SteamyTea

We are currently seeing just how fantastic this government is at negotiating a deal. If you really wanted to do this, then you need to get the companies that stand to gain the most, so the DNO/Power Generation companies.

And that was in a lab, just about ideal growing conditions. At that sort of level there would probably not be a need to reinforce the grid and it would, in effect, work as daytime storage. Trouble is that it is very costly. It is not the cost of the modules. A roof time is pretty cheap, getting it changed is pretty expensive (if done properly and legally, not some pikey up a ladder). I think we run the risk of just going over what Dr MacKay said a decade ago: https://www.withouthotair.com/download.html A quick, slightly out of context, quote: "Energy crops as a coal substitute If we grow in Britain energy crops such as willow, miscanthus, or poplar (which have an average power of 0.5 W per square metre of land), then shove them in a 40%-efficient power station, the resulting power per unit area is 0.2 W/m2. If one eighth of Britain (500 m2 per person) were covered in these plantations, the resulting power would be 2.5 kWh/d per person." There is also no lack of land suitable for agriculture, just look at a picture:

If you decided to burn all the biomass that the world produces, and that includes the oceans, it would last around 400 days with the worlds current primary energy usage. Not a lot of 'storage' really. Be a bit smokey as well. But yes, there does need to be a mix, but we are nowhere near even starting on replacing fossil fuel globally, so now is not the time to stop project because of something that may be a problem in 25 years time (going to take us at least that long to build a new nuclear power station).

You may find that the modules they buy are larger than are normally fitted on domestic installations. Much of the profitability is down to how they are selling the power, but they would not be doing it without a decent rate of return. There are more than just FiTs (and I think this is too large for that scheme anyway) for selling electricity. The issue about growing a few crops and grazing sheep is a bit of a sop to 'greenies and nimbys' they have a surprising amount in common. The last thing that a solar farm operator wants is a sheep nibbling though a 1000V DC cable. Weed killer usually sorts out the grass growth. You could ask them why they are not building some agricultural/light industrial units under some of the modules. A few thousand square metres of single story units could come in handy and give a secondary income to help the impoverished economy. Tattoo artists and nail bars are popular. As are tanning salons. If you want a bit of fun, ask what grade the land was and how many kWh of food energy it can produce a year (about 0.25 kWh.m-2 if they are lucky, and that is before inputs). Also ask if there is any coal in that area, Kent is a coal area after all. You could also point out that when I lived in Kent, I was taken to Whitstable in 1973/4 and shown the sea frozen over. Has that happened recently? You could also point out that 350MW peak power should produce about 375 TWh/year. If Hinkley was up and running at full power, it would produce about 7140 TWh/year. If Hinkley takes another 19 years to be built, it will still be behind this PV farm on production (I think Hinkley got the nod 11 years ago and it wont be ready on time, and then our government can get out of the contract). Or, you could point out that during the summer, it will produce about 0.3% of the nations power, in winter about 0.03% (check those numbers as they seem low and my eyesight is failing).

Right, I have had a little play about, and this could do with a lot of improvement (I am not a builder, plumber or house designer). I have kept the floor area the same but think that I have created more space. There is also unused space under and over the stairs that could easily house a heating system and a bit of storage. And that is without using the loft. Also managed to get in two wash rooms. And made the path between all the downstairs doors inline. If you are going to have a corridor, make it straight one, is my thinking. They are a mirror image of my house, but that is just because I work from right to left. Would make no difference if it was mirrored. The upstairs bedroom doors could be flipped 180° for a bit more 'emergency privacy', though I hate doors that open into a room (probably because I am claustrophobic). This house designing is easy, all it needs is a bit more knowledge about products and the legislation. Oh, you can now get a 2.2m long sofa in the living room, which I struggle to do at the moment without walking into it every time I go upstairs.

When I get time, and energy, I shall have a little play with some DHT22s and see if there is really enough of a difference to measure. It would be nice to think that reducing local RH could make a difference and stop an exterior ASHP being used as a bike rack.

My GPS on the phone is only accurate to within about 3m. Probably good enough for most builders

It is amazing what can be deduced from data, why we have statistics I had forgotten that it was radiators, but they are just convection devices anyway, so it is possible to compare systems. It is the air temperature that you are trying to keep stable, not the rest of the house, that is a bit of an irrelevance. I just don't see a decent correlation between the two datasets, though there may well be a weak one, but without looking at the data properly it is hard to tell.

