New build - heat and energy considerations

[newhome]

12 minutes ago, Hecateh said:

Re the thermostat up to the top though - I don't do that and was forever trying to persuade people at work that it didn't help

 

The problem with most air con controls at work is that there are no instructions. By the time multiple people have tried to fiddle with them it’s either freezing cold or boiling hot. I’ve still no clue how the ones work in the conference rooms. No one I’ve ever been in the rooms with seems to have any clue either. A nice little ‘how too’ guide would help as they don’t appear to be particularly intuitive. 

[Tyke2]

Most people turn them up to 30 degrees in a cold room as they think it will warm up quicker. In Yorkshire we would say "you cant educate pork"!

[vivienz]

I take the view that having the house heated to female ambient temperature will be a subtle but effective means of encouraging OH to go outdoors and continue with the garden and landscaping.

[ToughButterCup]

4 hours ago, AliMcLeod said:

And that turning a room stat up to higher temperature will make the room heat up faster. 

I've given up trying to explain that to my family.

 

It might make a tiny bit of difference.... have you tried experimenting?

It think their perception might well have it's roots in the experience of turning a hot water tap on to increase the flow rate and so 'hasten' the onset of  hot water.

 

 

[ToughButterCup]

7 minutes ago, vivienz said:

[...]

will be a subtle but effective means of encouraging OH to go outdoors

[...]

 

Now you've gone a blown it haven't you !  

So it can't be subtle anymore. And anyway, Debbie would never do that would she?

Would she?

[Onoff]

43 minutes ago, newhome said:

 

It means STFU and don’t pass comment on anything, least of all complain about windows being open at that point or otherwise! ?

 

 

 

 

I won't join in and suggest a Sunamp could be heated by a menopausal woman. Do they have a hot air input?

 

"Face Change Material" 

 

 

 

[vivienz]

22 minutes ago, Onoff said:

 

I won't join in and suggest a Sunamp could be heated by a menopausal woman. Do they have a hot air input?

 

"Face Change Material" 

 

 

 

 

I would categorise it more as radiant than convective heat.  Besides, with all that beer and cider consumption on your side of things, I'm surprised that you haven't yet tried to hook yourself up to a natural gas burner.

[newhome]

33 minutes ago, Onoff said:

 

I won't join in and suggest a Sunamp could be heated by a menopausal woman. Do they have a hot air input?

 

 

 

We prefer to store it up and then when it reaches an explosive level vent it in the direction of an injudicious comment from a male! 

[Onoff]

7 minutes ago, newhome said:

 

 

We prefer to store it up and then when it reaches an explosive level vent it in the direction of an injudicious comment from a male! 

 

How apt!

 

adjective

1. showing very poor judgement; unwise.

   "I took a few injudicious swigs of potent cider"

    

    

[newhome]

So, lots of comments complaining about people turning up stats 'to make it heat up quicker' so it seems to be a common issue. Why therefore isn't that one of the main criteria for any heating system? 0 to 60 (or 20C anyway) in less time than it takes for someone to complain or start fiddling with things ... ??

 

 

[ProDave]

24 minutes ago, newhome said:

So, lots of comments complaining about people turning up stats 'to make it heat up quicker' so it seems to be a common issue. Why therefore isn't that one of the main criteria for any heating system? 0 to 60 (or 20C anyway) in less time than it takes for someone to complain or start fiddling with things ... ??

 

 

It took SWMBO some time to get used to UFH at our last house.  She was used to radiators, where you turned the heating on, and within about 15 minutes you could feel warmth coming off the rads.  First time we fired up the UFH at the last house, and hour later, nothing had seemingly happened. It was closer to 2 hours before you could begin to feel the first hint of warmth.

 

Of course in real use you set the timer to come on a bit earlier than you would with radiators and by the same physics you can turn it off earlier. Ours used to go off at 8PM and there was no sign of it cooling down by bed time.

 

Many times in the B&B rooms, we would go in of a morning and the rooms were up to 30 with the thermostat on the end stop. AND the window open.

