Posted by: @toodles

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Having a heat pump system that just gets on with the job of keeping us comfortable 24/7 was a very worthwhile investment and does no end of good for my outlook on life too!

So, am I an odd-ball in this regard, or have any other readers found themselves adopting a similar attitude please? Warm Regards, Toodles.

What I have definitely noticed since getting the heat pump is that I have almost no sense of what the outside temperature is; I have to look at the heat pump controller to find out(!).  The only other tell tale signs are frost on the grass and a bit of misting at the bottom of some windows, if its both cold outside and for some reason very humid inside

@jamespa I have found that it comes as a shock when we leave the house on a cold day to go shopping or whatever as we have been ‘cushioned’ from the cold without any conscious effort on our part. Toodles.

Posted by: @jamespa

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Posted by: @toodles

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Having a heat pump system that just gets on with the job of keeping us comfortable 24/7 was a very worthwhile investment and does no end of good for my outlook on life too!

So, am I an odd-ball in this regard, or have any other readers found themselves adopting a similar attitude please? Warm Regards, Toodles.

What I have definitely noticed since getting the heat pump is that I have almost no sense of what the outside temperature is; I have to look at the heat pump controller to find out(!).  The only other tell tale signs are frost on the grass and a bit of misting at the bottom of some windows, if its both cold outside and for some reason very humid inside

To be fair you get that with any central heating, that's what external thermometers are for. In cars and houses.

Posted by: @deltona

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To be fair you get that with any central heating, that's what external thermometers are for. In cars and houses.

 

Didn't with my boiler, too much temperature variation with both time and place. 

However I do grant that, had it featured weather compensation and low temperature running, I would have (and it would have been cheaper to run!)  Its a pity that our heating industry, for the most part, didn't work out how to set boilers up properly, and simply went for the lazy (but profitable) option of whacking the flow temperature up and shoving in lots of unnecessary controls.  

I see this thread as other reasons to be positive about ASHP (and renewables) aside from saving money, if it even achieves that.

Living (as we do) in a cold, damp old farmhouse I can see that having the heating on 24 (or almost that) 7 making a big difference.

I'm looking into other renewables like wind and Hydro as we're in a good place for those too, especially wind. Given I hate Winter it would be the perfect antidote to look out on the wind and rain and rub my hands together thinking, or even seeing the power it generates.

We should also be glad that we're doing our bit for the planet, not sure that is high up on many peoples agenda though.

Posted by: @deltona

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We should also be glad that we're doing our bit for the planet, not sure that is high up on many peoples agenda though.

People apparently, at least according to the polls, say it is if asked, but dont act that way. 

Im increasingly coming to the conclusion that energy security is a reason for rapid electrification that is at least as important as carbon footprint.  With fast declining North Sea oil reserves which even today come no where near to meeting the UK energy needs, being dependent on (largely) despot regimes for energy is an increasingly perilous position.   Until recently there hasn't been a way out of this, with renewables there is which is why the petrostates and the USA are so scared.  We need to embrace it as a matter of national security if we do not want to become the slaves of the bad actors in the world.  

Posted by: @jamespa

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Posted by: @deltona

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We should also be glad that we're doing our bit for the planet, not sure that is high up on many peoples agenda though.

People apparently, at least according to the polls, say it is if asked, but dont act that way. 

Im increasingly coming to the conclusion that energy security is a reason for rapid electrification that is at least as important as carbon footprint.  With fast declining North Sea oil reserves which even today come no where near to meeting the UK energy needs, being dependent on (largely) despot regimes for energy is an increasingly perilous position.   Until recently there hasn't been a way out of this, with renewables there is which is why the petrostates and the USA are so scared.  We need to embrace it as a matter of national security if we do not want to become the slaves of the bad actors in the world.  

People don't give a toss for the environment, that comes out in general conversation and all the ASHP YT vids, it's all about money. If the governments have cleverly pushed them in that direction then all is well.

I absolutely agree with the principles in your main paragraph, but Brexit showed that trying to break away and be independent didn't go well.

Also I was speaking to an American only last night and he said they've done the obvious in letting a lot of people and businesses invest in solar, then pulled the plug on them leaving them high and dry. No grid connection selling excess anymore, all associated companies folded and I can see us following suit, Australia already gone that way too. Look at the amount of solar farms being set up here, they aren't going to want Joe Bloggs and his 15 panels for much longer.*

Eco4 now dead and a mixed bag that was too.

The Saudis have it covered. They've taken our money and got rich out it, now they're using it to invest in our windfarms. They're currently funding the planned biggest windfarm in Britain.

* Will energy get cheaper? Is the big question. I'm thinking not. My thoughts are that I plan ahead and ignore selling back to the grid as it's going to be all over soon, too many have jumped on that bandwaggon.

