Vaillant ashp (my battle with).

[ProDave]

18 minutes ago, zoothorn said:

But Rick.. the difference here between your house & mine (& it's massive/ it's so absolutely fundamental/ the crux of all this issue here)..

 

.. is you (& all those members you collectively listed earlier in the post) have decent insulation. It goes without saying, that with your knowledge, this priority structural factor, you WILL have up to par. Likely beyond-par up to a very decent standard.

 

I

 

do

 

not

 

have

 

insulation.

 

Practically.. none.

 

This is the cause of the cold. This is why so much cold enters. This is why a HP which typically produces medium-warm rads, cannot hold a candle to making any inroads, here.

 

The only way I can affect the insulative factor of my kitchen & bathroom (in their terrible construction 80's extension I sit here with nose & feet freezing cold as I type this, with it 14*C & mild outside..) is to knock it down. Rebuild it. Not by running each of these two room's small rad on for countless & pointless wasting hours. 
 

I cannot afford to rebuilt this extension. If I could, my main sittingroom is still in need of effectively the same treatment. I can't knock that down. I can affect a tiny perimeter cold ingress, but that's merely a sticking plaster solution. 
 

it's just a cold house, it will always be so. Unless 2 jet engines are introduced. Still I'd pee & huff my breath one side, even with the afterburner singing my arse the other.

 

thanks, Zoot

 

 

I really think you do not want to be helped and do not think it is possible to be helped.  You are set into the mindset of your house is too cold and to rubbish to be heated in any way and won't listen to or try any suggestions.  If that really is your mindset then I hope you are happy in your cheap to run but freezing cold house and I don't see how any of us can help you any more?

 

If you have not given up reading this, I can definitely say I know plenty of people in these old stone houses living in warmth and comfort (but obviously not ultra low bills)

 

We are suggesting ways to help and things to try and to try but rather than try them, you just tell us why they won't work and they are ridiculous suggestions.

 

Some people can't be helped.  My sister in law lives in a 1960's house with her heating on twice a day for 1 hour at a time with the radiators scalding hot, the rest of the time the house cools down and she often snuggles up in bed in the day to keep warm.  She just won't listen when you suggest not having the radiators anything like as hot, but on for much more of the day.  She just says it will cost too much without even trying it.  Some people you just can't help.  Sorry.

 

 

[Nickfromwales]

12 minutes ago, zoothorn said:

I

 

do

 

not

 

have

 

insulation.

 

Practically.. none.

 

Neither do I.

 

But I have a comfortable house all winter, because I run the heating on the lowest setting I can tolerate all winter, and yes, I get a bill from the gas company for the pleasure, which I accept needs paying.

[Nickfromwales]

This is only for 4-5 months of the year, and it's a heatpump so will be giving you some better COP than my gas boiler does, plus you can run on cheap rate overnight to offset the cost of heating from zero during peak times.

 

Setback seems to be the best option, at 15 degrees not 10 as that will be useless, and then maybe try 18 degrees comfort temp during the day (when not in setback) as a starting point.

[marshian]

Don't drag me into this madness @-rick-  

 

To the OP

 

My heating goes on in Sept and it get turned off in May once it is on it's on 24/7 - no setbacks at night - no comfort setting in the day time or any time - it's just on on permanently on - never turned off it's just ON ON

 

Why? because as soon as the outside air temp drops below an average of 16.5 deg C this house needs a heat input (it might not need a lot at the start but it needs some so it gets some) - if I let it cool down in the winter it can take several days to get back to temperature and I'll pretty much consume the same amount of energy as if I'd left the heating on all the time so I don't because it's pointless.

 

You are trying to heat a house with short bursts of heat from a heating system that is better suited to long low and slow - sorry but that's frankly madness.................

 

I'm out.

[Nickfromwales]

6 minutes ago, marshian said:

I'm out.

We're in the Crystal Maze mate, there's no way out once you're in  

[Dillsue]

56 minutes ago, zoothorn said:

I honestly think we're at an impasse here, whereby I say the cause of the cold is fundamentally due to the uninsulated nature of the rooms, & you say the cause is the heating system isn't introducing enough heat. I'm absolutely adamant, & you guys are. But look, I live here, the doctor analogy is applicable/ you know your own body best analogy.

It's not the uninsulated nature of the rooms that's the problem, it's the way it's being heated. By that I mean the way you are trying to heat it and/or the way the system has been designed, installed and set up. That's not a snipe at you.

 

You've said the bathroom is heated with a towel rail which typically have a very low heat output so they'll only work in a well insulated bathroom or where the bathroom is surrounded by other warm rooms. If you post the dimensions of the bathroom walls, door, window, ceiling height and how each wall is constructed I'll estimate the heat loss and compare that to the likely heat output from your towel rail.