[jack]

There's no way that anyone in the house except me can control temperature at the moment. 

 

I do get reminded if things start getting a bit chilly. We've had little solar gain here over the last few days, so the house is definitely a bit cooler than it was. If this doesn't change in the near future, I expect my wife will mention this and I'll have to consider turning the heating on for at least a couple of hours a day to take a bit of chill out of the floor.

[newhome]

Have to admit I find rads easier to get my head round in terms of getting the temperature I want when I want it. They seem a lot more controllable than UFH. I'm still not convinced by UFH tbh, although I have yet to see it work properly here as by the time it was fixed the weather changed not long afterwards and the heating has been switched off ever since. The conundrum will be how to set the temperatures so that it's warm enough downstairs when I want it toasty in the evenings (20 degrees) but guzzles the minimum amount of electric since that's not exactly a cheap way of heating a house that's not built to passive standards. So what do I set the overnight and 'when I'm not here' temperatures to? I think I had them set to 18 before but not sure if I should let it go lower than that. Will have to have a play I guess. 

 

[newhome]

34 minutes ago, ProDave said:

Of course in real use you set the timer to come on a bit earlier than you would with radiators and by the same physics you can turn it off earlier. Ours used to go off at 8PM and there was no sign of it cooling down by bed time.

 

Do you really physically 'turn it off' or do you just set the temperature to be lower at different points that has the effect of 'turning it off'? 

[ProDave]

15 minutes ago, newhome said:

 

Do you really physically 'turn it off' or do you just set the temperature to be lower at different points that has the effect of 'turning it off'? 

Yes.

 

Old house, like this one has a conventional central heating time switch to set the on and off times, and when it's on each room has it's own room stat.

 

The only difference is the new house has upstairs and down UFH on separate channels on the programmer.

 

At the old house I briefly put programmable thermostats in 2 of the bedrooms so I could have them on and off at different times to the rest of the house, but I chose badly and they were rubbish so I swapped them back.

 

A lot of systems that I wire for people have "set back" rather than off.  I always believe that is to stop a house getting too cold over night so it does not take too long to warm up in the morning.  But given the very long time constant of our house I see that as completely pointless.

[newhome]

That's interesting but I suppose that's no different to my aim of having the setback temp lower than the floor temp would drop down to during the setback period. That's going to be my strategy to start with this year anyway, ie to see when I need the temp to kick back in to bring it up to 20C downstairs before I get home. I also need to see when I should start the setback period as like you say the floor doesn't cool instantly but takes some time.

 

Unfortunately my stats only have a 5 / 2 setting which is a pain as I work from home at least 2 days a week so want the temp a bit different then. All trial and error this year having lived with it being cream crackered for years! 

 

 

 

[lizzie]

I cant get my UFH working and after frying all summer am now searching the garage for a fan heater. MVHR keeping it at circa 20 but thats way too cold for me.

 

UFH thermostats show a flame but floor never gets warm on checking the manifolds I find the pipes are cold so there is no hot water coming in from the boiler even though the boiler is firing, hence flame symbol on stats.  DHW is fine so it must be a prob from boiler to manifolds.  The system was commissioned last December, builders were here for months afterwards and I know now fiddled with it all because the house was too hot.  Now I come to use it for the first time and it doesnt work.  Begining to wish i had DG with tricklevents and rads at least I understand that system.

 

 Been waiting two weeks for installer to come back to sort the issues with mvhr - he installed ufh too so if I tell him now no heating will that hurry him up or be ignored...if he doesnt come next week I am going to have to find a plumber to come and look at it all but because I never had a proper handover I dont know what most of it is no doubt I will get the sucking in of the teeth and the which cowboy did this comments and a four figure quote to sort it out. @newhome I understand your frustration with it all. 

