How to play - The SunAmp Guessing Game

[SteamyTea]

4 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

 

They are about to become a much needed product for LLs needing 2 more points on their EPC to avoid committing a criminal offence by renting out a substandard property

About as much use as putting filter tips on cigarettes.

 

It is a shame that the standard of scientific understanding is set by the manufacturers of energy saving products.

[ProDave]

 

Plan A: Partial solution: install a shower heat recovery device, which should mean that the heat required from the Sunamp is a little less due to the recovered heat, which should mean that the heat you have lasts longer than it would otherwise.

 

So your shower should go cold less frequently.

My solution to the running out of hat water issue (with an UVC not a sun amp) is a Stieble Eltron 10kW modulating instant water heater in the hot pipe out of the tank.  It is set slightly lower than the tank temperature so normally does nothing, but if the water starts to run cool it kicks in.  And given the slow re heat time with an ASHP, if someone has a shower before the tank has fully re heated, the Steible Eltron will make up the difference.

[SteamyTea]

2 hours ago, ProDave said:

My solution to the running out of hat water issue

Mine is cold showers.

But then I did got a Public School. 

The school motto was "omnes pares cum frigidus imber"

all men are equal when in a cold shower

[ToughButterCup]

On 08/06/2022 at 10:26, SteamyTea said:

2 kWh should be enough.

I had 2 showers and ran my house on that amount yesterday.

 

Really? I mean .... honest?

I think I get through 5-7 kWh every shower. Yes, I could do it in 2kWh: but our shower head is one of these massaging things - it does wonders for my shoulders. So I linger.

 

The  key is is self-consumption. There is by turns 

• no incentive to save hot water (because there's loads of PV)
• every incentive to save hot water (because there's no PV)

And thats the point of the post: how does a SunAmp owner optimise self-consumption in the context of the expected amount of solar PV and potential demand on hot water?

Given that there's both no indication of how much energy left to heat water and the vagaries of local weather patterns, I think its too difficult to guess accurately when to boost the energy level in the tank (by importing power from the grid).

 

But its good fun trying.

And clever folk like you could maybe make a gizmo that would satisfy that demand.

[SteamyTea]

7 minutes ago, ToughButterCup said:

I get through 5-7 kWh every shower

2 bathfulls then.

[Miek]

13 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

2 bathfulls then.

Roughly 200 to 300l of water is a mega shower!   I shower in one tenth of that. 

[ProDave]

1 hour ago, Miek said:

Roughly 200 to 300l of water is a mega shower!   I shower in one tenth of that. 

Our shower heads on full tilt I measured about 11 litres per minute.  So a 300L shower would take about 27 minutes.  When you are only storing DHW at 48 degrees, it will not be mixing much cold water with that.

 

The Ladies in this house seem to delight in long showers, my daughter in particular half an hour is about normal.  I am convinced she just stays there until the water goes cold.  And she  does not understand the concept that you can run the shower at less than full water flow.

 

10 minutes is a long shower for me, by then I have long run out of places to wash and hair to shampoo.

[joe90]

10 minutes ago, ProDave said:

The Ladies in this house seem to delight in long showers

Instal a coin operated shower like in some campsites (then run away). I have never run out of hot water even with visiting guests but I do still have a Stieble Eltron 10kW in the loft as a backup and the wiring ready fir it’s installation if required.

Edited June 10, 2022 by joe90

[SteamyTea]

1 hour ago, joe90 said:

Instal a coin operated shower like in some campsites

Connected to a suicide shower.

[Gone West]

20 hours ago, ToughButterCup said:

I think I get through 5-7 kWh every shower.

That seems a lot. Must be a long shower. I'm in and out in four to five minutes and we have an aerating shower head. Can get two showers out of a 140l hot tank no problem.

[SteamyTea]

5 minutes ago, Gone West said:

That seems a lot. Must be a long shower. I'm in and out in four to five minutes and we have an aerating shower head. Can get two showers out of a 140l hot tank no problem.

Does Sumerlease Beach still have the free public showers?

 

Another solution is from EJ, which would get me out the shower pretty quick.

 

[TW9]

We have Mira Platinum showers that can be set to run for a limited time. We don't use this setting at the moment but it will be switched on if my daughters start having half hour showers.

[Gone West]

2 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

Does Sumerlease Beach still have the free public showers?

Never been there, they allow dogs on the beach all year round.

[SteamyTea]

12 minutes ago, Gone West said:

they allow dogs on the beach all year round.

Why they charge us so much for water.

[Gone West]

2 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Why they charge us so much for water.

Don't understand.

