Storage Heaters

[Joeboy]

The latest SH ran well through the night and we could feel the difference imparted to the home. Not sure if it's wishful thinking but this latest one seems to be placing us in goldilocks territory for SH's. A bit like the 6th Pylontech managed to do.

My goal for 2022 was sub 5MWh gas consumption. Can't see that being a problem going on performance so far!

Without a doubt the half tonne of thermal mass has severely flattened any peaks and troughs in the heating/cooling cycle. My mind pictures adobe mass around a WS when I think of TM. Just goes to show that as long as the house is reasonably insulated the mass can be modular!

[Joeboy]

I am quite astonished at the outcome of a full month concentrated effort to stay away from gas use.

Jan 17 E 468kWh G 4123kWh total 4,591wh

Jan 21 E 650kWh G 3179kWh total 3,829kWh

Jan 22 E 1906kWh G 418kWh total 2,324 kWh

I swear the house is a more pleasant place to be without the aforementioned rises and falls in temp. A genuine 90% reduction in gas use, never thought we'd be doing that! The thermal mass woodstove is playing a large part in the reduction too. Happy day indeed!

[nowty]

I am quite astonished at the outcome of a full month concentrated effort to stay away from gas use.

Jan 17 E 468kWh G 4123kWh total 4,591wh

Jan 21 E 650kWh G 3179kWh total 3,829kWh

Jan 22 E 1906kWh G 418kWh total 2,324 kWh

I swear the house is a more pleasant place to be without the aforementioned rises and falls in temp. A genuine 90% reduction in gas use, never thought we'd be doing that! The thermal mass woodstove is playing a large part in the reduction too. Happy day indeed!

I too never thought I'd get my gas down in the winter months. I think my heatpump is similar to your woodstove, in that its not powerful enough to heat the entire house in mid winter, but add a few Storage heaters to the mix and BOOM, it works and as you say a more comfortable temp 24/7.

Whats amazing is our total use of energy is dropping and we have EVs !

Ripple WT1 will effectively cost proof our future leccy bills. Whether the bill will go up or down, does not matter as the rebate should move in sympathy.

I'm half way fitting my latest storage heater which I will write up once its done. Its turned into a bit off a faff cos its one of the newer "ECO" (my ass) compliant with LOT20. But I think I can modify it to my advantage.

[Joeboy]

I am quite astonished at the outcome of a full month concentrated effort to stay away from gas use.

Jan 17 E 468kWh G 4123kWh total 4,591wh

Jan 21 E 650kWh G 3179kWh total 3,829kWh

Jan 22 E 1906kWh G 418kWh total 2,324 kWh

I swear the house is a more pleasant place to be without the aforementioned rises and falls in temp. A genuine 90% reduction in gas use, never thought we'd be doing that! The thermal mass woodstove is playing a large part in the reduction too. Happy day indeed!

I too never thought I'd get my gas down in the winter months. I think my heatpump is similar to your woodstove, in that its not powerful enough to heat the entire house in mid winter, but add a few Storage heaters to the mix and BOOM, it works and as you say a more comfortable temp 24/7.

Whats amazing is our total use of energy is dropping and we have EVs !

Ripple WT1 will effectively cost proof our future leccy bills. Whether the bill will go up or down, does not matter as the rebate should move in sympathy.

I'm half way fitting my latest storage heater which I will write up once its done. Its turned into a bit off a faff cos its one of the newer "ECO" (my ass) compliant with LOT20. But I think I can modify it to my advantage.

Absolutely, I think we are both at a place unimagined a few years ago and it's just going to improve with WT1 & 2. I agree with the similarity between the riverbed heatpump and the woodstove! Mad though that reads

[Stinsy]

I'm half way fitting my latest storage heater which I will write up once its done. Its turned into a bit off a faff cos its one of the newer "ECO" (my ass) compliant with LOT20. But I think I can modify it to my advantage.

Been there!

[Joeboy]

I am quite astonished at the outcome of a full month concentrated effort to stay away from gas use.

Jan 17 E 468kWh G 4123kWh total 4,591wh

Jan 21 E 650kWh G 3179kWh total 3,829kWh

Jan 22 E 1906kWh G 418kWh total 2,324 kWh

I swear the house is a more pleasant place to be without the aforementioned rises and falls in temp. A genuine 90% reduction in gas use, never thought we'd be doing that! The thermal mass woodstove is playing a large part in the reduction too. Happy day indeed!

