Hi, my name is Jonathan and in this channel I hope to show you a bit of DIY, woodworking and general maintenance about the thatched property that my wife and I live in. We bought this property in 2017 and between then and now (2022) we have made major improvements to it. While the large scale works have largely been completed by contractors, we have done a lot ourselves and are now in a phase where the remaining works are most likely to be done by ourselves. Some of the videos will be about works that we have already carried out, this seems to be of interest to people, we are often being stopped outside the house and asked about this. Woodwork features highly, in a building like this it is hard to buy things that fit, I also find it hard to find things that I like! It is possible that I may also talk about some of my other interests on this channel, basically I hope to show things that I do or make that you might find interesting or would like to try.
Just stumbled on this video. The best lock-mitre vid I've seen! I have a LM bit [been it the packaging for eons actually] and your video has been the most instructive thing I've seen concerning using one. There are definitely easier ways to make a box, thanks for your instruction. I might have a crack at it...
Its a lovely presentation! You have excellent communication skills. It does show, however, how diametrically different views are on these things. Youll find videos even suggested after this one that absolutely advise against zoning!
Solar, of course you won’t get much benefit when you really need it. Although if you have an EV that is different. Perhaps putting some investment in a community wind farm makes more sense, if only on a green agenda. Ps, good revue, though I have to admit putting you on 1.25x speed, no criticism, you are just a happy relaxed guy.
Electric cost is linked to gas costs which are similar to oil. So they should in theory both change together. Of course as more renewables come into the equation, electric will be more stable, and we hope less. So ASHP should make economic sense in time.
21deg. Just wondering why you need such a high temperature. In our house 18c is hot. Also, you have radiators under windows with curtains hanging over them, I would relocate the rads, or extend the window call boards and cut the curtains above.
Adding insulation, using wood fired heaters, trying to heat the space with 34 degree water so you must install larger/more radiation; did you remember to spring for the Magic Unicorns needed to make all this green nonsense work? Quit playing with yourself and put a fossil fuel boiler back in or you will be cold every Winter and very broke.
Interesting video for sure. If you were very happy with saving 10 quid a day by tweaking your heat pump temperatures then your electricity bill must be absolutely monumental?? It seems a common theme with honest heat pump videos like yours is that if you do not own a solar system - it's no cheaper than oil a lot of the time - especially if you factor in the fact that your existing oil system is working fine, it doesn't make sense to me to then go spend £10k on heat pumps just to save a few quid here and there in bills? Lots of people seem to be doing just that nowadays! Get as much solar as you can fit ASAP and watch your bills drop like a stone.
Thank you for your review of your Air Source Heat Pump system. Very informative and honest review of the system you have. Very well presented and lots of valid general points about making the house comfortable and efficient. e.g. zoning. Forward thinking in the planning of future developments regarding ducts for solar cabling. Wise advice on choosing a contractor!!
You won't be able to power your ashp completely from solar in Dec and January as there is just not enough hours of sunlite. I have 3.5 kW of solar and am putting in another 12 kW ground mount and 35kwh of battery but I still expect to have to buy electricity on about 90 days a year using the cheapest tariff I can find and I'm heating with gas.
very nice job with the video. I would ask if you have considered the cost of professionally cleaning the heat pumps because that will greatly affect your COP. Also, do you have a budget for service when the need arrises?
Yes, we get them serviced on an annual basis just as we did with the oil boilers when we had them. So far the difference in servicing costs have not been that different.
I agree, BRILLIANT Happy for you.. But , let's get it right.. Only those with enough excess CASH can live this life. YES IT CAN WORK but only after huge fiscal input. All of the videos feature the same people. Nothing wrong with these people, good people. But the up front cost is huge .
Do yo have a figure for the COP over a year? Also does the heat pump system control on the flow temperature to the house or the return water to the heat pumps? Well presented video. Hot water circulation: since the far outlets are on a common source with those in your kitchen then the time to get hot water can only be influenced by the length of “dead leg” to each outlet. It’s common to take circulation right up to outlets but those outlets in the Kitchen probably don’t have any circulation to them resulting in a longer time to draw off cold water in their dead legs.
