saying hello!

[ivan]

It was put in for a high temperature seasonal mushroom-growing room in a steel barn. Yes, I have heatdumps - industrial fanned radiators. Yes, I could use PV instead, but solar thermal is inherently very much more efficient and Im up to the maximum amount of PV I can put in without doing off-grid setups, which I don't particularly want to do.

[ivan]

...and the thermal store is 4000litres

[Stinsy]

It was put in for a high temperature seasonal mushroom-growing room in a steel barn. Yes, I have heatdumps - industrial fanned radiators. Yes, I could use PV instead, but solar thermal is inherently very much more efficient and Im up to the maximum amount of PV I can put in without doing off-grid setups, which I don't particularly want to do.

Interesting.

I'd have thought that an off-grid solar PV, battery, HP system would be more efficient than solar thermal!

[ivan]

Yes, you're probably right there - but the off-grid battery/inverter setup for an ASHP would be expensive and would degrade over time. Solar thermal is nice and simple which is why I went for it. It's augmented with a 200kW pellet boiler system, so that can take over in poor weather.

[wookey]

Hello Ivan, Nice to have you back here.
I still appreciate you doing me a very cheap thermal survey on a wintery evening circa 2008 and setting me on the most epic trail of DIY EnerPHiting (still not quite finished!)

How did your neighbour manage to set fire to the house? That sounds like a tale worth telling.