Green Building Forum - Renewable Energy

Ground source or LPG boiler for underfloor heating?

EdF — Thu, 10 May 2007 09:13:23 +0100

I'm shortly to install underfloor heating in an outbuilding conversion which will make a 2 bedroom bungalow. The house will probably be occupied by only two people and our intention is to rent it for a few years and then move into it ourselves .. We had intended to use a ground source heat pump as we have a large field next to the property. However, I understand the heat pump will use nearly 3KW of electricity all the time it's running, but I do realise that one 'gets out' about 9KW. Underfloor heating has to be left on for long periods, days rather than hours and I fear that our energy consumption may work out more than at present. We certainly don't use 3KW of energy constantly now. My wife and I live in a large house which has LPG wet central heating with radiators, installed before we bought the place. We only have the heating on in three rooms for a couple of hours in the evening and morning in the winter, our main heat source being a large woodburner in the sitting room. As I get into my dotage, however, in about 10+ years time I don't want to have to cut 4 tons of wood a year (we live in the Highlands and are surrounded by managed woodland and there's a ready supply of firewood not suitable to go to the mill). The very high cost of a heat pump and underground loop is also a main concern, and I am concerned that we will never see a return on the extra cost and in the meantime the electricity bills may be much higher than at present.
I would be interested in opinions as to which way to proceed. At the moment we favour the UFH with an LPG boiler, with the possibility of changing over to a ground source heatpump in a few years time should the cost fall. I cannot afford the extra cost of electricity generation to offset mains useage. I can see UFH with a heatpump would be a boon if one has a large house to heat most of the time and one has very high heating bills, but I am sceptical about it in our case.

Heating Solution Advice Please

learner — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 23:07:07 +0100

Hi
My wife and I are buying a small farmhouse that we would like to extend. DHW and central heating for 5 radiators is currently provided by a solid fuel Rayburn Supreme which I believe is rated the same as the current 355SFW model. Despite the info on their website, I am nonetheless suspicious that the Rayburn may struggle when the number of radiators increases to 9. Additionally, we will not light the cooker in the Summer and an immersion heater will be expensive. Here are 3 options that I am considering:

1. Add solar heating panels to help provide DHW (especially in Summer). Add solid fuel stove in new lounge. Accept any shortcomings in central heating.

2. Add solid fuel stove with boiler in lounge to help Rayburn with DHW and heating. Use immersion heater in summer.

3. Add oil fired boiler to work alongside Rayburn when necessary.

We are Rayburn virgins so any informed views would really help us to decide on the best solution. There seems to be a huge difference in energy rating depending on whether you use wood or smokeless fuel? Thoughts and alternative ideas gratefully received.

Rob

Wood burning boiler radiator control valve, any suggestions

DIY bob — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 22:33:14 +0100

I am looking for a 28mm radiator valve which is non-electric (bi-metalic or such like) which will open above a given temperature say at 80 degrees.

I have a hot water store which is connected to a wood stove in parallel with a massive burn off radiator. What I am finding is the the temperature seems to self limit at about 60 odd degrees due the radiator. I really would like to stick extra temperature into the store to burn off first thing in the morning.

I have had a good look on the interweb and cannot find any such valve. Any suggestions?

Wind generator heating an accumulator tank

John11668 — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 19:54:40 +0100

I have a customer with a large wind generator, high in the pennines and whenever I visit it is whistling away.
The control system "dumps " surplus power via a large heater element on the back wall. The oiler fired Rayburn 368K is not sufficient to heat the house and supplementary heating is needed. It occurs to me that a couple of good sized commercial immersion heaters in an accumulator tank could let the excess energy be utilised. The house heat losses will be high on a windy day when the machine will be producing too much power so feeding it back into the house seems logical
Does anyone have experience of this type of installation or links to any useful sites?

DHW (solar/central heating) controller advice

DIY bob — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 20:17:13 +0100

I have installed an hot water system which links central heating, solar and wood stove heating through a central 300l hot water cylinder. It is of my own design based on extensive reading and boring friends to extinction :wink:. I need advice on using a Resol ES[1] for the control of the central heating.

To my mind the system is simple, and depends heavily on stratification[2]. The cylinder was made by McDonald engineers[3] (NB the choice to use them was arbitary other suppliers were willing to provide this service) it involves 4 exchanges and an immersion heater. The (pressurised) solar circuit is in two layers with two further exchanges (vented) for central heating and the wood stove. The top 100litres is used for domestic hot water (DHW) and the remaining is either pre-heat or store depending on how you look at it (or the time of year).

