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

batten each side of the joist and cut OSB to fit between to form the sub floor.

Wow. Beautiful job. What's with the big gap between joists just through the doorway?

That door way is getting blocked up, so I’m leaving a gap to build straight onto the sleeper wall

Yeah they are decent, tbh im of the opinion that they are all a much of a muchness unvented cylinders especially the decent brands anyway.

Hey I have a dumb question I can find the answer too, if you might oblige one, I think the answer is they are they are basically the same. But what's the different between an unvented direct cylinder (electric only) and an immersion heater. Here we don't see ones like the gadhill, but two ports on bottom and no need for expansion vessel. The gedhill seems a bit fancier with two elements.
Ie.
https://www.ariston.com/es-es/productos/termos-y-calentadores/electrico/pro-b-v-h

I would deffo get a cylinder with a high coil surface area, especially if you're looking to switch to a heat pump in the future. These are usually described as 'heat pump compatible'.

I've heard good things about Mixergy cylinders, which use clever stratification and plate heat exchangers, along with massive coil surface area.

Our ASHP has just kicked in to heat the house for the first time this week, giving a CoP of 5 so far, which matches the manufacturer’s spec charts, and this is without insulation yet fitted to the outdoor flow/return pipes, and with a few bedroom windows open. Entire house at a constant 21deg.

Vaillant Arotherm Plus 7kW, mix of UFH & rads, no buffer/volumiser or thermostats, whole house as a single open loop, pure weather compensation mode.

We’ve run out of cash so prob gonna spend this winter without the external wall insulation planned for the side of the house.

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The immersion heater is what is fitted in the cylinder to heat the water, gledhill make a version that has inbuilt expansion vessel in them I fitted one like 3 weeks ago.

Sick CoP bro

What's your water pressure like? It's a consideration if really bad

Very good, 2 bar.

Ah convenient. Thanks

Poked some knobs, now this?!

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7.2!?

Yeh, mad ting

Now that winter’s looming, is anyone looking to upgrade a radiator with a hench piece?

I’ve got the following spare:

Stelrad K2
600 H x 1600 W
Brand new, unopened. Bought as part of whole-house rad upgrade but couldn’t squeeze this one in. In E10, happy to deliver.

Central heating came on today. Thermostat has been set to 17 deg C for the entire summer and this is the first day it caused the boiler to fire.

Also good as MiniGB's school uniform only came out of the wash this evening and needs to be dry for tomorrow.

Temperature readings around the flat show how it has dropped in the last week. (Also shows I need to change a load of batteries...)

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September means central heating isn't allowed on. I usually aim for jumpers until November, I don't always succeed

You'd do well at my pals in Fort William.

Having never really experienced anything like this in my life, I still can't get over the comfort that a (partially) insulated house x heat pump x MVHR x underfloor heating brings.

The whole house is at 21deg the entire time, 24/7, air feels fresh & dry, and the last week where it's got a bit chilly outside it's cost under £1.50/day, including hot water & heating. Bathroom dries rapidly after a long shower, can sit in front of big window with zero chills, everywhere is warm underfoot, hot water doesn't run out even after several consecutive showers.

This is coming from a house which was previously damp, draughty and completely unheatable... even with the boiler on full-chat, house could never hit above 18deg on a mild day. Gas bill over £2K/year for a freezing house with only enough hot water for a single shower/bath at a time.

Previously living in shitty damp rented accommodation in the UK and a Soviet death block with communal furnace heating that was either off (with -10deg winter temps) or fully on (scalding radiators melting half your face off and a howling gale from the open windows freezing the other), my baby bitch brain just can't compute low-key ambient wellbeing like this. Keep expecting to feel an icy chill licking my feet every 5 mins...

#csb

Sounds good.

Can you remind me the type of property you’re in, age and size?

How much did it cost you to achieve this though?

Bog standard Victorian house in E10, c.~1900, was 3-bed ~95m2, now 4-bed ~145m2.

@konastab01 all the upgrades were part of a big retrofit, along with kitchen and loft extensions.

Things like the ASHP were a no-brainer; had to fit an entirely new plumbing and heating system anyway, with the £7.5K grant making it much cheaper than a gas boiler system would have been.

MVHR was much cheaper than normal, as an installer friend specified the system and the ducting was fitted whilst the whole house was ripped apart anyway.

Insulating the suspended floors was expensive in terms of labour and waste removal (mountains of historic rubble under floorboards).

The extra insulation, airtightness etc fitted to the new construction elements wasn't much more than the cost of merely complying with regs to be honest. We are very lucky that our builder was up for experimenting with new materials and methods without bumping up the labour costs too much.

I'm also not particularly interested in 'payback periods' or whatever; all the upgrades were done purely to attain a consistently comfortable environment, reduce ongoing energy consumption, and minimise future building maintenance requirements (no damp = no ripping plaster off the walls in 10 years' time).

This all sounds great except the thought of a house being at 21c permanently, that's about 5°c too warm.

Unfortunately my house was built on a concrete slab, isn't insulated underneath and probably can't be channeled for in floor heating.

Being built in 1980 the ceiling heights are also low so building up floors won't work

Wouldn’t underfloor heating in an un insulated slab be v inefficient anyway?

This is why I can't wait for ashp. With (our old) wood boiler now when I wake up the boiler has gone out and it's coldz so I need to relight. If you put too much wood on it gets too hot. it's annoying.