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tahir
Joined: 28 Oct 2004 Posts: 45672 Location: Essex
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Mistress Rose
Joined: 21 Jul 2011 Posts: 15972
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Slim
Joined: 05 Mar 2006 Posts: 6612 Location: New England (In the US of A)
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tahir
Joined: 28 Oct 2004 Posts: 45672 Location: Essex
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Slim
Joined: 05 Mar 2006 Posts: 6612 Location: New England (In the US of A)
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Mistress Rose
Joined: 21 Jul 2011 Posts: 15972
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Slim
Joined: 05 Mar 2006 Posts: 6612 Location: New England (In the US of A)
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Posted: Fri Feb 19, 21 11:20 am Post subject: |
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We have a simple setup. When we moved in the baseboard radiators were not functional, so I removed them, knowing we weren't likely to get a new boiler and re-plumb them. The only heat was the propane fueled Rinnai (wall vented) in the living room (southwest corner). We put our wood cookstove in the dining room (southeast corner) toward the center of the house. The heat pump head went into the dining room as well, on the eastern wall near the corner with the southern wall. Because the heat pump always moves some air to measure temperature, it helps add to the circulation of heated air around the house.
Most frequently:
Woodstove produces most of the heat in the dining room, which circles around (and up) the staircase in the center of the house, into the living room, into the back hallway and the bedroom and bathroom that come off of that, and then into the kitchen which opens out into the dining room again (with a big enough doorway that it probably has it's own circulation of air exchange with the dining room as well, always plenty warm.)
The upstairs was unfinished when we moved in, and we decided not to put any heating in up there. We've finished about half of it so far, and these bedrooms are plenty warm when the doors are open, and chillier when you keep the doors closed, so you set your temperature that way, essentially.
Because the heat pump is in the same room as the stove, we keep it's thermostat up higher than we would set it if we weren't using the stove, to make sure it starts working before the stove has fully cooled down when we wake up (and the rest of the house is feeling cold). On very cold nights the propane heater comes on as well - though my long term plan is to replace that with something not fossil fueled, like an electric resistance heater. I E., wood heat with all electric supplement, but higher efficiency heat pump as the primary supplement, with less efficient resistance heater for only the coldest times when the heat pump struggles.
Full plan is to eventually switch vehicles to electric and put another set of solar panels on the roof to cover vehicles and any new electric demand from a resistance heater. |
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roobarb
Joined: 15 Apr 2008 Posts: 139 Location: Carmarthenshire
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Posted: Fri Feb 19, 21 5:32 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks for replies.
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Do you have airbricks? Or extract fans? |
No air bricks or extractor fans..we invested in a woodburner with an external air source, so we didn't have to install any air bricks, and we open windows after showers and in the kitchen if we're producing steam! We use a dehumidifier quite a lot if we feel humidity is becoming a problem.
We have a largish field next to the house, which we have ear-marked for the pipework for the GSHP. It's very rough pasture so we're not bothered if it gets turned over.
No plans to re-do the floors, so it will have to be radiators.
We're planning on being here for some time, at least for the next 15-20 years, so the investment will be for us, and not for some future owner of the house.
We would keep at least our smaller woodburner, which heats the living room, but as I said in the initial post one of the reasons for going down this route is to start limiting the use of wood burning in the home. This will perhaps open up a can of worms on this forum, but there has been quite a lot of recent research showing the health hazards of particulates from using a woodburner in the home (not just the particulates going up the chimney and into the atmosphere, which is another issue that is perhaps more of a concern in urban areas).
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personally i would not touch retrofit gshp with a very long bit of pipe
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Have you had experience of this, or is it just a gut feeling! |
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dpack
Joined: 02 Jul 2005 Posts: 46220 Location: yes
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tahir
Joined: 28 Oct 2004 Posts: 45672 Location: Essex
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dpack
Joined: 02 Jul 2005 Posts: 46220 Location: yes
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Ty Gwyn
Joined: 22 Sep 2010 Posts: 4613 Location: Lampeter
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tahir
Joined: 28 Oct 2004 Posts: 45672 Location: Essex
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Slim
Joined: 05 Mar 2006 Posts: 6612 Location: New England (In the US of A)
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Mistress Rose
Joined: 21 Jul 2011 Posts: 15972
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Posted: Sat Feb 20, 21 8:07 am Post subject: |
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I'm not going to criticise your decision Roobarb; that is up to you, but I have a feeling, perhaps ill founded, that particulates are the 'in thing' at the moment as we haven't been able to trace them in the human body until recently. We have also been living with fire for thousands of years, apparently with few ill effects. I would also point out that there are fewer particulates given off if a fire is going constantly than if the chimney gets cold and is used less frequently.
Slim, I am sure our winter temperatures are nothing like as low as yours, but ours is a damp cold. At present the night temperature here is about 5 deg C, so not cold at all by your standards, but it is damp if not raining, and with some wind chill.
We tend to heat our house in the same way. We have the fire going all the time, low during the day when we are not there, and no central heating, but all the doors are open, so any hot air goes round the house. At night, unless it is very cold, we shut the bedroom door to keep the room cooler. The central heating thermostat is in the study with various computer bits running, so it tends to be more of a secondary heating in some ways as it is set fairly low and in a room heated to some extent. |
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