Marvin

We often use the bulbs with a wide angle 110 degrees or so but not widely available.

Hi @severnside Hmm. Not sure a 5kW ASHP will supply 16kW in the dead of winter. The principle is the closer to the outside temperature the ASHP produces the better the COP. Think mine is a COP of 1 to 3 depending.

Now you need input from someone else from further-a-field capable of slaying dragons.....🤣 I have read discussions about using different ones for different functions.. for example one for the hot water and limited heating, and one for full heating, however I'm not knowledgeable about the outcomes.

Hi @severnside I understand it is -7C at one point during the day. I think the whole day averaged -4C however it has definitely got colder than -4C please see info: https://www.weatherbase.com/weather/weather-summary.php3?s=62730&cityname=Bristol,+England,+United+Kingdom https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/bristol-weather-met-office-shows-6526858 https://www.martynhicks.uk/weather/data.php?page=extremes I would want my ASHP to handle the -7C event without immersion heating backup. Good luck Marvin

dream on

Hi @severnside Bit concerned about the low temperature figure. I checked the records here over the last 50 years and it said -8C was the lowest and I am on the isle of Wight. IMHO I would want the ASHP sized on the lowest temperature (plus hot water) in the area over many years, so when you have very cold days its not struggling which is what we did.

IMHO There is a continual cost or effort to get solid fuel. Cutting trees down or chopping up rubbish sheds or collecting seaweed and drying all takes time. I have done all of these. Read Stig of the dump. Its not just cutting the tree down, its the transporting which always seems to get further way, and the chopping up. If you use an internal wood stove with unseasoned or treated wood it will coat the flue which can start a fire. Seaweed was used to power steam ships, but again you try collecting it. You have to wait for the right tide and collect and dry it. You want to see what else is mixed in with seaweed at high tide these days Disgusting! We are using our efforts to try and reduce the heating we require as once changes are made they stay made and they don't become an increasing cost burden year on year.

Hi @SolarexploitsNo apologies required. we are all searching for understanding. The good thing with so many people is someone will have knowledge of either there experiences or ways to obtain the info. We have 5.12kW tied to the grid and we are just about to start wiring up the 12V off grid battery set up which is designed to run the MVHR, Grey water system, garden watering and household lights. However the system here will be all mechanical relays and timers. We have set the panels vertical on the wall of a shed as we need as much power as possible over the winter months, and summer we will have excess so we don't need to set them at 35 degrees. For us, our aim is to reduce the amount we buy from the grid. Over the last 4 days we have purchased 30kWh. We are working on how we can reduce this to zero as much of the time as possible. Obviously: no bright days - no way, but we could probably achieve some days. We have calculated using the European solar calculator that panels produce more power than we need over the course of the year, its just the wise use and storage that's the challenge. Good luck M

Does it have acoustic bearings/pads? It could otherwise set up a hum through the joists. Hi @saveasteading We have not had any issue with humming and the bed is below about 10 foot away. As this was a retrofit on a renovation which we lived in for 4 years with a gas boiler after renovating, before installing the ASHP, I can safely say that the swap has made no difference on the noise front.

Hi @jimmyharris80 Something that comes up time and time again is that you only buy insulation once, but you pay for heating or cooling every year, and every year it goes up. Good luck. M

+1.

Once again a lot of sense from @Nickfromwales 👏 Our ASHP was installed on the flat roof about 8 month ago. Neighbours noticed box but no noise issue, not even over the winter when its supposed to be noisiest as the ASHP works hardest to heat the property. If there is a lot of noise there has to be something wrong with the sizing or positioning of the ASHP or the actual ASHP, or the way it's being used. Stick a car in second gear and do 50mph and that makes noise and eat fuel, so it the car crap? However, its worth considering all the AIM and APE elements before making decisions. That is Airtightness, Insulation, Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery, and Air Source Heat Pump, Photovoltaics and Electric Vehicle. Some of these will not work properly without the others: A MVHR will not work properly without Airtightness. An Air Source Heat Pump will have to compensate for the lack of Airtightness and Insulation to the degree that the benefits become questionable, especially during winter, without them. An ASHP uses electricity and Photovoltaics can supply a little during winter and a lot during summer when cooling can be a problem and an ASHP can supply cooling. PV can supply a little to an Electric Vehicle during winter and plenty during summer if your vehicle is at home during sunny days. Extending a property and only doing AIM works to the extension will be no good, you have to do all the property within the thermal envelope. So if finances cause you to have to consider only a few in my humble opinion AIM first and go APE later. (but prepare the property for the APE works as much as you can). There are exceptions to properties which have AIM whereby the insulation is so thick that heating becomes a minor issue! Best of Luck Marvin

