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Hello all,

I have just signed up here in the hope that we may get some advice. We are now both retired, my partner is an electrician, worked for the electricity board, the quarry company and ended up back with the electric board under their new name. He's a great fella, but not too hot with computers or phones, so I have signed up and will do the typing for him if that is OK.

We live in a middle terraced cottage, high up, in Cornwall. We have put in good windows and insulation stuff up in the roof, and when we had the floor dug up for the radiation thing we got the fellas to put some insulation under the new floor, so we are all set there. We cannot do anything with the walls as they are granite a couple of feet thick. The place was built for the old quarry men in the victorian times.

Our pressing problem is our heating. We have an oil boiler in the outhouse at the back that is on its last legs, it went in maybe 30 years ago. We used to have a log stove in the parlour but the cost of the logs got too high, so we took it out and blocked the chimney up. The oil is expensive, and we use a couple of electric fires to warm the front room a bit and save a bit of oil, but the electric is now expensive too.

We have had a read here, and some of it has gone right over my head, but my Jack thinks he knows about some of it. He wants us to get a wood pellet boiler put in, as we can get a grant of some sort for that. I'm not sure, so if there are any experts on these things here any advice would be welcome.

We have no gas out here on the moors, just the electric and oil. The electric is not the best, Jack does not have a good word to say about it, and he worked for them for most of his life.

This cold weather spell has got us thinking, and worrying about what may happen in future. We have some small amount of savings, but not a lot. We do have some solar panels, we took out an extra mortgage for them about ten years ago, but that is all paid off and we still get the cheque for them every quarter, which is a blessing.

I will have a go at asking some better questions in the right places here, but thank you for letting me join. I hope we can be of use in some way. Jack knows an awful lot about electrics and the machines in the quarries, and can fix damned near anything, he puts his hands to, but it is a bugger to get him to use a keyboard!

My concerns with pellet burners, another fuel market (small one at that) which can essentially dictate the price & forces you to buy in great bulk to better the price, & reliability of the auger that trickle feeds the supply, loading of big bags, storage (dry air) for the big bags.

We looked at one years ago & decided against.
How big is your solar array, ..your starter point in all this.
Have you researched an air source heat pump with a solid cop rating? (likely your husband has knowledge of them) ..even for just one or two "core rooms"

No chance of any key walls (most weatherblown aspects) having internal foil faced insulation or exterior insulation put on in a piecemeal manner to see how it changes the indoors environment?

What temperature & moisture levels? water penetration.

Preumably the floor fix for gas you alluded to was radon?
How thick was the sub floor insulation? type & value?
Somewhere on youtube there is a stone mid terrace cottage that had a heat pump fitted that worked out well, presumably you have a large enough rear garden? to place it 1.5 metres from a neighbours?property border?
As your fella is technically minded get him to read the comprehensive basics of the author John Cantor "heat pumps for the home" ..tell him if he wants to burn money buy the book, BUT theauthor has a very comprehensive website with nigh on as much detail on it for free! (keyword search on forum will bring up a thread on the book & site link)

Any restrictions as to the cottages, eg, door straight onto the street? restricted permissions die to heritage aspects etc?

Rooms, size, insulation types all help the guys on here do math as to renovating, but the key mantra has always been "insulate, insulate insulate" ..heat retention with minimal losses means minimal wastage & lower bills.

Any suggestions here will involve stiffinfg as much modern thin insulation as possible everywhere.
Someone will want an idea of altitude and nearby towns to get an overview of local weather,, your seasonal & annual solar yield & more, so get ready with the detail.

The idea of taking out the burner? ..well if you get logs free & can store well then proper year+ seasoning yields more heat even if it is low grade, split & air dried some nights, weeks , months of free fuel is better in my mind than reduced options with an intermittent moorland energy supply.

Location dependent, the basic premis of an ASHP (abbreviation of Air Source Heat Pump) is put in one unot of energy get 3 (ish) out as possibly main heating on less cold months & secondary in the worst months, not perfect but pretty good which is where the cop rating comes into play ..bit best explained in a book or begrudging use of a computer.

These next few winters are going to be more of the same it seems..
As "get me by" heating when not mobile what do you use?
For instance a heated seat cushion (for bum & back) with a human on top is low energy & effective (a non bed electric underblanket) decent fleece on top?

