Practical economical Idea for reducing heating bills.

[wreckedit]

At the best roof space temperature you would want it to be cool in your house so where's the heat in winter.?

If you used the heat to warm up water you could use it later.

That's covered two posts up in the expansion of the business model and product range.

Yes, but I thought about it years ago.

 

[PhilipClarke]

Unlike others I agree with the idea. Of course it's not meant to replace central heating, but if you've got wasted heat why not use it? Even if it just raises the temperature by a couple of degrees, for such little outlay it has to be worth it.

That is what I believe and it maps well against the current "spend 20k for solar power that only pays for itself over 20 years and only if you have a subsidy for selling back to the national grid". At some points of the year it does replace central heating, not often but on the odd day when the house is at 17 and the roof air is above 25 degrees, over the whole year averaged out it's just using minimal effort to shift air from one place to another against convection. Out of all of the posters, that thought about the replacement of the air is certainly the one thing I have to investigate as the air accumulates heat over time, although having unplumbed in water tanks in the roof space (conveniently I have these) could act as a nice heat sink to extend the effect through the night (when solar would be useless). There is a lot of waster everywhere in every house, I may do the calculations or experiment to see about a basic heat exchange to the bath, sink, waste water outlets to preheat the "heat sinks".

Funny thing this, I looked at the BTU of the cheaper heaters on the market, the "normal" radiators one gets and then compared them size by size with the designer radiators that cost up to ten times the amount, and the cheaper ones beat the others every time. I'm also investing in an infra red thermometer to check inlet versus outlet temperatures for the radiators currently installed. I'm very serious about this as a business, but I only have so many hours in the day and the other business is faster to set up, build and run, so I'm literally putting this one up for grabs and mapping out for anyone to use as I think the current home energy solutions are not viable economically.

I realise there's probably the odd professional here that is doing solar or water heating installations here already and really they should be thinking, well I'd be making the same money installing this new idea, but the market is bigger because the component cost is less prohibitive.

 

[PhilipClarke]

You need to read water bylaws that will pee on your bonfire for preheating water phil.

You'd better tell that to the people selling/ installing air and ground heat exchangers then, or maybe think things through a little before posting.

See i really don't know what I'm talking about when it comes to bylaws, but if I can think of an example where it's being used already then there's a way around it.

 

[big-all]

the savings are minimal in winter you need sunny days and air temperatures well above freezing other wise the heat gain from the sun will be cancelled out by the air temperature

the air temperature will have to be warmer than the internal house temperature
this is very rare in the winter months

you would need complicated control to monitor the temperature otherwise you heat exchanger may warm the outside with the water idea

perhaps an air sourced heat pump can be set up scavenge the extra heart???

you also need work out the running cost

 

[PhilipClarke]

http://www.nuaire.co.uk/Product/Residential_Products/Positive_Input_Ventilation/Drimaster_2000
Can you match the filtration?

...The Drimaster provides whole home ventilation using the Positive Input Ventilation principle. Essentially the concept is to introduce fresh, filtered air into the dwelling at a continuous rate, encouraging movement of air from inside to outside...

This cured a friend's condensation problems in his bungalow when other procedures provided little benefit... (see the similarity to your proposal) I did ask him about the effects of introducing cooler air from his loft, he said it was 'no problem'. Perhaps the removal of major condensation problems overuled other considerations.

My older house has full length loft vents over fascia boards, can be quite a nippy space during winter... Suffers no condensation.

-0-

Yep that's pretty good as an almost exactly the same idea, and show that it is a viable business, there's a couple of small differences between what I had in mind and their system, namely the length of intake, power supply, installation method which I've taken from American venting systems

But the principle is the same and should prove to the naysayers that I'm not talking out of my bottom, though it's a bit ridiculous that people are so quick to jump in and say it's ****** until someone shows them that it does already exist.

 

[PhilipClarke]

the savings are minimal in winter you need sunny days and air temperatures well above freezing other wise the heat gain from the sun will be cancelled out by the air temperature

the air temperature will have to be warmer than the internal house temperature
this is very rare in the winter months

you would need complicated control to monitor the temperature otherwise you heat exchanger may warm the outside with the water idea

perhaps an air sourced heat pump can be set up scavenge the extra heart???

you also need work out the running cost

Not exactly, the loft temperature needs to be warmer than the inside the house and I've only been monitoring since March but even on cold days it has been through spring. I'm not talking about a winter solution. The complicated temperature control can be achieved with an extension cord and a thermostatic plug, already done and tested. Yes the running costs, erm, nothing if the 60 watts panelled briefcases were used, and otherwise 20 watts for the extractor fan for one room for the basic prototype, compared to the BTU of a 600x600 cheap radiator at 1000 watts in the kitchen (I don't know the rating of the larger radiator in the living room), so I think there's a saving there somewhere (that would be irony, but I'm lacking a smiley for it).