In summer the cylinder works (well) by the solar doing what it can, the upper layer is set to 60degrees and what sun is left is used to heat the rest. The resol controller also controls an immersion heater to heat the DHW (top 100l) to 47degrees if the tempriture is below 43. All this operation works well and the gravity fed shower is one of the best I have experienced, we have been running this since mid April. I don't worry about legionella because the DHW temprature exceeds 50 often enough and I haven't had a dead leg since I was in high school.

In winter I wish to use the wood stove, this heats all but about 50l. It is based on a simple gravity fed, vented (cylinder <-> burnoff radiator <-> stove) circuit. This avoids the need for a neutraliser. The tricky bit is the pumped central heating (CH) circuit which extracts heat from the cylinder. The CH exchange sits above the wood stove exchange but below the DHW. In normal operation the central heating will be taking out of the cylinder what the stove is putting in.

There is a function of the controller that I am using which will burn off surplus energy for a period of time. I.e. 6am-10pm if the cylinder temprature (at the CH exchange level) exceeds 60degrees pump the central heating; if temp. drops below 55 stop the pump. This means that at 10pm, when we go to bed, we store the unused heat in the cylinder. At 6am when the stove is cold there is some stored heat to knock the chill out of the house. The controller function which is capable of this is currently being used to turn the immersion heater on.

What I would like to do is turn the central heating on as part of a overheat function say at 95degrees reguardless of time of day or year. I would also like to avoid paying for a seperate immersion heater controller. I have contacted the supplier...again..

Cheers,

[1]http://www.resol.de/en/english.shtml
[2]http://www.veryefficientheating.co.uk/solar/article2.htm
[3]http://www.mcdonald-engineers.com/

Wood Burning Stove Stuff

muzz — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 18:22:56 +0100

The story so far:

At the start of the summer ( what summer ? ) I removed our gas fire and installed a wood burning stove. We bought a few bags of seasoned wood locally just to see what the stove was like, it was great.

We have a combi boiler, no tank so were told we couldn't get a back boiler.

A local wood was recently thinned and we got four tonnes of mostly softwood for much cheapness. I loaned a chainsaw from my brother and bought a maul. We also bought a new shed so we could put all the wood in the old one.

OK OK, we are getting to the questiony bit :-)

I also have access to old whiskey barrels. The staves are perfect but a lot of the barrel ends have a water based paint on them. I am sure I have read that one should not burn painted wood in the stove.

Will the residues stick to the flue ? Is there a pollution question ?

I have tried out some of the non painted stuff and it's great.

12 volt cabling - some practicalities

cactustiger — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 12:50:52 +0100

I hope that someone may be able to help with this - any advice would be greatly appreciated! I installed a pv system in a remote cabin on the kent coast last year with short 12 volt circuits for lighting and a water pump - the location is off-grid. It's smallish compared to what alot of you have running but surprisingly efficient and I'd like to use the extra power its producing to run 12 volt appliances like a laptop, tv etc from a few sockets.

I wonder if anyone could give me some practical pointers on how to connect up my existing system to a small 12 volt ring circuit. I've calculated the voltage drop for the distances involved and got some suitably thick armoured cable to run underneath the building second-hand. My problem is how to connect this up to the system - obviously the existing domestic consumer unit cannot handle the gauge of the cable and I haven't been able to locate any junction boxes with connection blocks large enough to step the cable down. I know these must exist but could anyone give me any tips on makes and suppliers or suggestions of "work arounds"?

I tried the inverter route (although its lower efficiency would have an impact during the winter I think) but the wretched thing did nothing but cut out - it may just have been a rogue one but I wouldn't necessarily want to chuck any more money away on another, unless someone could recommend a model that is reliable and wires into a circuit rather than just having 240volt plug sockets - which seems a bit heath robinson for a permanent system!

Thanks again for your advice.