[ProDave]

Our local council sports centre has showers in the changing rooms and our membership would allow me to go every day just for a shower if I wanted to.  But the petrol to get there and back would be more than the cost of a shower, so no saving, and if I went on my bike, I would need another shower when I got home.

 

But it means we don't shower at home on swimming day.

[joe90]

1 hour ago, SteamyTea said:

Why they charge us so much for water.

I don’t see how a couple of cold showers on the beach for surfers is going to affect the water usage over a whole county??? They waste far more than that in leaks in their network!

[SteamyTea]

4 hours ago, Gone West said:

Don't understand

A large part of the South West water company's bill is for cleaning up sewage and road drains before the water is discharged to the sea.

Then the council comes along and encouraged dogs to shut on the beach, probably 3 million if them a year.

My new slogan for Cornwall is.

"Penzance, not as much dig shir as St. Ives".

[SteamyTea]

2 hours ago, joe90 said:

don’t see how a couple of cold showers on the beach for surfers is going to affect the water usage over a whole county

Was thinking more of @Gone West saving on his electricity.

[joe90]

1 hour ago, SteamyTea said:

A large part of the South West water company's bill is for cleaning up sewage and road drains before the water is discharged to the sea.

Then the council comes along and encouraged dogs to shut on the beach, probably 3 million if them a year.

My new slogan for Cornwall is.

"Penzance, not as much dig shir as St. Ives".

I would like to bet that the amount of dog turds in the sea is a very small proportion of those human ones the water companies are allowed to “distribute “ (Plus the fact that most dog owners, like myself, clean up after their pets 🤔)

Edited June 10, 2022 by joe90

[SteamyTea]

9 minutes ago, joe90 said:

I would like to bet that the amount of dog turds in the sea is a very small proportion of those human ones

How a billion dogs, including our pets, are laying waste to wildlife

There is growing evidence that feral dogs and their domestic cousins have a big ecological impact, from hunting and spooking wildlife to poisoning plants and spreading disease to endangered species

 

ENVIRONMENT 27 April 2022

By Aisling Irwin

 

It looks like harmless fun, but dogs do ecological damage chasing shorebirds

Shutterstock/Alexei tm

 

IT WAS shocking,” says biologist Galo Zapata-Ríos, recalling what he saw when he viewed footage from his camera traps. Placed in the Andes, across 2000 square kilometres of forests, grasses and shrublands in Ecuador, these were intended to capture the movements of striped hog-nosed skunks, mountain coatis and other wildlife. Instead, in frame after frame, he saw something he hadn’t anticipated: dogs. “There were so many dogs that I decided to switch my topic,” says Zapata-Ríos, who works for the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Ecuador programme, and now studies the ecological impacts of dogs.

It isn’t just the Andes: dogs are everywhere. They live on every continent except Antarctica, and inhabit high mountains, tropical rainforests, islands and nature reserves that would otherwise be considered pristine. One calculation put their numbers at a billion, making them the most common carnivore on Earth. That was in 2013 and there are surely more today. India alone has seen an estimated increase of 20 million – to around 80 million – partly because of legislation passed in 2001 forbidding the relocation or killing of street dogs. Meanwhile, during pandemic lockdowns, dog ownership soared in some countries including the UK where there are now some 13 million pet dogs.

At a time when nature is under pressure like never before, there is growing evidence that dogs – both free-roaming and home-based – are killing, eating, terrifying and competing with other animals. They pollute watercourses, over-fertilise soils and endanger plants. Such is their impact that some ecologists call them an invasive alien species. They may be our best friends, but some say we need to take dogs in hand.

 

From chihuahua influencers to savvy street canines, all dogs belong to the same species. They may have been living alongside humans as early as 30,000 years ago and accompanied us around the world, reaching Europe, North America, Asia and the Middle East at least 10,000 years ago, Australia between 3500 and 5000 years ago and Amazonia and some islands within the past few centuries. Today, only around a quarter of dogs are home-living companion animals, although many more are owned or affiliated in some way with a household or village. Few are truly feral, says Abi Vanak at India’s Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation. They are almost always dependent on humans – if only for the occasional night garbage raid.

 

Street mutts in Varanasi, India, are among the billion or so dogs on Earth

Bhatia/EyeEm/Getty Images

 

The animals caught by Zapata-Rís’s camera traps were a mix of feral and free-roaming village dogs. What he wanted to know was whether they were pushing out the wild carnivores or muddling along happily with them. The answer was unequivocal: the presence of dogs predicted the absence of pumas, bears, foxes and skunks more powerfully than habitat loss or fragmentation did. “The results suggest that the impact of feral dogs on wildlife in the Ecuadorean highlands are widespread and that free-ranging dogs are a significant threat,” he says.

