https://heatpunk.co.uk/

[DanDee]

https://heatpunk.co.uk/ (You can also find a copy of the Freedom Toolkit - spoken of below HERE and the JS Harris sheet can be found HERE. Ed)

 

 

[JohnMo]

I found it it a pain to use, have tried a couple of times then deleted it.

[HughF]

I prefer the freedom toolkit to be honest. I don’t like the way heatpunk forces you to do the drawings.

 

I’ve cross checked my freedom work in heat engineer (£10 for a single property survey) and that seems quite ok.

[JohnMo]

You need room by room for radiator sizing, but you are good enough with the whole house calculation to get the total heat KW required. Jeremy spreadsheet in boffins corner is quite accurate. Show a slight over demand above 5 degs, but below pretty good.

Edited August 8, 2023 by JohnMo

[sharpener]

2 hours ago, HughF said:

I don’t like the way heatpunk forces you to do the drawings.

Several limitations IME and the worst is that the rad picker didn't put the correct rads on for me. Also I couldn't find a way to do a new solution based on a drawing I had done earlier (can't remember exactly what). Tried a whole load of variations but then one of the installers sent me his room-by-room heat loss table which agreed quite well so like @JohnMo I eventually gave up.

 

 

 

[HughF]

2 hours ago, JohnMo said:

You need room by room for radiator sizing, but you are good enough with the whole house calculation to get the total heat KW required. Jeremy spreadsheet in boffins corner is quite accurate. Show a slight over demand above 5 degs, but below pretty good.

The freedom toolkit does room by room, but it's just a fancy excel workbook, no need to draw the rooms/floorplan.

[dnb]

Some of it is nicely done. Other bits are the dreaded end of UI design that I have called "user mendacious" in the past - the buttons don't always lead to the same thing when the context appears to be identical. For instance I can specify a wall build-up with all the parts of my build and it calculates the U value quite accurately. But if I try to do the same for the floor I get a box where I can enter my own U value and the software tells me that it won't be "valid" any more because the floor is treated as a material whereas the walls appear to be treated as a collection of materials.  All I want to do is tell it there's more insulation than average over the beam and block...

 

The heat loss numbers were similar to my own 1st principle calculations. It predicts more loss for the ground floor but very slightly less for the 1st. I guess that's a result of not being able to have "my" floor specified correctly and maybe some modelling of heat loss from ground to 1st I didn't bother to do.

 

I would say it's a very good start but it's beta release standard.

 

   

[HughF]

The thing I like about the freedom toolkit is the speed at which you can define u value for floor/wall/windows. It just seems easier…. And I’ve tried all three 🤣

[TonyT]

I’ve only tried heat engineer.

ir was last December, I think it didn’t even have lath and plaster internal walls.

 

[SimonD]

I've used heat engineer in one project and won't use again. The calcs were fine but I put in the data for a completely new installation I was quoting for. Left it a week or two while the customer was mulling it all over and when i went back in to update it all, my whole project had dissappeared from my dashboard and couldn't retrieve it anywhere. Plus I had numerous problems using it with Safari so had to install Chrome.

 

I've just created my own calculator now.

[Post and beam]

36 minutes ago, SimonD said:

I've just created my own calculator now.

For distribution ?

[Archer]

I've just used Heat punk and for the basic purposes I need (ie. a rough estimate of whole house heat loss) I thought it was pretty good and intuitive. Generates a free report at the end which is useful

[DanDee]

 

[Dave Jones]

i found changeplan one the simplest to use

 

https://www.changeplan.co.uk/heat_loss_calculator.php

 

 

[joth]

On 08/08/2023 at 11:39, HughF said:

I prefer the freedom toolkit to be honest

I haven't yet registered on thier site, but to check Is that available from 

https://www.freedomhp.co.uk/downloads/

?

 

(And as discussed here)

[HughF]

22 minutes ago, joth said:

I haven't yet registered on thier site, but to check Is that available from 

https://www.freedomhp.co.uk/downloads/

?

 

(And as discussed here)

It wasn’t available to download as far as I’m aware. Graham Hendra put up a series of now removed YouTube videos showing how to use the toolkit, and in the video description he said ‘email us for a copy’, so I did.

 

It is floating around on the renewable heating hub forum, and if I get a moment I’ll dump a copy onto my Google drive and share a link.