Any electric heaters? away from the walls or well sheilded from behind to reflect.more back & not under windows?
Have you used a flir type heat camera to assess which rooms / areas are worst for heat losses?
Ditto an i/r dot thermometer to understand temperature differs for your walls / ceilings / floors

All that builds a picture for folk here to advise & recommend remotely.
Answering takes time, we have folk from all ends of the uk & elsewhere in modern, old, & older properties, barns etc.. so thick walls & stone have been covered at some point by some folk, we moved forums & lost a lot of folk in the sudden transition along with maybe 15? years of project detail, pictures & the like, so we are starting over in many cases, folk are still finding us after 15 months? here.

With your floor done & loft presumably comfortably exceeding minimum insulation values how are you for GENUINE renewable / energy saving grants down your way?

He also does a sap raring for his home on another video.
NB, the example is for a wet radiator air source system tied into the hot water tank, NOT an ashp that has a heating & cooling air blowing "cassette" to one or more rooms.

Nowty for instance fitted diy a small, basic ASHP this summer ..as part of his tinkering ..including pictures, it is not meant to be the whole house heating (it isn't) but very useful example as to tech used in many climates for 30+ years to tweak / improve comfort levels accordingly.I

Many have decent filtration of dusts & pollens (particulate filtration) & aid moisture control dehumidifying rooms, can run in reverse as air conditioning if needed, they do have to run defrost cycles in bad weather & this is part of he learning curve as to overall efficiency (see the book, available in paperback & for e-readers)

If walls are not possible to breach, how about pipework options via a roof tile, or similar?

Some of us have heat pumps in our electric vehicles which are nigh on instantaneous heat delivery, & frugal when driving a fully electric vehicle, ..but not as efficient as the frugality of heated seats for cooler cabin comfort.

You might have noticed our chatter about induxtion hobs, air fryers & modern multicookers which play a part in knocking back energy use as modern replacements for older style hobs, ovens etc.

Cheap energy days are over, its time to adaot & survive, put bluntly.

Hi and welcome!

Your solid walls can have their insulation upgraded should you wish. The choice is IWI or EWI (internal wall insulation or external wall insulation).

I too would recommend against the wood pellet boiler. You have to deal with a supplier who can change the price or could go bust. And the pellet boilers are complex machines with lots to service and lots of parts to fail. A heat pump would be a much better choice.

Welcome,
The cheapest way to get the heating is a air to air Heat Pump (HP) as against a air to water HP. These are much cheaper units to install and are more efficient and therefore cheaper to run and do not take up room space with rads. They also save on having to increase rad sizes etc. One of the side advantage of the air to air HP is that it dries the air a little and i believe this is an advantage in damp Cornwall.

This however does not provide hot water. A good option here is to use any excess from your solar PV to heat a hot water tank assuming you have one already and it is very well lagged. If not then a instant shower is the best option and i can recommend the Mira Sport which is a inbuilt power shower with injected air to improve the sensation.

You could consider fitting batteries and this would allow you to use cheap leccy from night time tariffs and make best use of your PV. How big is your PV?

There would be benefit to increasing the insulation on the outside walls where possible. Even a relatively thin layer will have a significant effect , indoors or out but my preference would be indoors to reduce the thermal mass of the building.

__

Hi,

Forum members the below is based on European supplies, but information may be helpfull.

see here for rambling disorganised site........ https://www.bryanhorology.com/renewable ... eation.php
https://www.bryanhorology.com/renewable ... eation.php

Here in France i am asked all the time. But european regulations are very different to the UK.

Passive house standards are a good route, but not easy on a old building to change.

Below is my standard reply to folk who want to go the PV route of independance or reduce the electric they buy in.

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Leslie Bryan, ‘Le Vivray’, Normandy, France. Oct 2022.

The below is an update. And in these uncertain times, i am getting allot of folk asking about creating your own energy.
Its the basics, but i trust it helps you all.

It’s the WILD WEST out there regards RE, Solar industries and installation companies.

I have been R&D independent non-commercial on Renewable energy and True sustainability for over 21 years now, yes things have changed and PV has become more efficient and today a very low cost.