Thank you for documenting your experience with your ASHP installation. One aspect you did not major on is the difference in comfort you have experienced. I should imagine that with ASHP and the underfloor heating your house is much better all round. I do lament at the avalanche of negative comments that you have suffered, although I expect it is all ‘water off a ducks back’. I do have a few comments though. 1. I am not sure why your installer chose to zone the property (using zone valves) as it considered best practice to have one open zone and control at the manifolds (in order to prevent short cycling). 2. On the solar front, I do not know if you have moved on (as this video was a year ago) but it is most unlikely you will be able to support ASHP(S) in winter (Min Solar production/Maximum heating demand) - although I have not seen the size of your field. It is semantics but it is best to look at solar production as an annual exercise that you net off your electrical bill from the supplier).
It's incorrect to say you need insulation to run a heat pump. It's simply not true. I was at a wedding where a teepee was heated with a heat pump. 0 insulation. Just need to match your emitters to your heat loss. Does reducing your heat loss make your bills lower yes. Is that true for other heat sources yes. Is it especially true for heat pumps? A little bit. They do work better on an always on trickling in heat basis, but essentially you just need wider pipes and a bigger radiator and could still be efficient and cheaper than gas heating. It's myth.
Just received an £3500 quote for a new oil tank installation as it needs moving and replacing due to regulatory changes. Team that with an 20 year old boiler, I'd be in for at least £10k.. So been looking at ASHP for a while, main benefits I don't have a commodity in my garden which could be stolen, yes electric is expensive but when crunching numbers over filling my oil tank, having it replaced, running the heating etc then ASHP is a no brainer. Just spend some time draught proofing your home if it's old like mine.
as with all builders i would beware of asking anyone what they suggest, especially with these new technologies, people are not trained, or if they are they lack experience or they have a narrow view and just do/sell/promote what their brief training course has taught them
The installation is very expensive, an existing build will require larger radiators, copper pipes and they cannot be hidden. More electricity is required to run them and you still need a back-up source. NOT FOR ME.
Better off buying a diesel heater off aliexpress and run a vent in to your house, it cost pennies to run and any tom, dick and harry can install and maintain them. You can even use veggie oil, waste oil, red diesel in them, not that you should but you can and its cheap.
As a solar installer, I can only share that the sooner you install PV the quicker the payback. My advice would be to avoid Chinese brands and stick to well reputed panel manufacturers like Sharp, Hyundai, Solarwatt, REC, ALEO or Panasonic and Inverter brands like Enphase or SolarEdge. If a battery is on the cards, I'd suggest Tesla or a MyEnergi Libbi as the most future proof solutions.
@@MT-xy7fw It's quite common to see people who've invested in Chinese brands to defend them, even though they often lack any awareness of what they're buying or who they are buying from (let alone a conscience about the real world ramifications of their purchase). What most don't see is the number of people who quietly cough up the £ to replace failed components due to warranty claims not honoured. As an installer, I come across all kinds, but always try to move my customers away from brands that don't know the meaning of customer service - it may be a coincidence that nearly all are Chinese owned. The K-Star battery on which the Libbi is based a quality unit - I've installed a few. But the Libbi integrates with their products seamlessly (I've experienced it during installation training). The company is also excellent so I am happy to suggest my customers buy these.
Hahah - more like "As a solar installer I am going to recommend the devices I make maximum profit on installing i.e. the overpriced micro inverter/optimiser based systems that I can make 4 times the profit supplying to mugs who have zero shading and would be far better off with a nice SMA string inverter at well under half the price" Nice try!
I love the fact people say that you need a REALLY well insulated property for ASHPs to work well. They then compare running costs to the system they replaced that was trying to heat a poorly insulated property - not really a fair comparison! Clearly, any heating system will work better and have lower running costs if the property is well insulated. Let’s be honest, you would have saved lots more money if you just chose to insulate your property properly and continue with your oil fired system!
Informative video and although a bit technical I could see how you approach your own situation. We have 3 ASHP's in our bungalow and have them set to go no higher than 18c ,we rely on these units as our boiler and rads are now decommissioned and scheduled to be fully removed next year. We're looking at solar and battery tech for our next project. A question on your ASHP's, why are they positioned in your garden area instead of fixed to the main house ? Is it due to your house being of a certain age ? Peter
We placed the heat pumps where they are partly because the water generated on the defrost cycle will not be near the house so less potential for ice formation on the path and green algae growth, partly because the air flow round the unit will be good, partly because we had a concrete pad where the oil tank used to be, but mainly because we just thought it looked better to have them away from the house under the willow tree...perhaps not everyone's taste but when the willow tree is in full leaf they are somewhat hidden. Thank you for watching!
