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Discuss whole house heating advice thread 2... in the Plumbing Jobs | The Job-board area at PlumbersForums.net

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**im reposting this because i needed to make some edits to the first thread i made and i cant because its been more than an hour since i first posted..this thread is the edited version***


hi i hope you are all well.


im after advice as to the best place to spend money to keep our house a bit more snug. we intend to be here for at least 15 years. bear with me, i will describe the house


ive moved into a new house (well, its far from new, the original was built circa 1920) and back in april, when we moved in and before i turned it off, the gas heating cost £170 for the first month.


the house has 3 parts, the original house has solid walls (flemish) but because of the 2 extensions, only 1 corner is now external (my sons bedroom and the room below it).


there is a 1960's extention which comprises the garage and my office on the ground floor and a 1980's extention which is our bedroom and the lounge beneath it.


there are 21 radiators. they are all steel and un-finned and pretty big


ive turned a lot of them off after the first months gas bill in may, before turning the heating off entirely until last weekend.


now its getting cold again....


our boiler is a condenser (british gas 330). i dont know how old it is but it has a sticker saying that inhibitor was added in 2007 so its a least 9 years old.


the immersion tank is old, and has almost no insulation. if i heat in the between 7 and 8.30 by midday the water is cold again.


the hot water and rad heating is vented


im looking at getting solar panels (2 x VKR 4000 Series 14 tube panel), a 300 litre gledhill tank and pressurising the radiator system. i want to leave the hot water vented as then im not at the mercy of the local water pressure - we have electric pumps for the showers.


the rhi payments are estimated to be about £2.5k in total which means that the new solar system will cost us, including the radiator changes detailed below, about £2k. i know roughly what hot water costs us because ive calculated it whilst the heating was off over the summer - about 65p per day. so it will take a while to pay back but the tank is knackered anyway and needs replacing, plus the rhi is going to dissapear by the end of the year so if we are going to do it, we need to do it asap.




im also looking at flushing (powerflush) the rad system as its definately sludged up




there are a number of obvious things to do which we will do once the roof is fixed:


theres virtually no loft insulation.
theres no felt under the roof (we are having the roof replaced next week as theres no felt and most of the tiles are delaminating)|


i was also going to replace about 13 of the existing radiators for new finned versions, and leave the rest off (theres 2 in the downstairs corridor, 2 on the upstairs landing and a few in toilets that probably arent worth bothering to change)


we've got some money to sort the house out but theres a lot needs doing - theres roof, electrics and heating...we dont have a limitless pot of money but im interested in doing things that will make the house warmer and reduce our bills.


ive looked at underfloor heating (most of the downstairs is suspended timber floors which could be ripped up, scalpings put down, screed and insulation etc put in) but i dont see from the research ive done that it will save much money. im not interested in how the radiators look, just how they function, how much it costs, and how warm the house feels.


i relaise that the bills are going to be bigger than our last house


so a few questions....


is it worth replacing the radiators...will it make much difference? ive been quoted £125 per (finned steel) radiator to supply and fit.


are aluminium radiators going to save any money?


i was looking at zoning - probably using honeywell kit - does this make much of a difference? there are 4 rooms upstairs, 3 of which we want to heat every night (the other is a guest bedroom) and 1 room downstairs i want to heat all day (my office as i work from home)


am i missing a trick somewhere - is there anything else i can do to spend the money more wisely to make a bigger difference?


thanks in advance for your help.
 
Heat loss calcs before changing rads and insulate anything and everything.

Def zone and trv's.

Insulate pipes in cold zones
 
thanks for your reply.

already have trv's on all rads

can i do heat loss calcs? is there a formula i can use or does it need to be carried out by someone who knows what they are doing?
 
ok, ive got a guy coming on tuesday(the solar fusion engineer).

anybody had any dealings with them?

underfloor heating - it doesnt seem worth it to me from what i have read - is the general consesus that its nice but it wont save you much money? given the suspended timber floors i was thinking that the insulation that is put in under the pipes would benefit the house quite a lot although everything i read seems to say its nice, but wont save money, and its a huge upheaval.

also - opinion on aluminium rads vs finned steel - any thoughts?

thanks again.
 