 

Zapata-Rís went on to discover that, in Ecuador’s Cayambe Coca Ecological Reserve, several mammals have altered their foraging times, apparently to avoid dogs. This will have knock-on effects. Animals usually active in the daytime that are forced to venture out at night experience increased fear and stress. “That is going to decrease fertility rates, and that’s going to affect population levels,” he says. “I really think there is a threat to survival.”

Free-roaming dogs, it is emerging, wander through protected reserves in many parts of the world including Iran, Brazil and Italy. They inhabit giant panda reserves in the Qinling mountains of central China, and in India’s tiger reserves they outnumber the tigers, according to Vanak. Many studies show that the presence of dogs correlates with decreases in native fauna and flora – although some, for example in North America, have found no link. Careful research is needed to establish whether dogs are to blame, but the list of possible mechanisms is long. Dogs may kill to eat or to eliminate competition. They destroy eggs. They scavenge, which might seem harmless, but can deprive other animals of a meal. And, as in Cayambe Coca, dogs create fear. The effects of fear are insidious: stress dampens the immune system, constantly fleeing and returning uses up energy and no-go zones reduce the amount of usable habitat. All these pressures can end up slashing populations of wild animals. What’s more, the problem isn’t confined to remote reserves and free-roaming dogs.

For a pet dog, there is little as exciting as pounding, unleashed, across a seashore driving hundreds of birds into an airborne cascade. At Holkham National Nature Reserve in Norfolk, UK, where shorebird numbers have dropped by 60 per cent in the past two decades, Jake Fiennes, its director, knows the havoc this can cause. In 2019, the reserve attracted 800,000 visitors – and 300,000 dogs. But in spring 2020, a covid-19 lockdown meant the birds had the beach to themselves. “Seeing 10,000 shorebirds merrily feeding away because there’s no disturbance was very emotional,” says Fiennes. That ended abruptly in June when 35,000 stir-crazy visitors escaped to the beach over a single weekend. It was peak breeding season with a lot of nests on the shore. “The impacts were devastating,” says Fiennes.

Birds, it turns out, seem to be particularly sensitised to dogs – even on leads. In woodlands outside Sydney, for example, a study found that people walking leashed dogs caused a “dramatic” reduction in the diversity and abundance of birds – more than double that caused by the same number of people walking without pets. These birds didn’t become habituated to the presence of these dogs – possibly because the occasional off-lead dog regularly resensitises them, the authors speculated. Some birds are more easily disturbed than others. Another study found that the space required by different species before they are disturbed varies from 500 metres to a mere 40 metres.

Ecological paw print

Even the least scary dog can leave a footprint. This was accidentally but vividly demonstrated in a nature reserve in Kent, UK, where a fence that bisects a pond confines dogs to one half. On the undisturbed side, aquatic plants, including the critically endangered three-lobed crowfoot, flourish. On the other, enthusiastic dogs have churned up the sediment, destroying almost every plant – and thus banishing the aquatic animals that shelter in them.

Turbidity isn’t the only thing dogs leave in their wake. Their excreta can be a problem on moorlands and fens, deep inside some woods and even on road verges. That is because the plants in these habitats need soils low in nutrients to survive, says Pieter De Frennes at Ghent University, Belgium. In February, he published calculations of the amount of nitrogen (from faeces and urine) and phosphorus (from faeces) that dogs were depositing into four popular nature reserves around Ghent. Assuming that owners scooped half the faeces, it came to 8 kilograms of nitrogen per hectare per year and more than 1 kilogram of phosphorus.

Whether this matters depends on an ecosystem’s critical deposition load – the amount of extra nutrients it can tolerate. In three of the reserves, the critical load for nitrogen is 20 kilograms per hectare, and that is already exceeded by the 22 kilograms per hectare being deposited from the atmosphere. So dog waste has “an important additional impact”, says de Frennes. “The presence of dogs in these reserves will certainly delay restoration goals.” He suspects that the problem may be widespread. The critical loads of nitrogen and phosphorus on moorlands and fens, for example, are much lower, so it doesn’t take many dogs to stress these ecosystems.

Wherever dogs make their deposits, there is also the risk of passing infections to wild animals. In 2015, in Ethiopia’s Wollo highlands, rabies killed seven endangered Ethiopian wolves from a small pack of 13. A rabid dog found dead nearby indicated the source of the infection. Conservationists managed to track down and vaccinate two of the surviving wolves – but within two months, one had died from canine distemper virus. Again, a dog was implicated.

