Keeping your home warm / heating / energy crisis / insulation etc

Anyone have a Meaco DD8LJ 8 Litre Junior Desiccant Dehumidifier or have an opinion on whether it's any good?

https://www.airconcentre.co.uk/products/meaco-dd8lj-8l-junior-desiccant-dehumidifier-dd8ljunior

We have one. It’s quiet. Can be energy hungry. Needs to be kept clean and de-fluffed every once in a while.

Tumble dryer question? We've recently moved in with our in laws due to house move/sale/neighbour issues and the cloth washing/drying has gone through the roof, with the colder weather we are considering getting a tumble dryer to help dry clothes quicker and less moisture hanging around the house, I'm wondering the pros/ cons and costs of other drying methods like de humifier and heated clothes horse etc??

You can get dinky ones for single rooms.

And you don’t have to insulate any more than you do with a gas boiler, it’s only because electric is 3 times the price of gas. When I’m energy minister I’m going to put a tax on gas use to subsidise electricity prices.

Then all you really need to do is find somewhere in every small house and flat in the country for a massive 200 litre water tank and a huge pump unit on a south wall.

Depends what sort of dryer you get, we bought a spenny £££ miele heat pump one a couple of years ago and it's energy use is less than our dehumidifier was for drying clothes.

We have a 2 and a 1 year old and have at minimum one load of washing to do every day, pros are, it's easy, doesn't clutter up a room with drying clothes and the water just drains out of the waste pipe. We got rid of the dehumidifier.

The only con for me really is to get one that's as energy efficient or more than a dehumidifier you have to spend a lot more.

Get a heat pump dryer - most efficient / fast way of doing it.

Yeah, heat pump dehumidifier sounds good to me, plumbing it up to a waste pipe will be the next challenge I think, thanks for feedback

You don't have to plumb it in, it also collects in the drawer if you want so you can empty manually. If it's next to you washing machine though it's a piece of piss to connect.

@stevo_com currently thinking of doing a similar conversion to Tado or Netatmo. Did you install their valves in every room? Did you have to add extra sensors (some reviews mention the built in thermostats in the valves might give erroneous readings due to proximity to radiator, furniture or curtains obstructions, etc…)? Did you DIY the whole thing? Did you replace both TRV and manual valves? Unfortunately our ground floor is all setup with manual valves… Excuse the excessive amount of questions!

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Also got a heat pump dryer. You don't need to plumb a lot of them in, they have a tank that you just empty every couple of loads. Our one slides out the front where the soap drawer is on a washing machine. It's quite useful being able to part-dry things outside and then being able to finish it off in the dryer instead of worrying about making the house damp.

Some of them can be quite hard on your clothes though - make sure you read the reviews.

I have their valves in every room.

You don't need extra sensors unless you have two rads in one room, or the valve sits somewhere so unrepresentative of the actual room temperature that using the offset function won't correct it.

Good to know, that may be the way forward for us, which model do you have if you don't mind me asking?

I DIYed the whole thing. I really liked the instructions in the app. They show you wire by wire what to swap over to where and provide idiot proof labels to use. I replaced the wired hallway thermostat first and then the controller to be able to control hot water.

I have smart TRVs in most rooms. Started with a couple and then just added more over time. It is advisable to have at least one rad with standard, non TRV valves so that if the general thermostat calls for heat, it is not pushing against shut valves. Most systems should have a loop built in to prevent this happening though. We have the rad in the hallway, kitchen and the towel rail in the bathroom on dumb valves. So if anything else calls for heat, those all heat up. I may add one to the hallway rad when it gets replaced, but I'm not touching it until then. Ditto for the kitchen.

As for extra sensors, no, I did not. In Tado, you can configure a + or - offset for each TRV if you feel it is missing or overshooting the temp in a room. I keep meaning to do this properly by putting a thermometer in the main space of each room and fettle each offset accordingly. But in reality, I just bump the temp manually if I feel it's a bit chilly.

I keep sounding like a Tado fanboi, but I've not tried any of the others (I had a Hive thermostat only in the last flat, which I liked). I'm happy enough with Tado to recommend it, but couldn't say if it is better or worse than the others. My Hive setup didn't have TRVs so I can't compare there. Tado now offer black or white devices, if that's important to you.

Unfortunately our ground floor is all setup with manual valves

You'll need to swap them to TRV valves. Which you can do yourself, but I am so cack handed with anything plumbing wise, I just get a plumber to do it when necessary. Really small fish for them so they could do a few in one visit. And the valves themselves are relatively cheap. About £20 for a Drayton lockshield and TRV set. You would need the angled ones looking at that. Buy a few sets and get a plumber to swap them over. THen you can fit the Tado sensing heads yourself. Using Drayton also means you don't need the adaptors for the Tado heads as they use the same threads. I have some on adaptors, which is a bollocks.

