Electric heating..

[Confusion of VIs]

On 22/03/2024 at 15:41, winkie said:

Nobody in their right mind would invest in a heat pump, unless ground source installed at time of build .......better off insulating the home live in.......some of the best gas boilers last for years, no annual fees to maintain......they are solid and if not replaced with something inferior that costs extra service to keep alive and working.......not everything new and needy is better.

This seems a rather bizzare comment, any evidence to back up that view?

As air source heat pumps continue to become more efficient, cheaper and quieter it is increasingly difficult to justify the added cost of a ground source heat pump. Last year for us the extra cost of installing a ground v airsource heat pump was £17,000 (£19,000 v £2,000 both prices after the grant). The running cost savings were under £150p.a. 

NB Heatpumps are lower maintanence and have a 10yr longer life expectancy than gas boilers.

 

 

[winkie]

7 minutes ago, Confusion of VIs said:

This seems a rather bizzare comment, any evidence to back up that view?

As air source heat pumps continue to become more efficient, cheaper and quieter it is increasingly difficult to justify the added cost of a ground source heat pump. Last year for us the extra cost of installing a ground v airsource heat pump was £17,000 (£19,000 v £2,000 both prices after the grant). The running cost savings were under £150p.a. 

NB Heatpumps are lower maintanence and have a 10yr longer life expectancy than gas boilers.

 

 

Not interested, like not interested in EVs.....sell it to someone else.

[Bruce Banner]

A technophobe, methinks.

[Confusion of VIs]

4 hours ago, kzb said:

They're not rigged in favour of gas.  We are paying way over the odds for wind power, something like £174/MWh on average (17.4p/kWh), wholesale price. 

Gas is actually pretty cheap in comparison, today's BBC natural gas price works out to 2.36p/kWh.  So compare 17.4p with 2.36p and tell me which is cheaper.  (These are the wholesale prices of course.)

But then they put carbon taxes on gas-produced electricity, so the market is rigged the other way.

Still parroting the same old tripe, produced by a fossil fuel schill who deliberately conflates the cost of historic prototypes with fully commercialised capacity.  

Here are the goverment figures for new capacity (i.e. projects commisioning in 2025)

Electricity generation costs 2023 (publishing.service.gov.uk)

CCGT H Class                   £165MWh

Offshore Wind                   £ 43MWh

Onshore Wind                   £ 36MWh 

Large-scale solar              £ 32MWh

Worth noting that these costs don't yet factor in the cost of capturing and storing the CO2 produced by burning gas 

 

[Confusion of VIs]

34 minutes ago, winkie said:

Not interested, like not interested in EVs.....sell it to someone else.

Can we translate that as "I know f/all about the the topic but feel the need to give others the benefit of my ignorance"?

If you are not interested, why post nonsense? Surely you can find a topic you know something about to post on.

[winkie]

3 minutes ago, Confusion of VIs said:

Can we translate that as "I know f/all about the the topic but feel the need to give others the benefit of my ignorance"?

If you are not interested, why post nonsense? Surely you can find a topic you know something about to post on.

Hold my hands up and say no nothing or very little about heat pumps......still not interested enough to invest in it, warm enough, and can get from a to b.

[Confusion of VIs]

4 hours ago, kzb said:

Yes I forgot to mention that tracker tariff, it does look like it has worked out cheaper.

However, a downside is, these Octopus tariffs can be withdrawn on a whim.  If you are making a long-term decision like buying this flat,  I don't think that decision should be based on the evanescent  existence of favourable tariffs from one supplier.  They could disappear any time, and then you are stuck with your flat.

 

Hardly a whim, Octopus are massively commited to increasing the amount of renewables they are supplying the grid and increasing the savings on their time of use tariffs.

Their latest deal is 12,000m p.a. fress charging for your EV if you leave it plugged for an average of 6hrs day. 

[btd1981]

3 hours ago, Bruce Banner said:

And I was attacked for working on my own boiler. Ignorance from some members as to what is legal and what isn't .

