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

If my house/thermostat hit as high as 19°c I'd be questioning why my wife or the kids had been Messing with the heating controls.

Oh gawd back to this, humble brags about how low the thermostat is set 😂

I'm in Derby, it was 3c last night, not Siberia but not mild

3degC in Leyton this morning as well…

I let the family set whatever temp they want, then put my sack in a bowl of ice to validate my masculinity.

Turned my boiler flow temp to 45c today just to see what happened. Place is toasty - guessing this is a good sign for a heat pump.

Good for your bills and boiler efficiency in the meantime

yeah - also turned down hot water to 40c. No burny hands when washing dishes!

We ended up paying ~£3.7K (exc rads/UFH) in total for this, obvs including the £7.5K BUS grant free money which the installer dealt with entirely on our behalf.

So in our specific case, at least £2K cheaper than an equivalent gas system.

Wasn't that mate's rates though?!

Your installer's quote to us for pretty much the same deal was £17,258, which after the grant would have left us £9,758 to pay. I'm pretty sure I could get a new gas boiler system for less than that.

I wish I could find someone to install a Vaillant ASHP for £3.7k!

😂

#factcheck

Ah shiet, busted blol !! 😳

Yeah, our installer is a mate but his initial quote wasn’t far off yours… Man’s still gotta eat. We whittled it down by getting our builder to dig the pipe trench and lay the slab, and by deleting a few bits like the buffer tank. The labour is the prime cost, our installer is a designer & coordinator who subs out all the actual work, so shaving off the groundworks made it affordable.

I’ll admit that being able to negotiate these things is a very privileged position to be in…

British Gas will do a Vaillant system if you ask for it, worth a shot.

True stories from @Mr_Smyth and @gillies meanwhile the air source heat pump sets a PB...

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I should clarify - the parts of the house with big rads was toasty. The upstairs was tiny wee things from the 70s in them that are clogged up so those rooms were cold. But they'll be replaced soon!

My business partner just won that one I think. Their heating hasn't worked for the past 3 years, and they've just not bothered to get it fixed.

This is how I imagine them

You should be aiming to simulate ~30-35deg flow temp for this time of year; you’ll only reach your max design flow temp of 40-45deg when it’s sub-zero outside.

With these low temps in general, what is the prevention of legionnaires? (I'm only half paying attention so may be blindingly obvious)

Don't drink water from your radiators.

quite a bit of insulation left to do (i'm also in glasgow so possibly a bit colder here) - floor isn't completed yet. I also need to get into the attic and make sure the insulation covers the whole ceiling as I know there are gaps atm.

more seriously than @sohi - it's not a problem unless you have a hot water cylinder. We don't store any water with a combi so it's not a risk

Yeah with a combi I'm not worried. I thought the ASHP systems use a tank? Or have I misunderstood.

They have it programmed to run to high heat every week to kill off any bacteria.

Or at least that’s what I’ve been told

Insulation in our down-to-the-studs reno.
The wood you see is 2x4 studs.
About 2 1/2 inches of spray foam on all exterior walls and the roof of the attic. As well as preventing heat loss it blocks a lot of noise.

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That's correct