In general, across the world, actual complete systems that do everything are rare and very expensive for what they actually are.
So sorry, but if you are interested in setting up your own systems then you are going to have to sit down and go back to technical college and learn from all the folk who have something and actually running it. Beware, there are loads of armchair wafflers in RE. What is your normal energy consumption in KW’s.?
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Most small off grid systems like to take PV which has a DC output and charge a battery bank and have a standby generator for those murky days..
This battery bank then runs a main Inverter that takes DC at 12v, 24, and 48vdc and converts it to 230vac at 50HZ or 60HZ. Very Few small Main Inverters are actual Pure Sine wave, so some motor driven appliances, micro waves, washing machines etc, may not work correctly.
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Then there are slightly larger systems built around a normal Utilities connected electricity supply. And the PV DC output now goes to a GTI, Grid tied Inverter, that uses the Utilities Grid to sync- with, and then pushes the AC voltage up a few volts and back-feeds to the Utilities Grid, and your meter goes backwards, (not any more but you get the drift). Or you are credited by the utilities for supplying them with green energy. You can also use this GTI created AC 230v for your own use, so the utilities grid is a Virtual Battery. In France you can only connect a max of 3KW system into the EDF.
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Then we have a bigger system that have a small battery, I call a small battery below 40KW, and the main Inverter acts as the battery charger, GTI, and switches over automatically depending on the energy its getting and can also switch back to EDF utilities grid or a standby generator etc.
Each manufacturer has compatibility issues so most systems will have just one manufacturer supplying just their equipment.
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Totally Off Grid system for a normal domestic dwelling, normally has about 15KW of solar panels, AC coupled GTI’s Battery chargers, minimal 45KW about 800ah at 48vdc battery storage, and a standby generator. Hydro is very cost effective and good simple systems are available.
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Then we have serious systems across the world that are commercially installed but then the whole concept of using renewable energy becomes not cost effective as the installation can be silly and very expensive money.
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Okay, so what’s next, sorry it’s a minefield out there with loads of unscrupulous manufactures and very dodgy so-called specialist commercial companies trying to sell you stuff that does not fit my below criteria’s.
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My Criteria’s,…….. Is the product SIMPLE? Is it ROBUST? is it COST EFFECTIVE? can it BE REPAIRED?

SIMPLE, Some RE stuff is over complicated because the manufacturers make more money if its got loads of bells and whistles.
ROBUST, Is its lifespan long? Does it actually run at the manufacturers published outputs? and can it take harsh conditions, and is it easily repairable?
COST EFFECTIVE, do the financial figures add up.


Page 2, Leslie Bryan, ‘Le Vivray’, Normandy, France. Oct 2022.


REPAIR, Last year this was possibly not an issue, as most commercial manufacturers tended to do a swap out if the product was faulty. But today, with shaky supply lines and specialist electronics that are superseded very quickly, products should be repairable. My Ethos, “ Make it once and keep it going for the sake of the Planet”. But sadly, most commercial folk see no money to be made by having stuff repairable.
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If you have an electric car you want to charge during daylight hours, or a pool to heat etc, then 30KW of PV would suffice. Remember, in winter gloomy dark days you may only get 3KW out of a 30KW PV system.
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What stuff do I recommend? Sorry I cannot publish the Bad, as some companies really do hate me!.
But here is a short list of manufacturers that are okay at present.

One retailer, Online in France, I have used who have delivered what they say they have in stock is OSCARO POWER. They also do the 3KW self-install kit for hook up to EDF utilities Grid, see their web site for further details.

PV, loads of China stuff but LONGI and TRINA are okay and at a reasonable price, LG are very good. Other good manufactures have stopped making PV as their profit margins were reduced.

PV charge controllers for small systems to charge batteries. I recommend 'MIDNIGHT classic 200', made in the USA can handle up to 200vdc of PV and up to 70amps, its not a toy. 'Morningstar Tristar's' also USA, again very well made and very robust charge controllers and very good cost, and just run even in overload conditions. High quality good RE equipment is not available in France, so you will need to use another EEC Country supplier. For USA products I use a Spanish Company who have a UK web site but are actually in Spain, www.prismsolar.co.uk

GTI’s, Grid tied inverters, Sorry can’t recommend any that are in production at this present time. Older ones yes but the utilities insist that the it’s a new GTI machine with all the correct paper work chase.
We here use SMA Sunny boys, toroid type GTI’s. All are second hand/used as they are cheap and good quality.