Dogs have even been linked to waves of lion deaths in India and in Tanzania’s Serengeti national park. In the Alps, both companion dogs and free-roaming shepherd dogs appear to be spreading a cocktail of diseases, including canine distemper, to local wildlife. Even when dogs don’t infect wildlife directly in this way, they can act as reservoirs for pathogenic microbes. The key is the presence of many dogs, says Matthew Gompper at New Mexico State University. They can then transmit pathogens repeatedly across the species barrier. Without this, the diseases would probably fade away.

In affluent countries, another worry is the chemicals administered to dogs to combat ticks, fleas and parasites. In the UK, these include a parasiticide that is banned in agriculture, but is nevertheless applied to dogs’ coats. Recent research found widespread contamination in rivers with this and another parasiticide also applied to dog coats, leading to fears that they are killing aquatic wildlife. Just bathing a treated dog at home may release the chemicals into rivers via sewage plants.

The evidence seems overwhelming: our hunting, defecating, bird-chasing, pond-paddling, infectious best friends are harming some ecosystems. This may put some people off owning a dog (see “Is it fair to keep a dog?“), but, as Gompper points out, our feelings for them run deep. Even street dogs have advocates who feed and care for them, says Vanak. And dogs come with all sorts of benefits including fun, protection, love, exercise and – paradoxically – exposure to nature.

So, what to do? Gompper suggests that before getting too anxious, we should assess where dogs are having a population-level effect on a wild species, and where they are just part of the rough and tumble of red and toothy nature. “There’s a general sense that we need to address issues raised by the presence of dogs everywhere and I’m not sure that’s always necessary,” he says. Dogs are most damaging ecologically where they are recent arrivals, because these ecosystems can be defenceless against them: on islands in places such as Hawaii and New Zealand, and in regions like South America, Australia and southern Africa.

There is also little doubt that dogs cause great harm to certain animals, particularly vultures in India, shorebirds everywhere and marine turtles when their nests are raided. Even in these cases, Gompper argues for pragmatism. There is no point intervening where there is little hope of success – for example, if it will be impossible to vaccinate enough dogs to achieve herd immunity against the diseases they can carry – or where cultural norms mean that people will never accept the curbs necessary to make a difference.

Where action is urgent, it is likely that it can only succeed if it reconciles the needs of dogs, owners, welfarists and wildlife. This isn’t happening in Indian cities, says Vanak, where “dog wars” pit people focused on animal welfare against conservationists and those concerned about the human toll from attacks and disease. Elsewhere, owners may feel that letting their dog off the leash is a healthy and natural thing to do – and see dog bans, or off-leash bans, as unwarranted interference.

“Such is their impact, some ecologists call dogs an invasive alien species”

Nevertheless, there are things you can do to limit the ecological footprint of your pet (see “How to be an eco-friendly dog owner“). And there are things that conservationists can do to help you. Working together is key, as Fiennes discovered. The disastrous impact of dogs on breeding birds at Holkham in 2020 inspired him to consult widely about acceptable changes and then implement a zoning system: “no dogs”, “dogs on leads April to August” and “dogs off leads”. Signposting is clear, frequent and educational, and friendly stewards – and their dogs – wander the beach. A year later, nesting and fledging rates of little terns, oystercatchers and ringed plovers have increased. “It’s trying to balance the need to get people more engaged with our natural environment, but also to ensure that they are well informed of the potential impacts that they can have,” he says.

Is it fair to keep a dog?

We have all read stories about mistreated dogs, overcrowded puppy farms and the maladaptive traits that cause suffering in various breeds. Add to that the carbon footprint of dogs and the ecological damage they can wreak (see main story), and you might be left wondering whether we should keep them as pets.

Marc Bekoff at the University of Colorado, Boulder, points out that dogs co-evolved with us over thousands of years, and have developed behavioural, neural, anatomical and physiological adaptations to living with humans. Besides, pet dogs lead safer, more comfortable, hunger-free lives than they would in the wild. Bekoff believes that it is fine to keep pooches, provided you develop an instinct for what they need. “Make the walk for them,” he says. “Give them sniff time.” He also advises giving your dog time to hang out with you, to have rough-and-tumble play with other dogs and the opportunity to resolve its own doggie conflicts. “Let dogs be dogs,” he says.

How to be an eco-friendly dog owner

 

The mere presence of dogs – even on leads – can reduce biodiversity

Shutterstock/Lopolo

 

Read signs and posters and follow the advice: there may be reasons you haven’t thought of why dogs could damage the surrounding ecology.

Always keep your dog to paths on dunes to minimise erosion, bird disturbance and trampling of plants.

Keep dogs out of ponds, especially small ones, which are easily disturbed, and those in nature reserves and national parks, which often harbour rare and threatened species.

