house but it prevents the temperature in the attic rising too high as I keep extra food/wine etc there. Just remember not to lower your ladder too far in case a taller visitor hits their head on it or a nearby door is opened against it!

If necessary, I also leave a small, upstairs, kitchen window open - protected by wire mesh to stop insects. It also helps if you can leave as many internal doors open as possible. An added benefit is that there are no large open windows vulnerable to burglars.

DdraigGoch

Warning - the following is information I gained from a ground source heat pump installer - once he realised that I understood the basic principles and plied him with tea and chocolate cake in exchange for the facts! Make your own minds up and please check up the "facts" below before you make any decision. I am NOT qualified to do anything other than waffle!

Might I bring to your attention that if you are considering ground source heat pumps then, apparently, there is a *hush hush* problem that can occur if the ground in which it is installed is not suitable - the ground dies. Not all ground is made the same, some is dry, some is wet, some is compacted, some is friable, some has sunshine all day, some is in constant shade. I have been "reliably informed" that if the ground is "unsuitable", ie in shade etc then problems such as the ground freezing in winter, the earthworms being at least discouraged due to the lower ground temperature, your surface garden area not being as healthy etc etc. This is not serious now, but in the future, if we were all to go over to this without serious consideration of the ground conditions then large parts of peoples' gardens are going to be dead zones which cannot be recharged for ground source heating purposes. It needs sun and rain to work, so if you have a dearth of either then you're not going to be happy in some years time .... apparently.