Main Inverters that change 24vDC and 48vDC to 230vAC 50HZ & 60HZ pure sine wave output, just one commercially made consistent maker called VICTRON, and uses old toroid technology and is based in Holland, (sadly there stuff is made in INDIA but is inspected and tested in Holland).
They only go up to about 4KW output each but you can link 3, max, together to get up to 12KW, but they have a good range of differing machines. The VICTRON main inverters can also AC COUPLE.

Batteries, for normal domestic off grid use then I recommend above 800ah 48vDc 1200ah/60KW is best.
I still recomend Lead acid as it is a static installation so weight is not an issue. ROLLS or SURRETTE based in Canada on the US border, make a range lead acid just for Off Grid systems etc.
In Europe there is BATER in Poland who make Forklift OPZs lead acid batteries and make a Solar range , and Sonnenschein (Germany), who make a range of OPZ’s however these two have manufacturing plants, but may be just importing the basics and assembling rather than controlling the original QC.
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Okay, Over 21 years we have ended up designing and making stuff to my criteria’s, and that makes us very independent, and even published a few books to show others. I am on most good RE Forums across the World where there are some real smart cookies that share their knowledge.
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Page 3, Leslie Bryan, ‘Le Vivray’, Normandy, France. Oct 2022.


PV is from China now, but I have a crystal ball and saw the supply lines and greed coming, so got my stuff way ahead before Christmas 2021. Shared a full pallet of 36off 400w PV panels, 14.4KW, with a friend and got Trina’s through a French Importer Oscaro Power.


Our MAIN INVERTER. The OzInverter was designed and made here, and published a book on how to make a real Simple, Robust and very cost effective 6KW running all day, 15Kw for 20 minutes or so and take surges of up to 50KW. Importantly because of its design it can handle up to 11Kw of AC COUPLING and back charge the batteries. I note in a book review, “This is real, and shows best practice in making an Inverter”

Our Solar Trackers, designed and made here when PV was expensive, that can have 3.2KW of PV each, Simple and Robust and again very cost effective. Been up and withstood hurricane wind conditions. Another book.

Our Wind Turbines. 3 off 3.7m diameter to Hugh Piggotts design, all made here from raw materials, Another small book.

We do AC coupling here big time, but keep the system design simple.

At present doing the R&D on a modern version of a lead acid PLANTE battery. Each is 2v cell about 440ah to 500ah and weighs about 55kg, for 48vdc system we need 24off. As you use the PLANTE battery the amperage improves. Long Life expectancy with the PLANTE is about 25 years. Each battery cost about 240 euro in materials to make. Yes, doing another book.

Solar PV systems, 9.6KW array, roof arrays and wall arrays. Another book.

And of course we are also writing our complete book on RE and Sustainability Project, as after 21 years we are nearly finished with our 12 buildings and 10 buildings with separate electrical installation with dwellings up to Passive house standards. But its a large book and going to be very costly to print. Somewhere between 400 to 600 pages, again loads and loads of colour photos and that wonderful empirical evidence again. Also, a few stories from across the World from folk who do.

One day soon we will have an open weekend. Might even do some short week or weekend courses, and yes we have individual accommodation, and we have a solar PV heated SALT Swimming pool.

I am just, as the Mrs says, A boring mechanical engineer.
I trust the above helps?

Wow, so much really useful help, thank you so much! Some has gone woosh! over my head but I am very grateful and I will try and look up the things mentioned and learn a little more as we go.

I can answer some of the questions, but bear with me if I get things a bit mixed up, Jack's out with the dog at the moment, I'll try and get him involved later.

First the easy bits that I know about.

The weather here is mild, wet, very windy at times, we are about 300 foot up in the wilderness part that looks like it should be on the moon. The Eden Project is just a few miles away, for those that have been there, we are up on the higher ground and the pits and quarries around us are not working now.

We have 12 solar panels, they cover the whole roof that gets any sun, and I think they can give us about 3kW on a good day. We have a little display that shows how much they are producing (at the moment it is almost nothing!).