I replaced the control board and a PTC thermistor thus fixing a problem with the anti-cycling circuit, fitted some larger radiators and painstakingly balanced the system (it's sensitive to a minute fraction of a turn on the radiator lock stops) so that the return water temperature remains below 55 degrees C. Thus enabling the condensing mode which has improved efficiency by about 10% and heats the house much faster.

Do you have any tips for balancing radiators? I'm pretty certain our system hasn't seen any such activity. 

I join you in the hazy world of DIY boiler repair. Choice was between 600 quid for the professionals ,or 50 quid parts and fifteen minutes of my time to remove and replace literally six screws. Once I completed my risk assessment it was a no brainer and our house hasn't made the local news yet..

Worst thing is that the diverter valve and igniter that need replacing are the very things that should have been picked up/replaced in previous services, which makes me suspect that boiler servicing is just a massive scam too.

[Bruce Banner]

10 minutes ago, btd1981 said:

Do you have any tips for balancing radiators? I'm pretty certain our system hasn't seen any such activity. 

I join you in the hazy world of DIY boiler repair. Choice was between 600 quid for the professionals ,or 50 quid parts and fifteen minutes of my time to remove and replace literally six screws. Once I completed my risk assessment it was a no brainer and our house hasn't made the local news yet..

Worst thing is that the diverter valve and igniter that need replacing are the very things that should have been picked up/replaced in previous services, which makes me suspect that boiler servicing is just a massive scam too.

Now there's a question. I'm sure that every system has it's individual difficulties. My Gas Safe "engineer" doesn't know his arse from his elbow when it comes to setting up a system that gets the best out of a modern condensing boiler so, being retired with the luxury of time I rolled up my sleeves.

Google is your friend. Read as many articles as you can until you get a feel for the problem. Look for articles explaining balancing and flow temperatures and buy yourself a 2 channel thermocouple thermometer with pipe clamps so you can read the temperature differential across each radiator and put an lcd thermometer on the top of each radiator as a rough guide.  

The whole balancing exercise took over a month of wandering around, making minute adjustments every time the boiler fired up, but in the end I have achieved what the "engineer" said was impossible. A system that doesn't keep shutting down (fast cycling) and has a return temperature mostly in the mid to late 40s and never above 55 degrees, which is I think, the sweet spot for a condensing gas boiler and heats the house up fast in the morning.

Everything you do is interactive and affects everything else, so good luck .

[Unmoderated]

On 22/03/2024 at 14:56, sell2rent said:

Not relevant to a flat, but I've been very happy with oil in my last 5 houses. Presently about 7p/kWh. It was high in 2008 and 2022 but spikes tend to be brief. I had storage heaters in a 1990s insulated commercial premises I owned and ran. They were ruinous. Staff would turn them on to boost in the morning before a coffee break and didn't understand how thermostats worked, then it would be too hot and they would open the windows. They laughed when I complained. Then one month I had to put money into the business to pay them and couldn't pay myself and they listened briefly during the GFC.

In an insulated flat on the right deal not operated by idiots, it would be fine.

Nice rural home with oil and a few multi fuel stoves in the main rooms are a winning combo imho. Forage for free wood and in Forest of Dean coal seams are virtually at the surface level. 

Stack up bulk solid fuel and season logs. When oil prices spike up the use of the stoves. When prices fall get the tank filled. Or, for the price of a heat pump, have several tanks installed and then you can take advantage of dips in price. 

Also have heard stories of some diesel engines running of heating oil. Probably needs to be an old/simple engine though. 

[btd1981]

7 minutes ago, Bruce Banner said:

Now there's a question. I'm sure that every system has it's individual difficulties. My Gas Safe "engineer" doesn't know his arse from his elbow when it comes to setting up a system that gets the best out of a modern condensing boiler so, being retired with the luxury of time I rolled up my sleeves.