Edited 2 hours ago by Dillsue

[marshian]

13 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

We're in the Crystal Maze mate, there's no way out once you're in  

 

Unbookmarks topic

[sharpener]

29 minutes ago, marshian said:

My heating goes on in Sept and it get turned off in May once it is on it's on 24/7 - no setbacks at night - no comfort setting in the day time or any time - it's just on on permanently on - never turned off it's just ON ON

 

Having newly returned to this thread it strikes me there is a fundamental misunderstanding of what is meant by ON.

 

Perhaps the term should be replaced by the word ENABLED.

 

In other words the HP is capable of giving heat bc the outside air temp is lower than the high limit, the time is within the scheduled operating times etc.

 

Whether it actually does so is then a function of the measured temperature(s). If control is via a simple thermostat in a sensible place then the HP will provide heated water to the radiators whenever the temp at the thermostat position falls below the set point.

 

Whether the radiators in turn make use of said heated water depends on their TRVs (if fitted). Consequently it is possible for the HP to be running but no heat being supplied to the bedroom. We run ours like this using the pre-existing electronic timer-TRVs bc we want the air in the bedroom to be heated before we go to bed and before we get up but not at other times - the stone walls stay cold, as they did with the oil-fired boiler. I would guess this solution might suit the OP quite well.

 

If there is a more sophisticated overall strategy e.g. Weather Compensation (I don't know if the OP has this) then the temp of the heated water that the HP supplies will depend on the outside air temp (and maybe the internal temp, maybe not).

 

Weather comp will almost certainly require the HP to be ON in the sense of ENABLED 24/7 though many users apply a setback of 1 or 2 deg at night. More than this makes recovery to the daytime temp setting both slow and costly. 

 

In practice we do not do this, the living room is a large space but is only occupied about 6 hours a day in the afternoon and evening so this too has rads controlled by the legacy electronic timer-TRVs. This is quite effective and although at odds with conventional thinking again might be more in line with the OP's philosophy. Provided you are prepared to spend £10/day in cold weather. In a big cold stone house that is what it costs whatever approach you adopt.

[marshian]

1 hour ago, sharpener said:

 

Having newly returned to this thread it strikes me there is a fundamental misunderstanding of what is meant by ON.

 

Perhaps the term should be replaced by the word ENABLED.

 

I can go along with that 

 

I didn't want to go down the route of explaining what ON means for my house but since you've pulled me up on the word ON

 

Outside temp sensor tells the boiler how cold it is - based on this temp the weather compensation curve sets the flow temp

 

At outside temps below minus 2.5 the boiler pretty much consumes energy all the time at a rate of 4 kWh (so peak consumption when it's that temp outside in a day is 96 kWh (plus a 4 to 5 kWh for HW) This means my peak cost is £5 a day (100 * £0.05)

 

When it's not bloody cold the boiler cycles - puts in some heat "on a burn" - circuit cools down "on a coast"

 

Depending on the outside temp the burn can be as little as 20 mins or as much as 60 mins and the coast can be as little as 10 mins or as long as 3 hours - All I am trying to do is replace the heat lost and that heat lost is directly related to the difference between warm inside house and colder outside house - I'm not trying to heat the house....... It is a comfortable temp all the time because the boiler is putting back what the house is losing

 

PS

 

I have no TRV intervention - they are there as absolute room temp limiters in the event of solar gain

 

Each rad is sized to the room heat loss

 

No UFH (all rads)

 

Flow temps range from 25 deg to 33 deg C - no rad ever feels warm!!!

[Nickfromwales]

1 minute ago, marshian said:

 

I can go along with that 

 

I didn't want to go down the route of explaining what ON means for my house but since you've pulled me up on the word ON

 

Outside temp sensor tells the boiler how cold it is - based on this temp the weather compensation curve sets the flow temp

 

At outside temps below minus 2.5 the boiler pretty consumes energy all the time at a rate of 4 kWh (so peak consumption when it's that temp outside in a day is 96 kWh (plus a 4 to 5 kWh for HW) This means my peak cost is £5 a day (100 * £0.05)

 

When it's not bloody cold the boiler cycles - puts in some heat "on a burn" - circuit cools down "on a coast"

 

Depending on the outside temp the burn can be as little as 20 mins or as much as 60 mins and the coast can be as little as 10 mins or as long as 3 hours - All I am trying to do is replace the heat lost and that heat lost is directly related to the difference between warm inside house and colder outside house - I'm not trying to heat the house....... It is a comfortable temp all the time because the boiler is putting back what the house is losing

 

PS

 

I have no TRV intervention - they are there as absolute room temp limiters in the event of solar gain

 

Each rad is sized to the room heat loss

 

No UFH (all rads)

 

Flow temps range from 25 deg to 33 deg C - no rad ever feels warm!!!

 

1 hour ago, Nickfromwales said:

We're in the Crystal Maze mate, there's no way out once you're in