Chris

is wood-burning eco-friendly or eco-vandalism?

funcrusher — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 22:40:37 +0100

We own over 50 acres of woodland, so firewood is continuously available- and yes, we manage the woodland to make best use of the timber and replant continuously. HOWEVER, I am not really convinced that wood-burning is a sensible eco-option when all factors are considered.
On the old forum there was debate about the CO2 cycle. Summarising, the argument 'for' was that woodburning simply returned to the atmosphere the carbon previously absorbed by the growing tree, and which would anyway be liberated by decay. The argument 'against' was that burning fossil fuels was doing exactly the same thing, but with a time lag of a few million years, and anyway an unfelled tree would carry on absorbing more carbon and there was no guarantee that burned wood would be replanted.
However there are I think two further arguments against. Firstly, burning timber produces far more gases than just CO2. There is a whole range of nasty toxic compounds emitted, depending on the temperature. Overall, wood smoke is a very dangerous carcinogen. Secondly, wood left to rot returns humus to the soil and also supports both directly and indirectly an immense array of fauna and flora in the rotting process. Sanitised woodland denies bats, bird, fungi, insects, bugs and ferns etc homes and /or food which abound in dying or rotten trees.
Perehaps at best there is only a case for burning timber which is being discarded after a useful life in buildings, furniture etc?

Professional help with green issues

janel — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 13:49:49 +0100

We have just purchased barn to renovate on Dartmoor and are researching green heating and hot water issues. The barn has to be used as a holiday let and therefore we will have less control over the amount of energy used by guests. We are finding it hard to get a joined up green approach for the whole property for heating and water, is there anyone out there who provides a green holistic advisory service? We have various brochures but these produce as many questions as they do answers. Work has not yet started on the barn because the renewal energy sources need costing and we will then trim others areas of the renovation to get everyting on board.

wondering about wood prices

rae — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 08:23:26 +0100

I'm wondering how much people pay for wood.
I've seen posts where people use around 9 tonnes per year and seem to write it without a flinch.
Here, a 'load' which is around a tonne of seasoned oak, ash etc costs around Â£80 a load. (we live in Gloucestershire, in a place where a lot of people burn wood to heat their homes)
if you pay less than that, you get rubbish which doeesn't keep you warm.
We've tried to buy in core lengths, but no one offers us much reduction for that, despite the fact it is heaps less work. Basically, they know that around here they can charge as they wish because the demand it high.

Is it a geographical thing?

I would also like to know from those who heat their homes (radiators) solely with wood whether you feel it is as economical as using gas or electric. Do you just do it becuase there is nothing like an open fire, or do you do it to save money?

many thanks
Rae x

Wood burner instead of gas at all?

Nick Parsons — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 00:12:15 +0100

As our 20-yr-old multipoint and 18-year-old boiler survive on borrowed time we cast our thoughts towards the future and a move to an Aarrow Stratford stove/big back boiler unit supplemented by SWH in summer. The house is around 200m2 over 3 floors and occupied by up to 6 people. I'd value any comments from users of these stoves or any stove/BB (with rads) system as to the practicality of the idea. I am assuming that, apart from getting used to chopping lots of logs, we will have to get used to either heating the house at night (which we don't currently do) if we can get the fire to stay in, or getting up cold to stoke up/light the fire. I have in mind a 300 lt cyl.

The house is solid-walled but I internally insulated it to the best std I could afford (mainly 35mm extruded poly) 20 years ago.

I'd welcome any thoughts and advice.

Thanks.

Nick

Jobs in Renewables

Dawn.a — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 13:26:41 +0100

I work for a company called Allen & York. We are market leaders in environmental recruitment and now have a dedicated energy group.

We are interested in hearing from people with various energy backgrounds for positions across the UK

Please feel free to contact me @ dkenworthy@allen-york.com

Please quote Green Building

Thank you

Hot water from a wood burner, without a boiler

John Pedersen — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 08:52:14 +0100

Hi,

I am going to install a wood burner, and have already installed a Dunsley Baker neutralizer so that I can plumb in a boiler integrated with the wood burner ( I already have a good new gas boiler running ).

However, I am going off the idea of having a boiler on the wood burner:
a) with a boiler, a wood burner burns the fuel at a lower temperature, and so is less efficient. Also, the wood burner with a boiler is more expensive.
b) I have seen people reduced to slaves of their wood burners, feeding huge amounts of wood into the stove throughout the winter ( OK, so maybe they had an inefficient setup )
c) I really want the wood burner to be an optional extra - to be fired up in the dead of winter. The quicker response in terms of space heating of a wood burner without a boiler is more attractive.