Keep hold of the dumb sensing heads that come with the TRVs you buy, useful if there is a tado or internet fault in future. Changing the heads doesn't require any plumbing. Just screw off/on

Correction: Corner TRV is what you want if they are in that orientation.

eg. https://ukradiators.com/talus-white-thermostatic-radiator-valve-corner.html

I don't know if the above would need an adaptor or not.

Not @stevo_com (or am I...) but:

Did you install their valves in every room?

Yes.
You need to have them in every room bar one room / zone, which would be controlled by the remote thermostat.

We have them in every room, and the remote thermostat is somewhat redundant and set to only come on if the temp drops below zero. Otherwise, it would be calling heat from the boiler, but none of the radiators would be open, so nowhere for the hot water to go.

Did you have to add extra sensors (some reviews mention the built in thermostats in the valves might give erroneous readings due to proximity to radiator, furniture or curtains obstructions, etc…)?

There's a bit of iteration when you first set up, and you can configure an offset for each TRV to take this into account. Ours tend to be offset by 1 - 2 degrees at most.

Did you DIY the whole thing? Did you replace both TRV and manual valves?

Yes. Initially, we just removed the existing crappy TRVs and had a bunch of adapters.

Avoid these if you can - they are just about fit for purpose, but having lockshield valves that are the standard size (3x25 or something - I have a post somewhere that has the actual measure - Wickes bog standard ones fit in any case) is so much easier & stops the TRVs from popping off the threads.

Unfortunately our ground floor is all setup with manual valves…

You'd need to replace the ones in the picture with corner valves - otherwise the TRV head unit would be sticking out, and very easy to damage.

[Edit] It's M30 x 1.5mm that you want.

Most systems should have a loop built in to prevent this happening though. We have the rad in the hallway, kitchen and the towel rail in the bathroom on dumb valves. So if anything else calls for heat, those all heat up.

Isn't your towel rail t-d off the hot water?

Nop. I like having toasty poos so happy for it to be on the CH. Also, the frequency of my bathing of late would mean it would be a cooold bathroom.

For those of you in conservation areas - Architects Climate Action Network have released a climate emergency Conservation Area Toolkit https://www.architectscan.org/conservation-area-toolkit-retrofit-homes

Councils and planning departments know that the current rules are obstructive and prevent the retrofit work that needs to happen, especially where councils have made public declarations around climate and biodiversity emergency. Planning departments are desperately under-resourced so it's a matter of political will and priorities. Although it can feel like householders are powerless, by keeping the pressure on local politicians and if you can, getting involved directly, the rules can and will change.

There's an online launch event in a couple weeks https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/climate-emergency-conservation-area-toolkit-tickets-471704820817

I think dinky may be overselling it having done a quick google, nowhere appears to have any prices either.

I thought heat pumps needed bigger radiators and more insulation as they can't provide as high a temperature as a gas boiler.

We have a washer/dryer. It's OK for little stuff but the dehumidifier is cheaper. Added benefit with the dehumidifier is you can use it with any of your clothes and not damage them, was also impressed by how quick it got stuff dry. So, get both ...

Heated clothes horse didn't seem that cheap to run and you still have all the moisture.

They can get the water as hot, but they lose efficiency so burn more energy doing it. They’re most efficient heating to 30-40 degrees, where they can turn 1kw of input to 3kw of output, or more now I think, depending on beaucoup de variables, where gas boilers bang out 50-60 degrees no bother.

This is all only a problem because 1kwh of delicious renewable electric costs about 3x as much as 1kwh of filthy old gas.

I suspect this will change in the long term. Diesel used to be cheaper than petrol, now it’s 20% dearer.

Anyway.

You can get little pumps that fire warm air into the room, they usually do cold air too so can provide air con in the summer. They won’t be as efficient as heating water and pushing it round but I’d imagine they’ll be better than an electric heater. Though I’d guess they’re multiple times more expensive and a tougher DIY install.

Buy a 2nd hand condenser.

Ours cost £30. The heating element ended up going (£25) but it was easy to replace, just requiring YouTube and a screwdriver.

It sounds like you don't know how useful it will be long term, or if you'll even have space for one. With so many unknowns it's not worth investing any money in it.

which model do you have

It's an AEG, maybe 5 years old. I'd definitely describe it as hard on the clothes, but we inherited it so I didn't get to choose.

@TW @stevo_com @Howard many thanks, your endorsement made us give it go! There was an Amazon offer so we bought the wired hub starter kit and a pack of three TRV’s that hopefully will allow us to get a small setup going. Fingers crossed it will all be simple, but might ask a question(s) if in doubt