Storage Heaters

[Oldgreybeard]

That's the last storage heater in place. On a mechanical timer, will see if it keeps decent time.

I have half a dozen time switches around the house. The only one that is absolutely rock solid and always at the correct time, is a very old Smiths mechanical one, driven by a synchronous motor. It seems that the national grid still maintain the "exactly 4,320,000 cycles per 24 hour period" rule, so that timer maintains very good time. The only snag with it is that it forgets the time if the power goes off.

All the digital time switches I have drift a bit over the course of a few months. Annoying having to go around and periodically adjust them, especially as almost all of them are controlling things to come on during the cheap rate period.

[Joeboy]

We had to light the WBS two nights ago due to the overcast weather - not so much for the warmth to the house but to dry the clothes on the pulley maid. Last three days generation has all been sub 5kWh for the day.

Moxi

Sad news that.
Our SH's are offsetting a lot of what would be WBS lifting.
Single unit 12 hours after power off.

Triple unit that heats home core. Again, 12 hours after power off.

[Oldgreybeard]

Still no heating here. Had to resort to turning the aircon on in the bedroom again two days ago, as it was getting a bit too warm. Currently sat here with the hall thermostat reading 22.0°C. Just pointed the IR thermometer at the stone floor, and that's showing that the concrete slab is still sat at 21.9°C. Lot to be said for having loads of insulation, there's 300mm of foam insulation under that slab, so it doesn't lose much heat to the ground and works as a giant low temperature storage heater.

floor temp.jpg (44.02 KiB) Viewed 1291 times

[Joeboy]

Still no heating here. Had to resort to turning the aircon on in the bedroom again two days ago, as it was getting a bit too warm. Currently sat here with the hall thermostat reading 22.0°C. Just pointed the IR thermometer at the stone floor, and that's showing that the concrete slab is still sat at 21.9°C. Lot to be said for having loads of insulation, there's 300mm of foam insulation under that slab, so it doesn't lose much heat to the ground and works as a giant low temperature storage heater.


floor temp.jpg

Enjoy! I am putting the kettle & WBS on.

[Fintray]

Still no heating here. Had to resort to turning the aircon on in the bedroom again two days ago, as it was getting a bit too warm. Currently sat here with the hall thermostat reading 22.0°C. Just pointed the IR thermometer at the stone floor, and that's showing that the concrete slab is still sat at 21.9°C. Lot to be said for having loads of insulation, there's 300mm of foam insulation under that slab, so it doesn't lose much heat to the ground and works as a giant low temperature storage heater.


floor temp.jpg

Enjoy! I am putting the kettle & WBS on.

Aircon on here also, but in heating mode along with the WBS.

[Joeboy]

Still no heating here. Had to resort to turning the aircon on in the bedroom again two days ago, as it was getting a bit too warm. Currently sat here with the hall thermostat reading 22.0°C. Just pointed the IR thermometer at the stone floor, and that's showing that the concrete slab is still sat at 21.9°C. Lot to be said for having loads of insulation, there's 300mm of foam insulation under that slab, so it doesn't lose much heat to the ground and works as a giant low temperature storage heater.


floor temp.jpg

Enjoy! I am putting the kettle & WBS on.

Aircon on here also, but in heating mode along with the WBS.

[Oldgreybeard]

Our heating will come on when the room temperature drops below 21°C, as we find we like the house to be warmer now, as we get older. I doubt it'll get below 21°C for a while yet, only takes a small amount of solar gain to keep the house temperature up. For the heating to go on will need a few days of consistently cold weather. Just the odd overnight dip down into single figures has next to no effect, as it take around 48 hours for the house to respond to outside temperature changes.

That's a mixed blessing. The long decrement delay time does make the house temperature pretty stable, but it also means that when we need heating or cooling we need to try and pre-empt changes, so when it turns cooler I need to try and second guess what the professional weather guessers are suggesting and then try and make sure I start out heating our floor slab up well before we really need the heat.

I dearly wish I could automate this, but local weather variations down in this fairly deep valley have a disproportionately large effect and are very hard to predict. Something as simple as a 20 to 30 degree shift in wind direction can make a big difference to the local outside temperature.

[Joeboy]

We are now 21.6 degs upstairs and 21.2 degs down, a very even whole home heat. Storage heaters have been off for 4.5 hours. 11 degs outdoors.
SWMBO is saying it is too hot! This bodes well for Winter.

[Oldgreybeard]

I have a theory that we are comfortable with slightly lower temperatures if the whole house is close to being the same temperature, so there is no temperature change when going from room to room.

Our old house was dreadful, despite all the work I did to try and improve the insulation etc. We'd have the living room a couple of degrees warmer than the rest to keep it comfortable, and that temperature was always hotter than we keep our whole house here. Despite that we just don't ever feel the this house is cool, if anything it feels the opposite.

Weird thing perception.

[Joeboy]

I have a theory that we are comfortable with slightly lower temperatures if the whole house is close to being the same temperature, so there is no temperature change when going from room to room.

Our old house was dreadful, despite all the work I did to try and improve the insulation etc. We'd have the living room a couple of degrees warmer than the rest to keep it comfortable, and that temperature was always hotter than we keep our whole house here. Despite that we just don't ever feel the this house is cool, if anything it feels the opposite.

Weird thing perception.

21 is my perfect temp, getting down to 19 is red alert territory! We are £4 per day to heat the whole house, fully charge the stack and put 90 miles range on the at the same time . Then remove whatever the daily take has been at WT1. (3p to £5 depending).
Cold spots are a comfort killer. Eradicate them and quality of life improves significantly.