Ground Source Heat Pump (NLC)

[timmsky]

Hi Iain,

I take it Forres falls under your patch? Victoria's folks just got planning permission for an awesome eco-home build of her dad's own design so I'll pass your details on.

Cheers,
G

Indeed it does Graeme - and you know me, i'll do anything for V

[timmsky]

Happy to be corrected, just was commenting on what I had read in the past.

Ps rough cost for a 10KW wind turbine?!

No worries, happy to spread the good word

Oh and a good quality 6-8kW turbine will be £23K fitted, working and commissioned. For a 10kW budget another £3-5K. Not cheap but around a 10 year payback and then you can kiss S&S / EoN etc goodbye...

[tut]

Iain, will it supply 147KW/hrs per year for when EON kick me off my scheme?

tut

[timmsky]

Iain

I'll post up the basics for a rough quote as there are other people on here that are interested and then I'll PM you my other details:

Basics for a sizing and quote would be the following:

Size of house (m2) heated floor area 141m2 got that figure from the energy survey
Age of house Built in 1983-1984
Construction type (timber frame, brick, log cabin, tin shack etc)Concrete block thats rendered, got that from the valuation survey
Level of insulation/glazing Insulation not sure but has double glazing
Hot water requirement (I'm guessing average family use, i.e. not B&B levels) Yeah average family use
Area of land around the house - this determines whether you could accommodate loops or not My plot is about 0.4 hectare including the house and garage, got that from my deeds

Will your quote including fitting all the pipework and radiators in the house or will I have to get a seperate plumber in for that?

BTW - depends on what you think is a scary quote, of course healthy SE discounts apply

I like this

Hi Kev,

Your house will have a heat loss of around 7.7kW so I would recommend a Nibe 8kW 'Fighter 1240' all in one unit. For this you would need to install 500m of ground loop which you should be able to fit on 0.4ha (1 acre). Depending on the site survey we may have to double trench but this shouldnt alter the groundworks cost much as most guys can dig 2m deep without too much difficulty. Of course this also assumes you have a good depth of relatively soft stuff before you hit bedrock.

Budget cost for this type of install would be around £11k, less your 30% grant bringing it to under £8k. I will use this info and the other you sent to me by email to get you a written quote. If you think it's in the ballpark, let me know and I will arrange for an installer to call you regarding the radiators. FYI our quotes include heat pump and associated installation equipment, ground collectors, manifold chambers, all connectors etc, installation, delivery and commissioning. The only extras in your case would be the radiator system and the ground works to dig the trenches.

I will apply a healthy SE discount to your quote but for obvious reasons I don't want to post that on the board.

Cheers,
Iain

[timmsky]

Iain, will it supply 147KW/hrs per year for when EON kick me off my scheme?

tut

WTF are you running there, a Mary-Jane farm?? I know you also have 3ph there too but maybe you wouldn't use so much electricity if you didnt have all those carbon mega-positive halogen heaters?

I should pop over and do you an energy survey

How many units did you use in total over the last 12 months? Is the heating still by oil?

I reckon you could save a fortune by going geothermal and with your disability there are other schemes open to you for grant assistance....

[tut]

Stopped using oil around seven years ago Iain when we went onto the Stay Warm scheme. Everything in the house is now electric, hence the 147,000 units in the past 12 months. I pay £102/month for that, and with a unit at 15p, that works out at around £22K per year if I was on a normal deal, so this is a deal I do not want to lose.

tut

[timmsky]

Stopped using oil around seven years ago Iain when we went onto the Stay Warm scheme. Everything in the house is now electric, hence the 147,000 units in the past 12 months. I pay £102/month for that, and with a unit at 15p, that works out at around £22K per year if I was on a normal deal, so this is a deal I do not want to lose.

tut

Interesting - the electric heaters you are using will be at best 100% efficient, a typical ground source heat pump would be in the region of 350-450% efficient on radiators, so for every kW of energy in you get 3.5-4.5kW heat out.

Of course you would have to have a wet system fitted and that may prove costly in your place if you had the old system ripped out? You may also need to replace old radiators if still there with newer ones. Still, it's an option, after all we all need to save money

[tut]

Doubt if I would live that long Iain, so would stick with the devil I know.

tut

[Kev]

Spot on Iain, thats better than I was expecting. I'll be in contact

[Kev]

Well I'm half way through the trenches!! Taking A LOT LONGER than I was expecting but I'm getting there.

[MacK]

That looks long!
How many are you doing?

[Kev]

There will be 2 trenches. Its a 400m collector going in, so 200m up and 200m down.

[KevD]

HI,

If anyone is looking at turbines give me a shout. I work full time for a charity covering everything from 5kW turbines to 10MW windfarms, development to construction and operation. Nothing to sell you but happy to let you know what we've used, what's worked and what hasn't. I haven't personally covered as much of the heat side, focused on elec generation.

The new FiT means there is a whole lot of money to be made out of small renewables - and the income is tax free if the electricity is used at your main home.

golden rule - start off by minimising your energy usage rather than trying to generate heat or electricity through renewables means, efficiency is the cheapest and best way to cut bills.

Kev

[scott_e]

very nearly purchased a house recently with GSHP before the wife overruled it ... would be interested to know how you get on.

[james]

We installed a log burning boiler 2 years ago for hot water and central heating after buying our house that doesn't have mains gas. Costs about 1/3 the price of LPG gas. Watch out for the so called "grants" they are so restrictive in who and what gets installed and in my experience they just add the grant on top of their costs anyway. We just choose the installer and technology and paid for it. Same goes for FiT - needs to be a specific model and boiler. Totally misses the point.

Next stage will be solar thermal for summer hot water when its too warm to use the wood boiler.

Another option could be air to air heat collectors. Apparently they work well and dont need loads of pipes in the ground.