I need to be able to supply just us with power and although it's going to be a huge investment it feels like the right way to go. Somebody needs to come up with a way for us to make money on our excess, but I can't see that happening.

Haha, sometimes it feels like a Madmax film.

Posted by: @toodles

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When checking the Met Office website to see what weather might be chucked at us in the next few days, my first thought is to ‘how much solar power might I expect?’ It never occurs to me to look at the expected temperature prediction!

Thinking about this, I think the sunnier outlook appeals to me far more than the proximity of Jack frost. A sunny outlook not only has those solar panels producing useful energy but my attitude to life improves no end with blue skies and sunshine; even to the extent that it could be freezing outside - we are still comfortably warm at a toasty 22.5 degrees C everywhere indoors.

I realise that the usual consumption of the heat pump will increase somewhat from the usual ~15 - 20 kWh per day but rarely have I noted more than 40 kWh being consumed in a day. Now the consumption is well above our average December daily solar production of ~2 kWh or so but.. if the sun is shining…

Come January, our solar production may rise to ~ 4 kWh or so per day and we can start thinking about the milder weather to come in a month or two.

Having a heat pump system that just gets on with the job of keeping us comfortable 24/7 was a very worthwhile investment and does no end of good for my outlook on life too!

So, am I an odd-ball in this regard, or have any other readers found themselves adopting a similar attitude please? Warm Regards, Toodles.

I agree, I'm equally predisposed to a cold sunny winter's day over a milder wet day. Financially it's cheaper too - we can produce 10-15kW on a decent sunny December day (vs nothing on a very wet dreary day), but only use maybe 5kW more due heating to the colder OATs.

Posted by: @deltona

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People don't give a toss for the environment, that comes out in general conversation and all the ASHP YT vids, it's all about money. If the governments have cleverly pushed them in that direction then all is well.

I think you are right.  However in this case, in the UK, the money argument and the environmental argument are in perfect alignment in the medium/long term*.  Whilst we remain dependent on despot states for our energy in an increasingly fractious world we can have no financial (or physical) security.  The UK (and indeed greater Europe) doesnt have have sufficient fossil reserves of our own and renewables are the way out of dependency.  Really its a no brainer.

Posted by: @deltona

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Will energy get cheaper? Is the big question. I'm thinking not.

Energy prices will do whatever the producers, who are just like drug dealers, need them to do to keep us hooked for as long as they can.  In the short term this may mean periodic price drops to deter investment in renewables, which are their greatest enemy.  In the long term the direction of travel is obvious.

Posted by: @deltona

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I need to be able to supply just us with power and although it's going to be a huge investment it feels like the right way to go

I agree with the thought process although I cant see how I can do that  for myself in winter.  However even personal energy self sufficiency will offer only limited protection if the country as a whole remains dependent on foreign imports.  My personal fear is that we aren't moving anything like fast enough to be certain that by say 2040, a malign USA, Russia or middle Eastern state hasn't literally got us over a barrel.  We have already had a taste of what happens when might becomes more respected than right and my personal guess is that its going to get worse not better.

Posted by: @deltona

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Somebody needs to come up with a way for us to make money on our excess, but I can't see that happening.

Its called arbitrage (ie buying low and selling high) or virtual power plants (loads of individual homes aggregated by a middleman/power controller to the point they can offer guarantees to the Grid).  Both exist, albeit in somewhat emerging form.  Whether they will prove practical for householders has, I think, yet to be established.

*of course I recognise that many people don't care about the medium/long term, including many who can easily afford to care and in whose personal interests it is to care.  

@deltona Not quite! We had a system installed by BG about 20 years back; the installers left the boiler set to the manufacturer’s default setting of ~18 kW and the control function was a single control knob setting temperature for the boiler to run both heating and DHW. There was no chance of the self condensing system working as it had no separate (lower setting) for the heating and thus 60 degrees was set for the DHW! Eventually, after the gas flow regulator had been replaced twice and then started to fail for the third time (it would fart loud and long on most startups) we decided it had to go. This decision coincided with Octopus starting to promote the idea of heat pumps. You can guess the rest… Toodles.

@jamespa The decision to ‘Go Green’ in our case certainly contained a large element of ‘social responsibility’ - not so much for this or next year but for the whole of humanity for centuries to come. As to producing sufficient energy for our own needs, we are still approx. 3 MWh’s per annum short * - but I hope this will be covered by our investment in a solar farm; the first returns on this being next August if the sun shines.

*We have panels on three separate roofs (eleven in total) and a further ten in the back garden amounting to 8.1 kWp. in total - no more space! Regards, Toodles.