Trouble is that they are open (though easily solved), so noise transmits upstairs. What would be better was if the stairs cut the house in two, a front and back. Then move the kitchen to the front and have a totally separate living room at the back. Trouble with that is that the parking is at the back, so no one uses the front doors. So maybe living room should stay in the front. One problem is that a normal sofa is just a bit to wide to go across the front wall, and when it is on the long wall, it makes a narrow room even narrower. A bit of space could be made upstairs by getting rid of the airing cupboard and cylinder, making the larger back room a bit larger. But the real problem is that the living room is a corridor. Fine when I am on my own (I never use it anyway) but then other are in the house it it a bit intrusive walking past friend, lodgers or family.

So is your air temperature set to around 18°C. On November 29th, 30th and December 1st the flow temperature went up to over 60°C. That implies quite a high temperature difference between the slab and the air temperature, do you know how hot the floor is actually getting, seems to be around 35°C (from an eyesight average). If that is about right, and you are happy with the temperature stability, then you can safely run the ASHP up to 40°C and get a good CoP. Have you got any raw data rather than charts?

Did you change the file extension to .dxf, then open it up in just about any CAD package. Here is a screen capture anyway. No hurry, I am not charging you for this

Now why did you choose this system Ian

Apart from your local pub

"PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON'T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT PEOPLE LIKE ME AS A MEMBER". G Marx

I think that is the way to go as it puts less load on the heating. If using timing only, it takes no account of of the load needed.

I still think they they don't need to spend anything like that. My phone now costs about £80 and probably does much more then most iPhones as it is an Android one. I had a friend who was a programmer about 30 years ago, she did not understand hardware at all, just some vague thoughts that her software had to runs on it. I think most housing lacks technology of all sorts, my car has more technology than my house. But we tend to place priorities on the wrong things. Lights and heating that work from a phone that is anywhere in the world is really a bit of a nonsense. They add nothing to your quality of life really, but would quickly take away from it when they fail. Then take kitchen appliances. Do I really need another digital clock on stuff, or a microwave that has 10 buttons and a couple of knobs. A cooker than can turn itself on when I am out. Really a case of planning ones life a bit better, not buying excess technology to cover every eventuality. Then finding out it does not work and you need to go to the Indian takeaway anyway. There was something mentioned about a vacuum cleaner on here somewhere. It had given two years trouble free use. WOW, does that may my 60 quid one that is now 12 years old 6 times better. My Aunt has a kettle with a variable temperature setting on it. What is that all about.

Do we know what temperatures the evaporators run at, I have -23°C in mind. If the air flow was faster though the evaporator, would that increase the temperature of the evaporator (of the fins really), helping to reduce icing. Would make for a noisier unit. Of course you can just get a larger ASHP and run it slower.

This serious, and possibly life threatening, wound was caused by technology. I dropped my phone behind the seat in the car, as I put my hand in to retrieve it, I caught the seat rail (thank goodness it was not electric) and maimed myself. This is a life changing injury, it has taught me to stop being a clumsy oaf (again).

I don't think that it is really possible to affect the local humidity as an ASHP draws in too much mass of air. Sticking one in the sun should help though as even at quite modest levels of direct sunlight will soon warm it up. Just think how easy washing steams on a cold day when the sun hits it. It may be useful, but would need experiments to find out, to blow air though the unit with the HP part turned off. If the HP part was stopped before freezing starts (should be easy to establish) then just pass ambient temperature air though, any condensation should evaporate, or get dislodged, fairly quickly.

@JSHarrisHow hard would it be to reprogram the unit to modulate the heat pump down a bit when it predicts the risk of frosting? Then it is just a matter of creating an algorithm (rather than a curve) that can control that for near enough all temperatures. Or it could just turn the heat pump off and let ambient temperature defrost naturally, may need a larger buffer tank though. Where @joe90 is not too bad for temperature and RH, so may not hit the frosting condition as often as you do.

The CH1 bottom floor temperatures seem to swing quite a bit. Can you plot floor temp against external temp to see the correlation better.

What goes on in the shed, stays in the shed!

That is an interesting problem @joe90 It is easy enough to make a sensor that can check temperature and RH, from that it is a simple calculation to work out the dewpoint temperature. Once that it known, and a few performance parameters of you ASHP installation, it is then just a matter of turning down the wick on the ASHP. I am not sure how easy that is to do, but probably not hard. I think @JSHarris ASHP has sensors already built in that can be used for this. SO other ASHPs probably have the same thing as it is pretty crucial to their performance (they need to know they are frosted up).

Hopefully you can open this and it makes sense. You will need to change the .txt extension to .dxf (can we change it to allow some CAD formats to be uploaded please). Basically a 8m by 4m two storey box. A little wider and I could turn the stairs around though 90° and stop the living room being a corridor. SteamyTea HouseDFX.txt

How have I managed to miss Node Red, seems my idea of making a fairly simple controller has already been done. Good, I hate all that poxy coding.