Air Source Heat Pump - Side Alley Suitability
@jamespa I used an assumed indoor temperature of 18C. Is this what you mean by nominal heating temperature? If i reduce the indoor temperature to 15.5C for the calculation, then the estimated peak heat loss drops to 6.7kW
Posted by: @ad3628@jamespa I used an assumed indoor temperature of 18C. Is this what you mean by nominal heating temperature?
Thats probably fair enough. The degree-days calculation (on which quite a few heating formula are based) uses the formula
sum (max (Tbase-OAT ,0))
where Tbase is usually set at 15.5 (not sure why this figure is chosen). This basically ignores completely any time periods where the OAT is above Tbase. In the height of the season, when the OAT never rises above Tbase, thats the same as Tbase - average (OAT), so degree days (which are easily downloaded for a load of whether stations) can be used as a proxy for OAT - which is what I did in my graph.
Another way to look at is that your house benefits from waste heat from your electrical appliances. Given that the average house uses about 3.5MWh/year, and you can reasonably assume all of that ends up as heat, this is 3500kWh/365/24 = 400W. You can add 100W per person to that, so 600-800W in total which is not insignificant.
Personally I preferred simply to plot gas consumption vs average OAT (for the reason set out above you can alternatively use degree days instead of average OAT). This then automatically takes into account heat sources other than the heating system, and allows you directly to read off the figure at any desired design OAT. If your water is heated by gas this also includes your water heating, so no need to add that in (that's probably true in your calculation also).
In principle you need, in this calculation, to account for the efficiency of the gas boiler which could be as high as 110%* if its actually condensing, or perhaps as low as 75% if its very old. Very few boilers are set up to condense because installers set the flow temperature too high and we, stupidly, don't generally use weather compensation for boilers in the UK, so the return temperature is above the condense temperature. This means that even modern boilers are most likely operating at max 95% efficiency, so measured gas consumption, provided most of the house is warm most of the day and night, really could be considered an upper limit on your house heating demand.
from what you have said I think there is a fighting chance 8kW will suffice, particularly if you accept that a little supplemental heating may be needed if there is an extended very cold patch. Obviously its your call and also depends on whether you can persuade an installer to take any notice of measured consumption (some will, others wont)
Going back to the low loss header matter and noting that this fixed your neighbours system, please note that its actually the secondary pump that does the job, because it provides enough oomph to push the water through the narrow pipes. The LLH decouples this from the primary, isolating the installer from any potential warranty issues with the boiler. A better solution is simply to have a sufficiently powerful pump in the first place, but of course most boilers and many ashps come with a pump included (which is normally powerful enough). This is another matter for your designer to get right - I would be looking for a solution where there was a single pump of sufficient power not two pumps and an LLH, and if that means restricting your choice to an ASHP that does not have a bundled pump then so be it. Alternatively it may be that changing a few selected lengths of pipework will suffice, again this does depend on the layout and crucially on the actual demand, which is why, in your particular case, a methodical approach by a knowledgeable designer is required. If you can deduce the pipe layout and in particular when pipes change sizes it will likely help.
Hope that helps.
* of course boilers aren't really 110% efficient, that would be impossible. the declared calorific value of gas doesn't include the latent heat of condensation which is recovered in condensing boilers, so is less than the energy that theoretically can be extracted.
4kW peak of solar PV since 2011; EV and a 1930s house which has been partially renovated to improve its efficiency. 7kW Vaillant heat pump.
- 26 Forums
- 2,122 Topics
- 46.6 K Posts
- 75 Online
- 4,529 Members
Podcast Picks
Latest Posts
-
RE: Share Your Experiences with Heat Pump Manufacturer Support
@terry1812 Yes, I use Homely, as to whether Daikin is u...
By Toodles , 10 hours ago
-
RE: ASHP heat output monitoring
@carlo - welcome to the forum. I don't know about LG...
By cathodeRay , 15 hours ago
-
RE: Why do we need pressurised systems?
@old_scientist If that were the case (and it might well...
By Toodles , 19 hours ago
-
OK... I'm here. But the amount of my time needed to add...
By Transparent , 21 hours ago
-
RE: 300 Liter Tank - Do I have to heat it all?
There’s no second hand market for DHW tanks (I was told...
By Judith , 1 day ago
-
RE: Solar Power Output – Let’s Compare Generation Figures
We had an excellent four months (11/3 to 15/7) generati...
By JulianC , 1 day ago
-
RE: Is this just haze or something more?
I think the present somewhat cooler hazy days show the ...
By Judith , 2 days ago
-
RE: My misgivings about installing ASHP and solar panels via the ECO4 scheme...
All noted and accepted and as I say I am sorry that you...
By JamesPa , 2 days ago
-
I think it is very much me that is sitting outside the ...
By Grantmethestrength , 2 days ago
-
RE: Replacing Refrigerant on Mitsubishi Heat Pump
@davidalgarve It should just be recovered by both servi...
By dgclimatecontrol , 3 days ago
-
RE: Who's your electricity provider and what's your tariff?
Aggregators have been recognised for many years, and it...
By Transparent , 3 days ago
-
RE: Help me keep the faith with my air source heat pump installation
Great news I edited my previous post (probably af...
By JamesPa , 3 days ago
-
RE: Double or Triple Glazed Windows?
@toodles Glad to hear things are progressing well for y...
By TRBob , 3 days ago
-
How to waste energy (and time) playing with AI.
A friend of mine who subscribes to an AI service was ex...
By Toodles , 4 days ago
-
RE: Heat Pump Books For Beginners – Bodge Buster & From Zero To Heat Pump Hero
@topher you’re more than welcome to, yes. I’ll send you...
By Mars , 4 days ago
-
RE: Fitting new shower valve ..........
I’ve never taken a chance when fiddling and changing ou...
By Mars , 4 days ago
-
You should contact the council and report the unsatisfa...
By JamesPa , 5 days ago
-
RE: Benefits of an extra horizontal loop for GSHP
I would deffo install an additional slinky run, especia...
By Transparent , 5 days ago