As a compromise, I am thinking of putting a black-painted radiator on the wall behind the burner to absorb any heat that would otherwise be absorbed into the ( internal ) brick wall. I imagine that if the radiator was very close to the wood burner, it would collect quite a bit of heat - but the burner would still run at the higher temperature/greater efficiency of a wood burner without a boiler. I could easily plumb the radiator in as a leg of the solar heating circuit, so that heat is transferred to my cylinder via thermosyphon. If it works I could sell the neutraliser.

It seems a simple setup, but haven't come across it before. Has anyone tried it? Any comments?

John

Interseasonal solar thermal storage

zenbiscuit — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 11:55:12 +0100

Some of you might remember the 9 pages on this topic that I began in February. I gleaned a few ideas from that and will be placing them into a journal that I'll place on my site as this build progresses (I'll also update that over the next three years to see how some of the technologies have faired).

Anyway on to today's question. I'm creating the underground storage areas ala Don Stephens (greenershelter.org) and was wondering what opinions any of you might have on the pipe used to transfer the heat into the ground. I was thinking of using MDPE mainly because it's cheap :wink: Under the extension it'll twist around 10m2 of space so not huge for getting rid of the energy from 4m2 of solar panel or 30m2 of roof. Which brings me to the second question. We're going to make some solar panels and I was wondering if there was any piping that you'd recommend. In particular if there was any piping that didn't require much work e.g. welding. Or if there was a ready made grid of pipework that'd collect heat, I thought of the backs of fridges which wouldn't be good from a thermo siphoning aspect. I did see that floorstore.org were using HDPE in their roof collector but from what I've read it doesn't transfer heat well which is essentially why I'm asking these pipe related questions.

It needs to be able to pick up heat well from the roof (and/or in the solar panels) but not transfer it into the surrounding air until it gets underground where it can transfer it into insulated gravel pits. I will insulate the pipework as it travels through the room on its way underground.

The biscuit boy

Which Wind Turbine?

Aguillar — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 21:11:33 +0100

Anyone with recommendations on wind turbines please?
These days it seems there are options beyond the cheap Chinese versions or the expensive Proven ones...
The [off grid] site is an exposed hillside, with planning permission for a 11m wind turbine and a projected average wind speed of 4.4m/s at 10m. No neighbours for a long way.
Many thanks!

Support our application for Wind Turbines?

Dominic Cooney — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 23:12:53 +0100

Please note the wind turbines in question are not for space heating, but to actually run our glass melting equipment. Our living accommodation is already insulated, converted 6 years ago from a derelict chapel (we live in the back and our workshop is in the front), with the help of a mortgage from the Ecology Building Society.
It features a condensing combi boiler, Lindab guttering, woooden double glazed windows, eco paints and varnishes, low-flush WC, energy saving bulbs, etc. etc.
This is what we propose for our business:

Elaine Sheldon and Dominic Cooney have submitted plans to Staffordshire Moorlands District Council to install2 x 15kW Proven wind turbines in the field next to our live/work space, in Cellarhead. The idea is to convert our glass-melting furnace to electricity, it currently runs on natural gas and although it is highly efficient, this project will save approximately 40 tonnes of CO2 emissions annually.
The proposed turbines will be grid connected and on average, over the year, provide enough energy for us to run the studio.
This is an opportunity for us to make a genuine difference to our small business' sustainability.
We have been approved 50% funding of the project costs from the Dti (total costs Â£90,000) but obviously we cannot proceed unless we get planning permission.

If you would like to know more about our business click on this link:
http://www.sheldoncooney.com

Before I ask you to support our application, please be aware of the issues surrounding the application:

Just inside the Green Belt & Special Landscape area - although right next to main trunk A-road (A520)
The 15kW proven wind turbine is the largest of the domestic/light industrial size at 15metres mast and 9m diameter rotor
http://www.provenenergy.com/

Our average wind speed is 6.2m/s (14mph)
at this speed 2 x 15kW turbines will generate 86,000kWh annually which should be enough for our business.
The turbines are quiet as they do not have a gearbox like the massive wind farm turbines.
We are suggesting white turbine head & blades to blend in with the sky.
There is a history of wind-harvesting in the area, with windmill bases at nearby Werrington and at Meir Heath
This project also makes financial sense as the payback time is less than 10 years.

