With below freezing temperatures forecast this week, it could be a good time to "trial" lower flow temperatures with your gas boiler to see if your house is heat pump ready. You can always turn it back it if things don't work out. Cold days can be very useful. 👍 energy-stats.uk/what-size-he... - ThreadSky

energystatsuk.bsky.social • 103 days ago

With below freezing temperatures forecast this week, it could be a good time to "trial" lower flow temperatures with your gas boiler to see if your house is heat pump ready. You can always turn it back it if things don't work out.

Cold days can be very useful. 👍

https://energy-stats.uk/what-size-heat-pump/

Comments

tomasmcguinness.bsky.social•103 days ago

Amen! Doing this can give you confidence if you're nervous or believe that heat pumps won't work in an house like yours. I did low flow last year and I'm experimenting with even lower temperatures this year. Boiler at 32 during October and house toasty warm!

energystatsuk.bsky.social•103 days ago

But even if you're not that daring, you may be able to use the amount of gas kWh used on each these cold days to give an approximation of your whole house heat loss.

They can't replace a full house heat loss. But useful nonetheless.

energystatsuk.bsky.social•103 days ago

In my pre-heat pump investigations, I dropped my combi temperatures over the course of a year.

Replacing a few rads along the way.

Before I started I was at 70/75C flow for heating!!! 🤯

energystatsuk.bsky.social•103 days ago

To put into context how much has changed over the past few years, it was -1C overnight and the flow temperature coming out of the heat pump into our radiators was 34C keeping the house at 20C inside. 😍

Monitoring by @openenergymon.bsky.social

markcresswell.bsky.social•103 days ago

I did this. I ran my boiler in low temp, weather comp over last winter to see how I’d fare with a heatpump. Used 30% less gas in the process.

mckeann.bsky.social•102 days ago

I’ve been doing exactly that over the last few cold days up here in central Scotland and I’m really surprised by the results.

Our house is an ex council house, built in 1970 with a popular at the time but never to be repeated construction of “poured fines”. The walls are 10 or 12” thick concrete..

mckeann.bsky.social•102 days ago

Which is crap at heat retention and insulation. If we switch the heating off at night at 19 or 20 degrees, it will easily be 10 degrees the next morning. We had a new Combi boiler installed 3 years ago and I assumed at the time that because of the poor insulation and difficulty to improve it….

mckeann.bsky.social•102 days ago

That a heat pump was off the table. But actually at -2 degrees outside last night, and our flow temp at 35 degrees, the house was able to Maintain 17 degC (our setback temp) and it’s very slowly making its way back up to 19 this morning. I guess despite insulation being terrible….

mckeann.bsky.social•102 days ago

It’s not actually needing a big amount of kW to maintain it. Improving insulation is very expensive. Basically involving external cladding (grenfell style 😬) and rough casting over the top. Approx 10K to sort if so not worth it.

mckeann.bsky.social•102 days ago

So if I’d have known this 3 years ago, I’d have fitted a heat pump. But now we have a shiny new boiler, I’m loathe to replace it until it breaks. I think for us, a better idea will be to fit an air to air heat pump (aka air con). Keep the boiler for base load heating and hot water, but have AC….

mckeann.bsky.social•102 days ago

For summer use as we have a lot of solar gain and despite being in Scotland, the house can easily reach 30 degrees C on a warm sunny day which is uncomfortably hot for us and the dogs. So I guess the strategy would be to use AC to warm the house in spring and autumn, where it can probably get….

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