ASHP & triple glazing

[Stinsy]

The wbs will continue to play a role. There will be tweaking I'm sure. We spoke this morning and the defining temperature for the house will be the temperature that swmbo wants the ensuite bathroom to be at for her morning shower.

Basically going to use the ashp to maintain the low temp we want to live in. I see 20 degs bandied about but that's too high for us with the WBS in play. I reckon more like 18.5 degs and the whole home is the thermal mass at that temp.

Who knows though, I'm sure I have a lot to learn.

Have a look at an IR IR heater for the bathroom. I’ve even seen one masquerading as a mirror. Lovely toasty warmth, provides instant warmth to the person rather than the air…

We are a an 18℃ family…

[Joeboy]

On the opposite side so to speak our 40kWh battery stack won't be exporting much to the grid in Wintertime as its going to be needed to run the ASHP. If it does modulate down to 25% of its capacity that's 1.75kW of power demand of which I can expect 500W from the PV even in Winter generation conditions. That power draw on the 3.6kW hybrid inverter points me firmly at a 5kW hybrid inverter come the day. The current unit is 6 years old, I think they last about 10 years?

If you think you're going to get much useful PV energy in winter you are going to be disappointed. For a start days are short, if you're lucky you might get 4 hours of daylight in the depths of winter, but that daylight isn't going to have much useful energy. If it's cloudy you can expect no useful PV energy.

We have about 18kW of panels, albeit not very well aligned. Over the last 11 days they have averaged 3.1kWh per day. That's not enough to cover the losses in the charge/discharge cycle. And it's not even the depths of winter yet. Just before the cloud set in it generated 31kWh on one day.
(The sun's just come out after nearly a fortnight, so we're getting 5kW!)

Our ASHP is nominally 8kW. The maximum electrical draw is just under 3kW, minimum is just under 400W. Once the system has stabilised it will run at the lower rate for some time, but it stills runs at maximum output while heating hot water or starting a heating period, so maybe 3 hours a day at full bore at the moment, with 7C outside temperature. Just an example as this stuff is very installation dependent.

Thanks for the real world experience, appreciated! I am an.optimist so will pathetically cling to my 500W PV hopes until dashed on the shore of reality (around Jan 6th). I have been reading a number of blogs on ashp experience. Looks like, use IO to run HW cycle thru the night is a no brainer and play about with setback times to try and hit a 1/2 degree higher across the home before 05.30hrs. After that it's just the reality of full electric system and we'll see where we get to. I do like the idea of the whole house thermal mass with slow reaction time and dripfeed heat into it. Coupled with weather compensation it looks like a heck of a combination.

It's also worth mentioning that we can easily drop to 13 degs internal temp overnight in Winter if we don't run the WBS or SH's. It will be great to be able to set a bottom to that figure and just leave it to do it's thing. First few weeks will be interesting.

[Joeboy]

Not sure if I posted on this but the new A2AHP in the bedroom is brilliant. Temps are down to 17 degs here and it rained this morning. That's a first in half a year.

Set the A2A to 22degs and whoosh, floods of heat.

[Bugtownboy]

Having a bit of a heatwave here, 36o day time, 27-28o night.

It’s unexpected say the Lanza locals.

Having said that, it’s lovely.

[nowty]

Having a bit of a heatwave here, 36o day time, 27-28o night.

It’s unexpected say the Lanza locals.

Having said that, it’s lovely.

Hope that continues over Dec / Jan as we will be paying another maritime visit to the Canaries.

[Bugtownboy]

Fingers crossed - friends here reckon December/early January are generally good.

February has always been a bit more changeable.

We’re not back until March - missing our usual timings for a Marrakesh trip.

The weather patterns have certainly changed here - generally hotter, although we’ve encountered really heavy downpours - one a few weeks ago was torrential, though you wouldn’t have known it in the morning.

We also had a thunderstorm (a first here for me) a couple of years ago that dumped loads of hailstones - some of the locals were so taken with it - making ‘hail-balls’ and attempting to make hail-men.

Was really freaky.

There again, climate change is just scaremongering.

[Joeboy]

Ooh "Marrakesh", SWMBO mentioned there a few weeks back. Looking forward to hearing how it goes? We had first rain yesterday and temps settled at 20 degs afterwards.

Our golfball size hailstorms have been absent the last few years as has serious Winter storms blowing in from the South. There has been talk the last few years about the local aquifer level too.

In saying that, when a storm.does blow through nothing is done to capture the fresh water. It all passes through the runoff canals and into the sea.

[Joeboy]

Reading an article on the hot water side of ashp. Table showing power out. Even at 0deg outdoors the 7kW ashp runs at a 2.5cop.



For anyone looking at an ashp purchase I'd suggest the energystats blog posts as great reads. Well written, great info and links to related articles

https://energy-stats.uk/arotherm-plus-hot-water-modes/

[Joeboy]

Just had my thought of the week. I can fit the solar I boost from our house to No1's HWT and scavenge any outgoing from his mighty 800W system!

[Bugtownboy]

Ooh "Marrakesh", SWMBO mentioned there a few weeks back. Looking forward to hearing how it goes?

Yep, keep you posted

It was always on the to do list of places to visit but never got round to.

So we’ve decided to work through the list.