If you would like to support our planning application, please click on the link below:
http://publicaccess.staffsmoorlands.gov.uk/publicaccess/tdc/DcApplication/application_detailview.aspx?keyval=JDX8LCPG96000&searchtype=PROPERTY&module=

We need to get all letters of support to the council by the end of April. There is no obligation for you to support this application.
If you need any more information, or would like us to e-mail you plans or documents, just e-mail us on info@sheldoncooney.com

Thank you for your time
Kind Regards
Elaine Sheldon & Dominic Cooney.:peace:

Ventilation options for pre-heating

max — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 09:04:29 +0100

I have scanned all the topics on this forum and can't find anything that
covers my query so here goes. I am trying to get my head round ventilation
and what would be best to install in a highly insulated masonry eco home - ventilation that doesn't just evacuate the warm air. . There's passive whole house, mechanical with heat recovery (MVHR) and even a type that extra heat can be added to the incoming air. There's also a new gizmo on the market now called dwell-vent windows, where air enters the house via the gap between the inner and outer pane of a window and is said to warm up in the process. But how does that
impact on the whole ventilation. Will bathroom air still evacuate.? As if it wasn't complicated enough I have this past week come across bespoke systems whereby air is drawn through an underground pipe into the house, claiming to warm it up in winter and cool it down in summer. REHAU also do a ground to air system called Awardukt. This sounds a clever idea but I've not read anything from users about how this impacts on the whole house ventilation.

Has anyone any useful tips to pass on about ventilation and these different perhaps complementary products?

Fuel Cells - When?!?!?!

TomN — Thu, 31 May 2007 11:15:51 +0100

When are these fuel cells going to start appearing?

I know that there are a few token ones dotted around the place and a search on the internet seems to show that there are dozens of companies that have units in development but they are taking too long!

Does anyone know of any units that are available for private homes (~3kWe)?

solar hot water.............

Perry — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 14:33:40 +0100

Barry Johnson MD of Solartwin said on these pages. "The only really cost effective solar water heating system

will be either reclaimed, homemade or stolen."

This means a purchased system cannot repay its cost?

David Timms/Friends of the Earth, was quoted in Thursday's Independent as saying. "The long pay back time

and high initial cost. Is the barrier to people investing in home renewable energy."

This seems to indicate that over the long term, cost can be recovered?

Can anyone honestly say that they have a solar water heating system that - being reclaimed, homemade, or

whatever, has actually saved them the equivelent of 5.7% of the fully installed, up and running cost?

A simple thermal store????

John11668 — Tue, 15 May 2007 23:17:37 +0100

I have a customer who wants to connect a thermal store HW cylinder to their morso wood stove.
There are lots of TS cylinders on the market , all singing , all dancing but all they want is a simple direct cylinder( Ideally with a combination tank , a heat leak radiator and mains pressure HW. No need for pumps to heating circuit , ideally without pump to plate heat exchanger, no need for additional coils, but I cant find a simple variant.

Can anyone point me to one?

Is coal central heating so environmentally unfriendly?

adrian hollister — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 21:35:08 +0000

After waiting nearly six months now for my wood pellet stove, I've had time to reflect on the coal burning stove we have now. From first impressions it's terribly environmentally unfriendly - the smoke, the visible dirt - but I have noticed that we use our heating much more efficiently now.

Unlike gas, oil and electricity, Coal is a physical thing - you have to put it on the fire and you quickly become aware of how much you are consuming. You also get an idea of how much you have to clean up in the morning. Our heating/hot water bill's are running at about 20 quid a month (and this is over the winter).

The distribution system for coal is quite efficient. The coal we use comes from Wales and we as a country have loads of coal left remaining (reducing the risk of 'international' energy supply).

So is coal really so bad?

Budget Airconditioning/Greenhouse Frost Protection

keithwhite — Wed, 09 May 2007 00:18:33 +0100

A thought occurred to me, I'm planning to use an old car radiator with 12v fan to provide frost protection to our greehouse, using water and gravity from a spring fed stream which never goes below 8 C for the heating. Now it struck me that I could also do this using a ground loop, extracting low level heat from the soil, and power it all from a 12v battery. If this worked then in the summer it would also be able to be used for cooling. I'm yet to try this, has any one else ?

Conventional vs mains pressure dhw

Leo — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 21:07:48 +0100

All the diagrams I've seen of solar/ back boiler mixed DHW systems have a header tank. Is there any reason why the system shouldn't be of the newer mains pressure with expansion vessel variety. Likewise is there any reason radiators from a back boiler/ woodburner shouldn't be on an unvented system? I'd like to reclaim some loft space.

