Free Storage Heater Experiment

[nowty]

My insulated spade / blade connectors arrived today.


So connected up the heater elements without cutting any wires so it can easily be reverted back to so called smart working if required.


Final installation.



But not cold enough for a proper 6h test run tonight so will have to wait till Sunday night.

[nowty]

Did the test run last night and messed up the turn off time by setting the wrong day. I only noticed it was still on at 10am after it had been on for 10.5hrs.

So its had a good test and the small "Boiler room" is, well boiling hot, total overkill, in fact the heatpump has not been on for hours.

Its now in operational service, but as its relatively mild it might not get used again for quite some time.

[nowty]

I decided another test last night, this time to only boost the storage heater for 1 hour towards the end of the cheapslot. Just nice and warm today, so I think I will keep the 1 hour boost for the winter period with additional cheapslot hours if the outside temperature drops as its likely to do at the end of the week.

[nowty]

Another test run last night as it was below zero overnight so boosted for the full 6 hour cheapslot.

Perfect, house up to heat by breakfast time with heatpump only occasionally running. Nice amount of heat coming from storage heater, but not too hot like when I accidently had it for 10 hours.

So I think my storage heater capacity in the whole house is now about right for all conditions with the help of the heatpump and I can vary the boost by changing the number of hours boost during cheapslot hours with simple changes with the WiFi socket App.

The only sad thing is I seem to be reaching a final steady state of fun and games with experimenting, installing and changing stuff.
Maxed out on PV, ripple wind farm, battery storage, two EVs, heatpump, storage heaters, hot water storage, etc ................... or

[Moxi]

Congratulations and definitely a moment, don't worry you will soon be looking into the next refinement - probably time to consider larger (Wp) panels in a few positions to increase harvesting potential no doubt, or perhaps building your own carbon bromine plating battery ? or even making an undershot water turbine for your private river!

Moxi

[Stinsy]

Another test run last night as it was below zero overnight so boosted for the full 6 hour cheapslot.

Perfect, house up to heat by breakfast time with heatpump only occasionally running. Nice amount of heat coming from storage heater, but not too hot like when I accidently had it for 10 hours.

So I think my storage heater capacity in the whole house is now about right for all conditions with the help of the heatpump and I can vary the boost by changing the number of hours boost during cheapslot hours with simple changes with the WiFi socket App.

The only sad thing is I seem to be reaching a final steady state of fun and games with experimenting, installing and changing stuff.
Maxed out on PV, ripple wind farm, battery storage, two EVs, heatpump, storage heaters, hot water storage, etc ................... or

Surely the next step is to have that gas meter removed?

[Moxi]

Noooo keep the gas meter for when all that new fangled green hydrogen starts to flow - although I have heard it said that it will be too cheap to meter, oh no hang on that was nuclear power wasn't it and that turned out to be a bit of a fib if I recall correctly

Moxi

[nowty]

There are always a few refinements on my mind but its now getting to diminishing rates of improvement, all low and even medium hanging fruit has now been picked.

Some things on the ideas list are,

3 upstairs windows to upgrade, the final ones.
An air to air heat pump which doubles as an air conditioner in summer.
Increments to insulation.
Replace the main roof 4kW PV system with a 6kw one and integrated into the roof.
Heat recovery ventilation system.
Increase the size of a couple of radiators to be more heatpump friendly.

But, ditch the gas meter, not a chance, its only £100 a year to have a guaranteed gas supply for backup of hot water, heating and cooking.
Overall I still prefer cooking with gas but I do use my single induction hob.
I have a perfectly good condensing gas boiler integrated in parallel to the heating system which I service myself.
Probably knock off many thousands of of pounds of house value by no longer being on gas mains.

[Moxi]

Idea number two has merit I think, especially if you made it from redundant fridge and freezer parts

Isnt it Mart?? who installed a few of these for heating and cooling a few years back ? IIRC they provide a sensible double duty of heating and cooling and even here in Wales we sometimes wish we had some summer time ACU, so in the sunny south you would certainly benefit.

Moxi

[Sunrisemike]

On a similar vein, I have found stacking my logs against the good old Orlingo has the dual benefit of drying out the logs and keeping the stove temperature up over night.