 

[big-all]

its a VENTILATION SYSTEM not a heating system
in actual fact it will cool the house by forcing warm air out the leaks

 

[big-all]

Not exactly, the loft temperature needs to be warmer than the inside the house and I've only been monitoring since March but even on cold days it has been through spring. I'm not talking about a winter solution. The complicated temperature control can be achieved with an extension cord and a thermostatic plug, already done and tested. Yes the running costs, erm, nothing if the 60 watts panelled briefcases were used, and otherwise 20 watts for the extractor fan for one room for the basic prototype, compared to the BTU of a 600x600 cheap radiator at 1000 watts in the kitchen (I don't know the rating of the larger radiator in the living room), so I think there's a saving there somewhere (that would be irony, but I'm lacking a smiley for it).

we have had one off the warmest and driest march april may on records 10 degrees above average for most off it

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_the_United_Kingdom

 

[PhilipClarke]

so this year people would have saved more money, because I still had the central heating on (when /i wasn't experimenting).

 

[PhilipClarke]

its a VENTILATION SYSTEM not a heating system
in actual fact it will cool the house by forcing warm air out the leaks

From their website

This sensor continuously monitors the temperature in the loft and house, boosting the air volume when the loft temperature is greater than the house (heat recovery mode).

 

[Mickymoody]

I think that's a really good idea OP, but needs some refinements, ie not running a pipe down the stairs.

Maybe the fan speed could be regulated, to ensure the system is running at it's optimum, a manifold system at headend, to collect as much air as possible, made of the correct material, to prevent heatloss, in transfer, and diameter of pipe used, and also collection of condensation that might occur?

Some kind of UPS, or battery charger system, that has a 12V battery already, topped up via a £10.99 solar panal available at Maplins today, fed via a skylight in the loft, to keep a low voltage fan running.

My loft is incredibly hot, regarding the season, as heat rises, then gets trapped in the loft.

The points I make, are reasonable, and some scientist could work out the ideal scenario, but I really think you are onto something there.

To expand the idea, maybe a highspeed fan, sucking air, down a small tube, that is wrapped with copper piping, full of water, the water will heat up, and can be used for heating.

 

[Alarm]

I'm not talking about a winter solution.

So whats the benefit of this in the summer?

 

[Mickymoody]

I'm not talking about a winter solution.

So whats the benefit of this in the summer?

The area in the roof space is warm in both summer and winter, so the system would heat the house in all seasons. The advantages of this system, is that in the summer, you turn it off? Or reverse the fan, to provide cooling to the whole house. Therefore, it's not sucking hot air out of a space, but blowing cold air to the house.

I presume the condensor part of the system would then provide cold water, which is beneficial, in summer?

 

[Alarm]

The advantages of this system, is that in the summer, you turn it off? Or reverse the fan, to provide cooling to the whole house.

So no point in summer.

Reversing the fan generates cold air from where?

 

[PhilipClarke]

That would be the next product line up where the heat is used to preheat the water from the mains to the boiler for hot water. Because it's above the insulation it wouldn't result in cooler upstairs rooms unless one deliberately reversed the flow once the basic heat exchange had cooled the attic if that ever happened enough (don't think that the heat exchange is going to be that efficient, enough to raise the temperature of the mains water to be economical but not enough to act as air con).

For heat exchange one would use the same solar panel but driving a low powered swirl of water from the ground to attic mounted water tanks which would then go to the boiler inlet. You want slow and steady through the day when the house is sometimes not occupied. Getting a little more expensive, you could then drop the water to underground tanks (but not the really expensive rain water harvesting systems), if the ceiling tank was the same temperature as the attic space. The advantage would be that you could insulate the ground area so keep more of the hotter water for the early morning washing whereas upstairs as mentioned it would be better to have an uninsulated tank so that the hot air heats the water which then retains the heat and provides more through the night (thereby beating solar and roof mounting water heating installations).

The theory of heat exchangers is generally that you get 4 times back the energy you put in, so with air or ground based exchangers all of which cost thousands, it still takes a long time to get back the heat, and in the winter then the ground based ones can exhaust the temperature of the earth and the air based ones don't work so well trying to get energy out of air that is less than 10 degrees, so in the winter these system become less efficient and in the summer unless they are used to drive air conditioning (I believe that using them to drive air con disqualifies them from UK subsidies and so they then cost even more), they aren't used. So this system doesn't deliver any disadvantages over current systems apart from possibly solar power in the summer (and only during the daytime) which still then costs a bomb and doesn't deliver that much power compared with the energy required to heat up water for washing. Ideally the world should go back to dual inlet hot and cold water washing machines and dishwashers to get the most out of heat exchange systems.

If anyone would like to contact me then I also have ideas for other elements of the house which could build up a product range.