Building a Hydro power backup!!?

Phill — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 10:22:40 +0100

Hi all

This is my first post here on this forum, Iâ€™ve been looking around for a few days and have found the whole site very informative and the input from the forum users is excellent.
So please excuse me if I pick your brains!

Iâ€™ll give you an idea of what were planning so it might help with the â€œbigger pictureâ€, we have decided to build a new house again (just completed first one!) but we do want to really push for a more eco friendly house especially on the energy use side of things.
I would really like to live off grid but I donâ€™t think that may not be viable for us as I donâ€™t fancy a huge array of batteries for when the wind doesnâ€™t blow and the sun isnâ€™t shining. We live in Caithness and very exposed on a hillside so I do think a wind turbine should be pretty successful for the majority of power required and I have been doing a lot of research into this and getting accurate data for local windspeeds etc. Heating will be from a GSHP coupled to a solar PV to run the system and a solar heat panel to help boost the hot water etc.

Now my first question relates to an alternate or backup for power on a calm day, this particular thought only really came to me last night.
We have plenty of land and we are on a hill so if I were to dig two reservoirs, on at the top and one at the bottom, how large a volume of water would we need over what ratio of fall to produce a useable supply of power through a water turbine?

Now I know that question actually is quite vague but hydro power is something I know nothing about and despite a quick search of the net this morning Iâ€™m not finding much useful information, in short would it be feasible to have the two reservoirs and when power is required on a calm day a valve on the upper reservoir can be opened to release the water to turn the turbine and then once the wind turbine is running, and ideally using the power dumps, pump the water back up.

Does this seem feasible?

Many thanks
Phill

"third tap" solar hot water

nick a — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 22:29:12 +0100

I've been asked to install a third tap solar thermal hot water system. It apparently consists of a panel, cylinder and dedicated pipework to a second hot tap at ususal hot outlets. It is entirely independent of the existing hot water system and only has the solar heat source. The customer has a combi and prefers this option to either 'decombificaiton' or pre-heating the incoming cold to the combi.
Is anyone familiar with this system?
What are the advantages and disadvantages over the other options?
Could I use a regular single coil cylinder (proposed open-vented) as I only have one heat source?
How can I prevent having stored water at a tepid temperature which contravenes water regs and is potential breeding ground for nasties?

Any advice much appreciated.
Thanks,
Nick

urban wind power

johnquick — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 14:19:21 +0100

is it worth having a wind turbine on your house in a built up area

any comments would be appreciated especially naming appropiate products.

Community-owned wind farms under threat; commerce muscles in on renewables

fostertom — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 10:11:23 +0100

From http://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=134 :
If I had Â£40k...... then I'd invest in the optimum micro-hydro scheme...........Or I'd invest in woodland...............Or fields growing elephant grass. Not so sure about other microgenerators as home-investment - I might invest in a co. building wind, wave or tidal turbines out at sea, or optimised PV farms wherever that would see most sun.

The latter may become more difficult, not less:
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/energy/story/0,,2064398,00.html

Underfloor Heating / GSHP

moonmirror — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 20:48:32 +0100

Hi
I have been trawling the internet for hours looking for a breakdown of components required for underfloor heating and GSHP
We are going to start a gound floor house extension in about 5 weeks and would like some green underfloor heating
60 sq meters solid floor

The idea sounds so simple and GREEN, if i cant come up with some thing i will have to run some more rads from our existing gas boiler.

Any tips or help would be much appreciated

Thanks

Sustainable & Renewable Technologies

richardknapp — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 00:17:01 +0100

A plea for input please from all involved with the industry - from developers to engineers.

My name is Richard and I am researching the viability of sustainable & renewable technology over traditional methods - in particular ground sourced heat pumps. I would be must grateful if you could please take a moment to answer a few brief questions in an online questionnaire. No identities are disclosed and all data will be treated in the trictist of confidence.

http://www.smart-survey.co.uk/v.asp?i=1717trqrd

Thank you again for your help and participation,
kind regards Richard.

Renewable energy and space heating

MH — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 20:33:08 +0100

Hi,

I was wondering what forms of current renewable energy technologies can actually provide energy for space heating. With natural gas used alot, a replacement will be needed soon but what realistic alternatives are there for natural gas?