Google is your friend. Read as many articles as you can until you get a feel for the problem. Look for articles explaining balancing and flow temperatures and buy yourself a 2 channel thermocouple thermometer with pipe clamps so you can read the temperature differential across each radiator and put an lcd thermometer on the top of each radiator as a rough guide.  

The whole balancing exercise took over a month of wandering around, making minute adjustments every time the boiler fired up, but in the end I have achieved what the "engineer" said was impossible. A system that doesn't keep shutting down (fast cycling) and has a return temperature mostly in the mid to late 40s and never above 55 degrees, which is I think, the sweet spot for a condensing gas boiler and heats the house up fast in the morning.

Everything you do is interactive and affects everything else, so good luck .

Thanks, I'll give it a go

[hughjass]

How often should a boiler be serviced by law? We explain all | Ideal Home

 

[winkie]

On 22/03/2024 at 17:49, Bruce Banner said:

Same with gas boilers.

https://www.miketheboilerman.com/potterton-profile-gas-boiler.html

[sell2rent]

1 hour ago, Unmoderated said:

Nice rural home with oil and a few multi fuel stoves in the main rooms are a winning combo imho. Forage for free wood and in Forest of Dean coal seams are virtually at the surface level. 

Stack up bulk solid fuel and season logs. When oil prices spike up the use of the stoves. When prices fall get the tank filled. Or, for the price of a heat pump, have several tanks installed and then you can take advantage of dips in price. 

Also have heard stories of some diesel engines running of heating oil. Probably needs to be an old/simple engine though. 

Also the reason I like oil is that you can service it yourself. Nozzle, clean, new oil lines, checks, smoke test and gas analyser are all easy. I had two boilers in my last place and never had a heating engineer in 11 years including adding underfloor heating to a new 750sqft room all done to building regs. One boiler was 25 years old and had 50ppm CO in the glue gas.

Edited March 23 by sell2rent

[Bruce Banner]

53 minutes ago, sell2rent said:

Also the reason I like oil is that you can service it yourself. Nozzle, clean, new oil lines, checks, smoke test and gas analyser are all easy. I had two boilers in my last place and never had a heating engineer in 11 years including adding underfloor heating to a new 750sqft room all done to building regs. One boiler was 25 years old and had 50ppm CO in the glue gas.

Not so good for a flat though.

[Dames]

17 hours ago, Bruce Banner said:

No.

 

 

Ok

[kzb]

18 hours ago, Confusion of VIs said:

Hardly a whim, Octopus are massively commited to increasing the amount of renewables they are supplying the grid and increasing the savings on their time of use tariffs.

Their latest deal is 12,000m p.a. fress charging for your EV if you leave it plugged for an average of 6hrs day. 

Nevertheless these could disappear on a whim.  Or if Octopus goes bust or gets taken over.

I don't think people should make long term decisions based on the continued availability of Octopus tariffs.  That's all I'm saying.

[kzb]

19 hours ago, Confusion of VIs said:

Still parroting the same old tripe, produced by a fossil fuel schill who deliberately conflates the cost of historic prototypes with fully commercialised capacity.  

Here are the goverment figures for new capacity (i.e. projects commisioning in 2025)

Electricity generation costs 2023 (publishing.service.gov.uk)

CCGT H Class                   £165MWh

Offshore Wind                   £ 43MWh

Onshore Wind                   £ 36MWh 

Large-scale solar              £ 32MWh

Worth noting that these costs don't yet factor in the cost of capturing and storing the CO2 produced by burning gas 

 

But you never tell us what we are paying for wind CURRENTLY do you?

I keep asking about that, but you continually come back with prices that have not been built yet, and quite possibly never will be built.

I also suspect the gas price is not a real price for continued generation.  It's the price for backup power when the wind isn't blowing ?  With the price of gas at 2.36p/kWh they could offer a much better price than you quote for continued generation, given a level playing field.  Probably c. 8p a unit.

Presumably these are the 2012 price also.  Persons reading this should be made aware these are fictional prices which need to be corrected for inflation since 2012, to arrive at the actual price.