Thanks

I would suggest that a thermal camera should also be used indoors as well as outdoors. In this case look for cold spots, in particular in ceilings and floors as well as the walls and windows.

@luke re hot water I just have it on eco mode at the moment. We are with bulb so no variable rate at the moment. I didn’t realise you could set the heat pump re hot water to go  to specific temps.

As I keep trying to encourage people, 'if all else fails, read the instructions'.

@derek-m 

Good morning Derek,

Looking at the rental prices they aren’t too far off the purchase cost of a cheap camera.  £70 per day is about the cheapest rental.  I might just hang on for the next snow storm and see where it melts and doesn’t 😂.   Would be interesting to know exactly where heat is being lost from the building.

Posted by: @derek-m

Hi @morgan

I think that you will find the greatest heat loss will be from the windows.

Although the usual culprits are pretty obvious, our investigation threw up some unexpected details.

My non-scientific method was to use a really cold and frosty night, wait until several hours after sunset and then use the thermal camera to find the temperature of a tree in the garden. That gave me a baseline of the temperature of something solid in the external atmosphere. I then measured the temperature of the walls of the house to see how much higher they were than that baseline temperature, and in my case was pleasantly surprised to see they were only about a degree higher, indicating very little internal heat was being lost through the brickwork. I then did the same with the middle of the various windows to get the efficiency of the double glazing, then the surrounds to see if the frames were acting as heat bridges, and then to take a look at various parts of the roof elevations. All these gave surprisingly reassuring results.

Next was to look at the detail, and in particular we found the French doors were doing well but where they met together there was a small crack, and that the keyhole went all the way through the doors to form some small draughts. A small window in the utility room was well worth replacing, so went on our "naughty" list as well. However, our biggest surprise was that the front door was not insulating well at all - despite looking as if it ought to - and was several degrees above the outside benchmark. As a result, of all this, we replaced the front door, French doors and two small windows, and the effect in the whole house was immediately noticeable. In reality, the French doors were probably more of a nice-to-have upgrade and more for better security than thermal efficiency, so the session with the camera saved us spending on improvements we didn't need and allowed us to concentrate our funds on what was really not working well. If we'd just relied on seeing where stuff melted first, we'd never have found the issue with the front door, although I'm well aware we were fortunate to be in a position to get a thermal camera of our own.

Of course, if there are any other forum members in @Morgan's area who either have a thermal camera or were interested in some kind of collaboration, now would certainly be the time to speak up.

I'd like someone to come round and tell me whether the windows themselves can be improved, but I fear I'll just be told they're not and sold some new ones.

@luke thanks Luke. This has been incredibly helpful from you. I have turned all the radiators up full and have adjusted curve down to 7 now and will continue to monitor kw.

I had already reduced it down to 8 before you had said it was the right thing to do. My kw usage last 24 hours was 40. 1 week ago it was 61.

could we continue with this in another thread. I’d like to see how I get on over the next few days

to answer your questions

yes it is a twin 16kw heat pump 

no room sensors anywhere.

Yes we were having to reduce the radiators setting to have it comfortable overnight. Was not a problem during warmer weather.

thsnks so much for your help!

tom

@editor

Can you please move @toml1981 and my messages to a new thread so that we can keep these discussions separate. 

@toml1981

In reference to the post in the cost thread, we do have our hot water scheduled to boost to 55C overnight on cheap rate electric. (Day rate is 25p/kWh, Night rate is 5p/kWh)

Whilst its not the most efficeint to boost to this temperature, it does last us the full day, meaning we benefit the most from the cheap rate. 

If we did not benefit from cheap night rate electric then I would set the tank to around 48C and to top up as required. This temperature is too hot to hold your hand under for any length of time and should I need hotter water at the kitchen sink I have a boiling tap for this. 

@derek-m I'm very interested to see you've said that, it confirms my thoughts about where to spend to improve our property to reduce heat loss. I've been using an IR thermometer to scan the doors and windows (2003 double glazing) and the temperature certainly drops like a stone at the base of the doorframes and around the edges where it wasn't fitted very expertly. We have big 1970's windows and three outside doors.

Hi Newbie,

I would suggest that you check the seals on both your doors and windows, to ensure that they are both clean and flexible and also fit tightly.

As a relatively cheap trial (prior to spending lots of money on replacement windows), you could try fitting Stormguard Secondary Glazing Film for the Winter period, and take a set of before and after readings to measure the effect. If you don't have cavity wall insulation I would certainly recommend exploring that avenue.

I think that you will find the greatest heat loss will be from the windows.