I've been trying to find energy consumption figures for an average home so I could compare the required figures with what the existing technologies 'say' they can provide. I though it'd be easy but its proven very difficult. Anyone have any tips. All I've found so far is this http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/statistics/supp/spkf22.htm but it seems to only show our electrical needs. I think space heating is a key aspect to help reduce those carbon emissions!

Combination Boiler - intergrating Solar Heating??

covehithe — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 17:51:34 +0100

My mother has recently moved and had the very old heating/ water and tank removed
and replaced it with a Vailaint combination boiler. She now wants, for enviromental reasons (and a provisional grant) to
have Solar water heating as well. Is it possible to intergrate solar heating system and tank in to the
Vailant system.

Solar Pump for Irrigation

Paul_B — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 10:05:45 +0100

I am hoping someone may have some experience in this area. I have a 650l water "butt" (will possibly add another 300l butts in the future) and would like to use this for watering the garden. I have bought some leaky hose as a more efficient and deeper method of watering the plants and shrubs. Now the leaky hose seems to suggest an optimum pressure of 1.5bar which is 15m head of water. The water butt can't generate this pressure from gravity so I need a pump.

I would like to use a solar panel to generate the electricity to run the system. So I am guessing I need some batteries to store the energy over a few days and then run the leaky hose from a low voltage pump to water the garden. From what I have read I would need deep cycle batteries to allow a greater discharge than a normal car battery.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Paul

adding solar panels to 3-year-old building

julia — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 10:32:10 +0100

Hello all, I'm hoping you may be able to point me in the right direction for finding out about / implementing solar paneling at home. (I'm not an architect, so laymen's language appreciated!) The building where I live houses 90-or-so flats (live/work) and has a large flat blank outer wall just begging for solar panels to be fitted. We are situated directly across the River Lea from the Olympics site, on Fish Island in Bow, E3, London. The architects won awards for the balconies(!) but in my mind seriously missed a trick on making this building ecologically viable.
I believe it would be a serious boon for all the residents as, apart from the obvious benefits to the ecology, solar power would contribute enormously towards our enormous electricity costs and therefore greatly reduce our collective carbon footprint...
Any information offered would be greatly appreciated â€“ I wanted to find out as much as possible about this, with all costs of supplies, fitting, percentages of electricity savings, etc, to take the whole idea to the residents & freeholders for a vote.
Yours truly, Julia.
p.s. I'm not sure about the idea/effect of wind turbines on the roof but any info you may have on this would help too!

Biomass CHP

Peter A — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 17:52:11 +0100

Anybody have any experience/knowledge of Biomass CHP in the UK, from what I can gather it isn't quite there yet and also expensive. Would be interested to learn a bit more.Thanks

Multiple Sources

Leo — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 20:50:07 +0000

Can anybody point me to information on retro-fitting a domestic central heating system with multiple inputs; eg solar, woodburner and gas?
I'm a way off starting on this but need to make immediate changes to an existing system and want to avoid work which will have to be undone at a future date.
Also an analysis of the relative costs (financial and environmental) of electricity vs gas as the fallback for heat and DHW for this system would be useful - if anybody can point me to one.
thanks

PVs on construction sites

annabel — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 09:46:51 +0100

I am researching into the idea of using either stand alone or grid connected PV modules on a construction site. The idea is that they could potentially be used to generate electricty for lighting, or generate the electricity requirements for temporary offices and/or toilets. I was wandering if anyone knew if such an idea has been investigated previously; whether PVs have already been used on a construction site; or whether you think it wouldn't work for practical/economic reasons.

Paticular areas that I am concerned about include: increased maintenance costs due to dust from construction site, the fragility of PV modules, how much shading is likely to reduce efficiency, whether planning permission is required, and of course the payback periods for both money and carbon emissions from manufacturing (I have heard extremely varied figures regarding this last point).

Any comments would be appreciated, thanks.

Solar PV Glazing

nigel — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 09:08:34 +0000

Just looking at building a summer room.

I dont want a glazed roof due to poor performance in summer and winter.
I would prefer a solid thermally insulated roof but just been thinking another option may be solar glazing with an embedded pv array.

I know it will be expensive but just wanted to know if anyone had actually used any and how expensive it is and would it provide any thermal insulation in the winter.

Thanks

Planning for renewables

OJ — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 09:23:28 +0000

Last summer there were hints that planning legislation/decision making would be relaxed with respect to domestic wind turbines this winter? Has anything materialised? OJ