@ Modern Thatch Living. Firstly, thank you very much for such an informative video; there are very few posts with this level of analysis, so I really appreciate your effort. The question I have relates to your "Example calculated flow temperatures for our system..." graph, with time stamp 8:39: are you showing return flow temperatures (for example 29 degrees at 0 degrees outside) or heat pump-generated input temperatures into the manifold? Many thanks.
It is the predicted required return flow temperature, the system then uses that information to set the actual flow temperature depended on the outside temperature. That is, it is the flow temperature required to be circulating around the house to balance the heat loss from the building and maintain a constant temperature. I hope that helps and thank you for watching!
@@modernthatchliving1025 Excellent. Thank you. I find (depending on the flow rate) that my return manifold temperatures are about 10 degrees lower than those entering the manifold from the heat pump at about 0 degrees outside.
@@A.P.Garland Just to clarify my use of "return" in the comment above. I meant return to the house and the temperature of the water circulating round the house, but the heat pump manual uses "return" as the return to the pump...sorry if I have confused anyone and for my sloppy use of "return".
@@A.P.Garland If you have 10 degrees of delta between the supply and return flows, you are possibly running your heat pump at high flow temperatures (a slow circulation pump can lead to same issue). The lower the flow temperature , the lower the delta between supply and return. Some heat pumps lets you control the flow temp and some not. Controlling flow temp is a lot more efficient and economic way to use a ehat pump. By the way keep that in mind, with a heat pump the lower the delta between suply and return flow, the happier the compressor! Preferred delta is 5C for heat pumps.
The margins between an oil fired central heating system and an air sourced heat pump at the moment seem to be small and constantly moving. Given that the savings/year will not be vast I would suggest that a changeover of heating system should only be considered at a point where a replacement of an oil boiler has become essential. Like cars one of the biggest costs of heating systems is that of depreciation. Unlike a car the value of a secondhand oil boiler is minimal as the cost of installation probably means that most people would rather buy new than take the chance of installing a secondhand boiler. This means that there is no or very little offset against the cost when purchasing a replacement heating system. Therefore it is probably a waste of money at the moment to change ahead of the end of life of the boiler. If a an oil boiler is about 90% efficient and the price is 90p/litre, as the heat energy in one litre of oil is about 10kwh, electricity would need to be below 8.1p/kwh for conventional electricity heating. For a COP of 4 this would become about 32p/unit which is much more achievable. Given the present fluctuations in the energy market I guess it will be at least a couple of years before we can make meaningful decisions on our choices of heat energy from an economic point of view. Certainly even if we just break even the air sourced heat pump would be a good choice from an environmental point of view.
Currently I'm paying 24.7p per kwh for electricity and 10.4p per kwh for gas; my 35 year old boiler is 80% efficient so in effect I pay 13p per kwh to heat my house with gas. I think in future gas will increase in price faster than electricity as green levies are placed on fossil fuels. 2 years ago I had rooftop solar and a powerwall installed which generates about 5500kwh per year, I currently export about half of that amount to the grid. Next year I plan to get an ASHP (probably a Vaillant) and hope it will be able to get a SCOP of around 3.5. My excess solar should go a long way to cover the cost of running the heat pump. I would definitely recommend solar and a battery to anyone with a heat pump.
@@ecoterrorist1402 No, I'm on the Tesla energy tariff which allows me to import and export at the same price. In the summer months I export a vast amount of surplus electricity which I can then buy back at the same price in the winter months when I need it for the heat pump.
the 500-pound gorilla in the room is the cost of maintenance and service of your air to water heat pumps. Everything gets dirty as it runs, and the efficiency will drop as it does. Why people don't mention this is puzzling to me. You seem to have covered all of the bases nicely with your preparation and I enjoyed your video, but what about that gorilla?
We get the heat pumps serviced every year just as we did with our oil boilers. The cost of servicing so far has not been that different to the cost of servicing the oil boilers that we used to have....and less than getting my car serviced....I do agree that servicing does need to be considered and taken seriously. Thank you for your comments about the video, I am glad that you enjoyed it!