I too never thought I'd get my gas down in the winter months. I think my heatpump is similar to your woodstove, in that its not powerful enough to heat the entire house in mid winter, but add a few Storage heaters to the mix and BOOM, it works and as you say a more comfortable temp 24/7.

Whats amazing is our total use of energy is dropping and we have EVs !

Ripple WT1 will effectively cost proof our future leccy bills. Whether the bill will go up or down, does not matter as the rebate should move in sympathy.

I'm half way fitting my latest storage heater which I will write up once its done. Its turned into a bit off a faff cos its one of the newer "ECO" (my ass) compliant with LOT20. But I think I can modify it to my advantage.

Thinking on this last night, Jan 21 we had the EV and the woodstove in place. The only thing that has changed is the thermal mass addition to the stove. Yet by shifting gas use for space & water heating to electric we have manage to reduce the kWh of combined power used from grid by 1.505MWh in a single month.

I can only assume that this is a combination of better use of WS through thermal mass, our learning curve on the WS and also the inefficiency of gas boiler?

Regardless, this morning the whole house was sitting at 17 degs and I was a little more casual in my timing for firing up the WS and will be the same for fuel volume used. I know that a kWh is a kWh whether electric of gas, yet it isn't, not in practice?

We've got 6 degrees here today and it bodes well that I am finessing the WS. Previous days have shown that we are good to at a push -1, by then I am fully loading the WS, yet that combination and flexibility in my home system covers us for 90%+ of days in this area. It is very nice to be here, SWMBO gets it completely and continues to throw in excellent ideas for improvements.

Do we need badges for a new subset club of WT1? WT1SH!!! Need to do it in Yoda voice for the full effect. Not sure why but I seem to be having a lot of Star Wars references zipping about in my head at the moment.

[Bugtownboy]

Think you guys have done a super job reducing FF use - I’m sure with fine tuning/experience, this can only improve.

I’ve got it in my head, that a m³ of hardwood is about 1300kW.

We’ve had a relatively mild January and have burnt approx 1m³ between 2 WBS - the sunny days, though, gave us sufficient solar gain to avoid using the one in the ‘day room’ during the day, just using the one in the lounge at night.

We have used the GCH for 45mins just before getting up, although the WBS is still at about 40⁰. We’re getting nesh

Total ‘grid’ use for the month was E 186kWh, G 461kWh - gas is also hob cooking and DHW.

I think we could reduce this by about 15-20% with a little more thought. Will change when we move to a BEV, obviously.

So, total energy use for January was approx 1950kWh

[Joeboy]

Think you guys have done a super job reducing FF use - I’m sure with fine tuning/experience, this can only improve.

I’ve got it in my head, that a m³ of hardwood is about 1300kW.

We’ve had a relatively mild January and have burnt approx 1m³ between 2 WBS - the sunny days, though, gave us sufficient solar gain to avoid using the one in the ‘day room’ during the day, just using the one in the lounge at night.

We have used the GCH for 45mins just before getting up, although the WBS is still at about 40⁰. We’re getting nesh

Total ‘grid’ use for the month was E 186kWh, G 461kWh - gas is also hob cooking and DHW.

I think we could reduce this by about 15-20% with a little more thought. Will change when we move to a BEV, obviously.

So, total energy use for January was approx 1950kWh

I like that, pulling in estimates of kWh use via logs and bundling it. Do you have a guesstimate of softwood kWh per m3? We burn about 60/40 soft/hard as that is what was available. Larch burns really well and seems to be 'almost' hardwood! I am going back on an insulation check soon. Best of fortune to you in the streamlining btb.

[Joeboy]

Nowty, keep an eye out on your new SH for a cumulative effect. The outdoor air temps are improving up here yet on the last 3 days i swear that most recently installed SH is improving in heat output. Lower area was at 18.4 degs this morning. I wonder if the house is balancing out as a whole and there is more left in the heaters each day so the five hour charge window is pushing them North a little each day? Until it hits its thermal switch of course.

[Bugtownboy]

Joe, I’ve had a look around and the figures for kW per measure of logs isn’t consistent - probably because of the variability of species and MC.

Looks like I probably underestimated - Ash at <20% MC gives about 1800kWh per cube, Larch gives about 12-1300kWh.

With your thoughts on SH - don’t forget the TM of the fabric of the house - putting a bit more heat into it I’m sure evens the temps out for longer.