Your running costs will not be Ffected by the type of radiators I stzlled.
Running costs will be determined by the temperature you run the rooms and by how insulated your building is.
 
Adding or getting Endotherm added to your heating system should help improve it's efficiency and overall performance. We sell it on our website www.ecoapps.co.uk
endo.jpg


No it won't

Also have you contacted a mod to see if your allowed to advertise?
 
saying "why wont it work" is not for us to say. its up to you to say "it works because of x, y , z". extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. your website does not give any evidence, nor links to the research data, it simply says "proven by a leading r and d company", without any accompanying evidence. i have a degree in physics, so you can explain to me what this product does and how it does it, and i will listen.
 
All it does is increase the conductive a bit, they used to use it in cars

Thermoboost is another one

Trust me if it was worth it us tradesmen would know about it
 
It's another money making scheme ... never heard of a liquid which will save up to 15% ...

What do you need to do with the installation to achieve the 15%? I'm guessing all pipes have to be well insulated which is very often not possible especially existing installation.

It's also very expensive though
 
Making sure your heating system is clean inside and with inhibitor, - and boiler running at full efficiency, - and thermostatic controls etc, - and heating not being overused or switched on & off every few hours, - and your home very well insulated would be enough for me.
 
yeah i'll probably skip it. am seriosuly considering doing zoning with either heat genius or honeywell - any opinions on that guys? will cost about 1500 quid. (house is quite large and sprawling, and i work from home, so im in 1 room for most of the day with the rest of the house empty)

fyi - just replaced all rads, powerflushed everything, inhibitoe is in, got a air bubbkle remover and a sludge remover all in.
 
Can you explain this table for me

Top figures without endo
Bottom figures with endo ?

IMG_2979.PNG
 
hi guys, ok, can we move on from the snake oil.....am seriosuly considering doing zoning with either heat genius or honeywell - any opinions on that guys? will cost about 1500 quid. (house is quite large and sprawling, and i work from home, so im in 1 room for most of the day with the rest of the house empty)

fyi - replaced all rads in january as it was freezing... powerflushed everything, inhibitor is in, got a air bubble remover and a sludge remover all fitted. working really well.
 
evo home
 
any reason? i am tending toward evo home simply because honeywell are unlikely to go bust anytime soon, and should be around for the long haul. my concern with this kit is that it will fail in 5 or 10 years. my old thermostat is 20 years old...
 
i would count on it not lasting longer than 10 years, these days nothing electronic lasts that long
 
any reason? i am tending toward evo home simply because honeywell are unlikely to go bust anytime soon, and should be around for the long haul. my concern with this kit is that it will fail in 5 or 10 years. my old thermostat is 20 years old...
Don't compare old parts with new Ines, as you know the new ones are made to break down after a while.
 
havent used there system (heat genius)
 
yes very but needs setting up and installing good
 
best bet is spend as much money as you can on insulation, get full heat loading calcs done. I saw a link to one already. they do work them out pretty accurately for an online tool. after that boiler and sized correct radiators. im all for ufh but its not the massive fuel saver some companies brag it to be. if you had 20ft high ceilings everywhere then maybe. . avoid all these water potions . just get a decent system inhibitor once finished.
another thought. your house does sound a decent size. might be worth zoning house off a bit with thermostats too. ground floor separate to first floor is a good one. so your not heating bedrooms to 20degree or what ever all day
Mark
 
ok thanks for all your advice.

Don't forget to make sure you buy your gas from the cheapest supplier and recheck the market each year. Not as much fun as EVO Home but will probably save you more. It's also free, which EVO home definitely isn't.
 
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