Electric Heaters in new build home and lack of insulation

markin

Panda126 said:

Netexporter said:

As has been previously mentioned, I suspect the thermal mass of the building is the key. If it is traditional timber frame, with the insulation in the inner leaf of the walls, it would heat up quite rapidly. If it is constructed with masonry inner leaf with external insulation, then there is a lot of thermal mass to fill with heat before you "feel the benefit". However, the latter type of construction is very good for passive temperature regulation, keeping you cooler in summer and storing a reserve of heat in winter. 

As you are on Agile, I think I would put the heating on all day, for a week, except in the evening peak (16:00 to 19:00) when prices are very high, and see what happens. And keep your fingers crossed the wind is blowing and keeping half-hourly prices low!

In short, you really need to find out the construction method of the house to determine how best to proceed. 

 This is all the structural information we have. If we keep heating on all the time we'll pay £20+ a day and we've been trying to keep the house warm but recently it became impossible. 

The point is after 2 or 3 days the mass should be full and then after that it will only be maintaining the actual daily heat loss and will start reducing usage.  

It can also take 6 months for a building to dry out after being built, That's heated, or all the windows wide open, So when did you move in? And when did you start trying to heat?

MikeJXE

Standard construction 

What's the floor slab spec ? 

mmmmikey

Shooting from the hip a bit here, but for a particularly cold day in winter, if you had gas central heating it wouldn't seem to me to be unreasonable to be paying £5 or £10 a day to heat a house of that type and size at current rates. So for electric heaters of this type it probably wouldn't be unreasonable to be paying £20 to £40 a day. To me it's looking more and more like you have a heating system that is appropriate for a super-well-insulated house but your actual house is more of a normal-well-insulated house.

I think that is what others are saying too?

What was it that lead you to believe this is built to Passivhaus standards?

Netexporter

What's the floor slab spec ? 

Block and beam, according to the OP.

Panda126

MultiFuelBurner said:

Panda126 said:

we have dimplex edel (heat pump for the water)
Is there anything we can say to the developer to 'inspect' what the issue is? 
We spent all the savings for the house and it wouldn't be possible for us to invest another thousands just to get the house warm as when buying a new build house this is what you would expect. 
We have solar panels but they won't work in winter.
I believe EPC rating was A but they mentioned poor heating.

Can you check your epec here

https://www.gov.uk/find-energy-certificate

And what does it say about heating on that link specifically scroll down to



That may give you some indication of your costs per year.

If you knew they were putting in panel heaters then not much you can do about that. They have built the house to the spec you were expecting.

Thank you I didn't know that! Here's what I found

MikeJXE

Netexporter said:

What's the floor slab spec ? 

Block and beam, according to the OP.

Yes I know that but is it insulated correctly 

MultiFuelBurner

Panda126 said:

MultiFuelBurner said:

Panda126 said:

we have dimplex edel (heat pump for the water)
Is there anything we can say to the developer to 'inspect' what the issue is? 
We spent all the savings for the house and it wouldn't be possible for us to invest another thousands just to get the house warm as when buying a new build house this is what you would expect. 
We have solar panels but they won't work in winter.
I believe EPC rating was A but they mentioned poor heating.

Can you check your epec here

https://www.gov.uk/find-energy-certificate

And what does it say about heating on that link specifically scroll down to



That may give you some indication of your costs per year.

If you knew they were putting in panel heaters then not much you can do about that. They have built the house to the spec you were expecting.

Thank you I didn't know that! Here's what I found

No hiding that then room heating - very poor

So 6000kwh could be needed just on those heaters maybe more maybe less it's down to what your tolerances are and how closely the house matches the EPC.

Also you should expect to use 75-80% of those heating costs over winter

Dec/Jan and Feb could cost you 4500kwh just on heating. That's not the end of the world given tracker has averaged under 21p kWh. 

I think you just have to go for it and start heating your home to a comfortable level for yourselves and then decide after this winters use which is looking to be much colder than last year.

Netexporter

I'd put a heat pump in, whilst the £7500 grant is still available. You'd only need a small one, 5kW at most, so the actual cash required would be fairly small.

MultiFuelBurner

Netexporter said:

I'd put a heat pump in, whilst the £7500 grant is still available. You'd only need a small one, 5kW at most, so the actual cash required would be fairly small.

Ugly over surface pipes to new radiators in a new home?

That's a tough choice I would go air to air heat pump multi split system(s) to the main areas.

Planning would probably be required for both as they appear to have a heat pump hot water system presumably with an outside system.

markin

Panda126 said:

Our monthly usage in non winter months was around 100 kWh

That's with solar, So hard to workout your actual base load from that, Whats your current night time base load with the heaters off?