THEY ARE slow to heat the house. An ASHP is not a gas boiler! The theory is that the house will have all the AIM elements and cool down slowly and that the ASHP will produce just a little heat all or most of the time to prop the temperature up. Ours is running at 35.4C at the moment and the house is 22.3C The most efficient way to run an ASHP is to keep the output temperature as close to the outside temperature as possible. Like a car: Which uses more fuel going down the motorway at a steady 55 or racing as fast as you can to get where you want to go. Same result but more fuel used. With an ASHP heat slow. M

AIM (Airtightness, Insulation and MVHR - mechanical ventilation with heat recovery) Before going APE (Airsource heat pump, Photovoltaics and Electric vehicle. IMHO, AIM Before APE if you have to choose. Good luck M

Sorry @ProDave I couldn't resist.... blame the boffins.... Yes and no.... changing your light bulbs from the old 100w ones to multiple LED ones will make your house cooler, and in winter your house will require more heat and in summer less cooling, but the heating effect is negligible.... but not the power usage to light the property.

I think the minimum overlap is 75mm on a steep roof otherwise with a wind the water will travel up over the top tile, under the tile below. If its like my roof 12 feet along to 5 feet up. It has to have a minimum of 4 inch overlap. If either of these are not right, or you are often exposed to driving rain, this will be the problem. The solution will be to remove all the tiles, batten and roofing felt,replace the batten and felt spacing the batten tighter together which will mean having an extra row of batten and tiles, or 2, to make the overlap correct. You can re-use the tiles but if you break alot you can use old one one side and new on the other or all new ones. Be careful of the lead-in time from order to delivery of tiles, this can be months. Good luck Marvin

Hi @Simon Boyes Can you take a picture of the gable end so I can see the roof angle.

Hi @Simon Boyes Sorry about this. It looks like the overlap on each tile is short: What pitch is the roof? How far does each course of tile overlap the next course ( bottom of top tile onver the top of the next tile down. Is the building in exposed conditions?

Be sure it's bamboo, and not something else... .

Imho. If there's trickles in one area then leaks. If the whole surface of roofing felt is damp condensation. Espically during warm days and cool nights....

Hi @Johnnyt Like your set up ideas...... We also oversized our PV: All the possible south roof and then some, to give us 5.12kW Whilst typing at 8.52am the EV is waiting for the power to increase before being charged( we only use a 13amp charger), so the unused power is heating the 200ltr tank.

Hi @Adrian WalkerYes! I have looked at energy from a rainwater turbine! No it's not practical for me to do. Yes the bungalow is about 100m2 of roof and yearly we get about 450mm of rain, so about 450m3. However being a bungalow we have little height about 2.6m. The problem would be the weight on the roof when any attempt was made to store the water up high and the fact that rain is even more of an on/off energy supplier than sun meaning the only way to produce the potential power is to have a very big turbine=£££££ as I have no storage capacity. Even putting a turbine on the mains water supply to produce usable power that can be used or stored when the mains water is being used is tricky but we do use grey water.

Basically greed and fear.

I don't know but it sounds reasonable. Also I understand that's also part of lightening. Searching for information I understand that this process can produce about 50w per square meter.

Hi @ProDave Yes that's the direct input and as @SteamyTea says add one for the cooling, however there are quite a few things missing... During the night the heat from the hot water tank dissipates from the tank to heat the room. ( In our case we super insulated the tank to reduce this) If the hot water tank is very hot (in our case due to solar excess power being used by the immersion) the temperature dissipates into the central heating water. When changing the ASHP from hot water to heating, the buffer tank can jump up by 10C when the hotter water remaining in the main 28mm pipes and ASHP flows in to the buffer. I can feel the results becoming less and less reliable....