Because we are in the middle of a terrace of what were two up two down cottages the outside walls are not large and we have a single storey extension at the back for our kitchen and bathroom (the side that doesn't get the sun) that is insulated as it was built about ten years ago at the same time as we had the solar panels fitted. The extension has a slate roof like the house and that comes right up to the bottom of the landing window. Jack's filled that roof space with insulation as well. loads of the stuff!

This used to be a tied cottage that went with Jack's job at the quarry, but we had the chance to buy it very cheaply about 30 years ago, so were able to do some improvements, like put in the inside toilet and bathroom and move the kitchen to the extension. Jack did a lot of that himself and made sure there was a lot of insulation everywhere, as that side of the house gets the worst of the weather when it blows. You cannot move in the roof for all the insulation he has put up there!

The front wall gets sun and doesn't get the worst of the wind, and I don't think we can easily insulate it. It is rendered and limewashed and we like the look, and it matches our neighbours. The rooms are already small so we would not want to make them smaller with insulation. We have kept the original wooden shutters inside, and close those over the double glazed windows in winter and they really help.

The radiation thing was radon gas and the quarry people dealt with that before we bought the house. They took up the old wood floorboards and dug a big hole into the earth, with a red plastic sheet in it and a pipe that leads out to the back garden and up the wall. We had about four inches of white foam insulation put on top of the red plastic before they filled the lot in with concrete. This was all about 30 years ago, not long before they offered to sell the house to us.

I am pleased that my suspicions about the wood pellet boiler have been vindicated, the thing sounded far too complicated to me I can't be done with complicated things as we get older I want it all to be as simple as can be.

I will try and put some thoughts together when Jack gets back and, if that is OK, ask some questions in the specific areas here about heat pumps and pellet boilers, the latter just to try and put a stop to his idea. Wood here costs a fortune as it is, as none grows near so firewood gets brought by lorry from Devon mostly. Any way we are not able to open up the fireplace now as when the stove was taken out the old chimney was cracked and the stone was rotten so it was filled up with concrete and capped with slate on the top.

it is going to take me a while to post again as there is a lot here to absorb and it is all new to me and I don't want to waste peoples time asking daft questions I need to fix in my own mind what I think we might be able to do.

thank you again and best wishes to all, Bridget

Welcome. We have a heat pump and it is great. No maintenance except clean 2 filters once a year and ours heats water for radiators and washing etc but our sons have air to air heat pumps and they are wonderful. Even less maintenance and very cost effective ie 3 times as much heat energy out as electrical energy put in, extra energy collected from the air.

The mantra here has been, and probably still is, insulate, insulate and insulate. Sometimes easier said then done!

marshman wrote: ↑Mon Dec 12, 2022 9:42 am Welcome.

Yes welcome Bridget and Jack

I won't be able to offer much help as, whilst we have had 4kW of solar panels for 10 years, which although not oriented ideally have paid back, we have only had a battery for just over a year and it has been a revelation in how it enables us to be self sufficient for early March to mid October in electrcity. Now I am investigating using cheap early morning elctricty to power us through the day. Lots of information here that had I been aware I would have made different choices for my battery.

Secondly, forget the pellet boiler. not much to recommend them in my opinion. Complicated, can be temperamental especially if not fed with the right quality pellets at the right moisture content. Problems storing the pellets (bulk and dryness), cost and reliability of supply, not many around so often difficult to get technical support, and I am not convinced about their "green" credentials- if they every had any.

Sadly I agree. I worked for a firm that imported some hot air pellet heaters 20 years ago and have one in my shed you are welcome to. It takes up a lot of space and the fan is a bit noisy for a domestic setting (though no worse than the one I use to distribute heat from my log burner but I put up with that). It would be ideal for heating a little used space like a scout hut/village hall with sporadic occupancy.

The trouble was the pellets got expensive even 10 years ago, £70/tonne initially and £230 by 2010, I lost track after that.. Also storing pellets can be a problem as they a hygroscopic and in damp air revert to being sawdust.

I also snagged and serviced a Kunzel 25kW pellet boiler that was badly incorporated into a solar thermal heating system for a block of 8 flats in Brixton. Because it was integrated badly with the solar it ended up working almost continuously in winter and basically wore out in 5 years.