[newhome]

I understand your frustration @lizzie and I was powerless to sort it out too. I just threw good money after bad until Nick and Peter came up and sorted it. Maybe you could take some photos and start a new thread on your system. That's kind of how my thread started. There were several things I was asked to check out before the conclusion was that it needed to be fixed with tools. Even if that's the case knowledgeable people on here will tell you what each of the bits are and what they are supposed to do. You'll likely get none of that information from someone who comes out or it will be said in a rush and you'll forget. One of the issues with mine was that the manifolds didn't have a separate pump on them so there was not enough force to get the hot water round the pipes when the system called for heat (I think!). That wasn't the only thing wrong with it by any means but it was a big factor. Mine is all labelled up now to within an inch of its life (I think @PeterW has an OCD issue actually ) but at least there is no doubt as to what everything does when someone comes to look at it, but please God don't let it go wrong just yet as I can't face trying to get a local plumber out to try to fix it ...

 

 

[Onoff]

3 minutes ago, newhome said:

I understand your frustration @lizzie and I was powerless to sort it out too. I just threw good money after bad until Nick and Peter came up and sorted it. Maybe you could take some photos and start a new thread on your system. That's kind of how my thread started. There were several things I was asked to check out before the conclusion was that it needed to be fixed with tools. Even if that's the case knowledgeable people on here will tell you what each of the bits are and what they are supposed to do. You'll likely get none of that information from someone who comes out or it will be said in a rush and you'll forget. One of the issues with mine was that the manifolds didn't have a separate pump on them so there was not enough force to get the hot water round the pipes when the system called for heat (I think!). That wasn't the only thing wrong with it by any means but it was a big factor. Mine is all labelled up now to within an inch of its life (I think @PeterW has an OCD issue actually ) but at least there is no doubt as to what everything does when someone comes to look at it, but please God don't let it go wrong just yet as I can't face trying to get a local plumber out to try to fix it ...

 

 

 

Just get some ale in, they can here someone crack a tin open from about 600 miles! 

 

A Batman esque rooftop signal that projects the image of a pie/Tunnocks tea cake into the night sky has the same calling effect.

 

:)

 

 

[Jeremy Harris]

On 14/09/2018 at 09:59, ProDave said:

As a Husband, you will learn in due course what a "Hot Flush" is.

 

Very true.  People who have visited our build have questioned the low level, directional, MVHR terminal in the wall by one side of our bed.  It was specifically located there to gently blow cooler air on her side.  We also have a 6ft wide new bed.  Both are a way to mitigate the migration of the duvet in the middle of the night, as it gets thrown off from her side.  My hope is that the cool air supply plus the larger bed will mean less disturbance to the duvet on my side...

[newhome]

4 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

My hope is that the cool air supply plus the larger bed will mean less disturbance to the duvet on my side...

 

You got two hopes. Bob Hope and no hope, and Bob Hope's dead

 

[joe90]

17 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

 

Very true.  People who have visited our build have questioned the low level, directional, MVHR terminal in the wall by one side of our bed.  It was specifically located there to gently blow cooler air on her side.  We also have a 6ft wide new bed.  Both are a way to mitigate the migration of the duvet in the middle of the night, as it gets thrown off from her side.  My hope is that the cool air supply plus the larger bed will mean less disturbance to the duvet on my side...

 

Thats taking house planning to a whole new level, well done. Now, how do you mitigate for a snorer (no, not me)?

Edited September 15, 2018 by joe90

[Ferdinand]

On 14/09/2018 at 09:19, newhome said:

 

You are a bad person @PeterW!!! Karma gonna get ya!

 

I’m sure Mrs @joe90‘s contact details must be somewhere! ?

 

 

 

DId you ever meet Mrs Recovering Academic?

 

 

[newhome]

8 minutes ago, joe90 said:

 

Thats taking house planning to a whole new level, well done. Now, how do you mitigate for a snorer (no, not me)?

 

Suffocation generally works . Failing that - earplugs! 

[Jeremy Harris]

16 minutes ago, joe90 said:

 

Thats taking house planning to a whole new level, well done. Now, how do you mitigate for a snorer (no, not me)?

 

Ear plugs (I have the same problem - and no, it's not me, either).  Best ones I've found are the Stanley orange foam ones, a pair is OK for about a week (yes, I know they are supposed to be "one use only", but I've never had a problem with them over the past five years or so).