During bird-breeding seasons, ensure your dog doesn’t disturb nests, particularly on dunes, beaches, moorland and heath, where ground-nesting specialists are found.

Train your dog to return to a call and not to stray out of sight in ecologically sensitive areas.

Always pick up faeces. Much of the countryside could do without the extra fertiliser and it may carry diseases or contain medications that kill insects and arachnids.

To further prevent toxic chemicals entering waterways, consider reducing your dog’s prophylactic treatments with flea, tick and worm tablets. Regularly washing bedding and checking for fleas instead can reduce the risk of infection.

The mere presence of dogs – even on leads – can reduce biodiversity

[joe90]

42 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Bekoff believes that it is fine to keep pooches, provided you develop an instinct for what they need. “Make the walk for them,” he says. “Give them sniff time.” He also advises giving your dog time to hang out with you, to have rough-and-tumble play with other dogs and the opportunity to resolve its own doggie conflicts. “Let dogs be dogs,” he says.

At least mine works for his living…….

[Gus Potter]

On 07/06/2022 at 17:33, ProDave said:

 but what has happened is the hot water in the tank has all just "moved up a bit" and at the bottom replaced by cold.  As soon as the hot / cold transition gets above that lower thermostat pocket, the ASHP thinks the tank is cold and fires up, and I am there shouting at it saying why the b****y hell do you want to come on?

 

If I were designing this system again, I would specify a whole row of thermostat pockets up the tank, and I would specify an extra tank tapping near the bottom of the tank, not far above the cold inlet tapping, and I would have a circulating pump that could come on to stir up the hot water in the tank to even it;s temperature out a bit, and hopefully avoid the ASHP coming on when not really needed.  but I can't see a way to retro fit that with no tank tapping low down to circulate the water to.

 

Being a philistine (maybe like @ProDave) here but also greatly appreciate the thermodynamic knowledge of everyone and learning a lot.

 

In the not so old days on big houses we had a hot water cylinder. The water was heated by the boiler via a exchanging coil in the bottom part of the cylinder, when the boiler broke down we had electrical heating elements, one near the bottom and one about 2/3 to 3/4 up the height of the cylinder that could be deployed. About 200mm from the top of the cylinder we took off the main hot tapping, this was to partly reduce air getting into the system as we are talking vented (gravity fed) cylinders not mains pressure, say up to 3 bar unvented cylinders. We then run a loop of pipe around the house, often called a secondary loop and this was really well insulated. We installed a secondary pump that circulated the water around the secondary loop, but this pump was on a timer set to run when the house was mostly occupied and hot water demand was most likely to occur. The kitchen tap was off the top of the cylinder as this is where the water was hottest and if you got a bit of "air" so be it.

 

The secondary loop acted like an electrical ring main. Each bathroom was tapped off the ring so when you turned on the hot tap the hot water came out nearly right away as it does not have far to go, or if you ran a big bath the hot water remained at a constant temperature.

 

Now my question is. Can you marry up these old principles with the new, just install a secondary pump to circulate the water to avoid statifcation? But of course the secondary pump needs that valuable electricity / energy we are trying to make most use of. Maybe in the round this is a simple way to do this as too much complexity often leads to higher maintenance costs etc?

 

 

 

 

 

 

[SteamyTea]

7 hours ago, Gus Potter said:

Now my question is. Can you marry up these old principles with the new, just install a secondary pump to circulate the water to avoid statifcation? But of course the secondary pump needs that valuable electricity / energy we are trying to make most use of. Maybe in the round this is a simple way to do this as too much complexity often leads to higher maintenance costs etc?

Yes you can.  And probably, these days, not unreliable.

[ProDave]

10 hours ago, Gus Potter said:

Now my question is. Can you marry up these old principles with the new, just install a secondary pump to circulate the water to avoid statifcation? But of course the secondary pump needs that valuable electricity / energy we are trying to make most use of. Maybe in the round this is a simple way to do this as too much complexity often leads to higher maintenance costs etc?

My point if you want to circulate the water within the cylinder to mix up the stratification, then you need to pump it from the top to the bottom for long enough for it to mix around.  To do that, you would need an extra "input" tapping on the cylinder near the bottom.  The only way I could do that on my cylinder would be to pump from the hot out tapping down to the cold in tapping, but I am sure that would break some water bylaw as there is a risk of contaminating the cold water with hot water, hence if I had been ordering the cylinder again, i would have specified a second separate input tapping just a little higher than the main one.

 

The hot water circulation loop around the house, some people still do but it wastes heat, even if really well insulated pipework.