Perhaps this should be on the Cheerful News thread… but, after all the comments about fine ash pollution from log fires…
I’ve just checked … and our area is “bright-blue” = “bon” = hurrah 
- Provide highly efficient ventilation such as double flow VMC or heat pump;
heat pumps do not provide ventilation, who writes this stuff?
All told a good step.
Heat pumps are reversible ? Yes they provide ventilation. Not in the strictest sense…but they provide ventilation.
Then in what sense?
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Very interesting, thank you!
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My 2 air to air heat pumps both heat and chill as required.
Yes but no ventilation, in the only sense you can use that term. 
As you have noticed before regarding statistics, they do not quite give the whole picture.
Hong Kong only has a high pollution level because it is the tip of Guangdong Province in China where massive manufacturing is done with few emission controls. A real problem when the wind blows south. There is no manufacturing done in HK any more. I keep forgetting HK now is actually China.
Thanks for the substantiation, but maybe this doesn’t stand up verywell to comparative scrutiny so perhaps it’s just simpler to save time by posting that you instinctively dislike pellet stoves and electric cars. That way others need not waste time rebutting your rather flimsy arguments.
quote=“MCA, post:37, topic:43619”]
You need to plug it in. More than that it needs to be on its own circuit. So the chances of you having a direct circuit where you want to put it is slim. That means carving up yours walls to put one in.
And you don’t make any changes if you install a wood burner or a heat pump? As it happed we just plugged our pellet stove into a nearby plug socket
They run on electronics. If the card goes wrong ( and they do) you better hope that people still stock it. And it will be expensive to replace. Bit like an electric portail which I found out the hard way. I would stay clear of electronics on such a thing.
Maybe you’d feel more comfortable just using steam or water power and a few tallow candles …
They need to be serviced every year. OK if you live near a large town/city. Our rural neighbour has her burner serviced by someone that lives 100 + km.s away because he specialises in that model. Bit expensive.
One should have heat pumps serviced every year (though having watched the servicing, now do it myself) and in most departements you’re legally obliged to have your active chimneys swept once a year.
You have to store the pellets. And there were reports about the quality of pellets on the market. So you have to be careful.
Err, and do your logs not need storing because they arrive every morning in the post?
They are not pretty devices. Ok it is subjective. But they don’t fit well in older houses.
Our house is over six centuries old and we love combining contemporary elements with original ones . The oldest work in our art collection dates from 1542 and the most recent were painted this year. It’s actually easy to do and far more satisfying than antique repro or pastiche.
They are noisy. They are very loud. Yes I have heard one running in a shop selling them. The noise put me straight off.
Sorry, but ours isn’t and it’s not a particularly expensive model, just good Italian contemporary design
Not sure it is cost effective in the long run. Bit like electric cars.
Well our bills have gone down since the stove was installed
I have no problem with electric cars or pellet burners but it is too early to invest.
I’d suggest otherwise, you seem to have big, fairly irrational objections to both, incidentally our pellet stove was about €6.000 cheaper to install than our log burner.
Our wood supplier was saying that a lot of her customers who bought pellet burners are going back to wood burners. Bit like electric cars…again.
Perhaps your wood supplier has a tad of vested interest in traditional stoves, and maybe she does’t sell pellets…
No I would not live in the lakes because of tourism.
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So why did you post that you’d rather live there than in France?
[Sometimes there are more questions than answers - (There Are More Questions Than Answers - Johnny Nash (1972) - YouTube)
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Are these on different floors David. I’m wondering where it/they would be positioned on a new build single story house.
Edit - Found more info on them here Air-to-air heat pumps - Energy Saving Trust
We have a three storey open plan house with pumps on each floor, but despite the possibility of convection, we’ve tended to find that this form of heating is only noticeable in the room where the heater is located. strangely enough our log burner and fan assisted pellet stove seem to move heat through all three storeys.
However, given where you’re thinking of moving to, I’d be thinking more about keeping cool in summer!
Possibly due to the much higher temperature of the log burner.
No, 2 adjoining rooms on the same level, we have a bungalow. Between them they heat, and cool, the whole house which admittedly isn’t large but a bedroom leads off each of them. I can set the temp to whatever I want and if really cold can boost by using the remote to control a fan which has 5 positions.
Even left on in a really warm day like today (without the manually controlled fan) it doesn’t matter although I do switch off as I assume that even on standby it must use a very small amount of power.
Also if the temp goes way above that set at some point, although set to heat, it does gently blow cool air to bring it back down again. This is not the same as the AC setting in high summer when it will really bring down the temp in the room if required.
All in all we are very pleased with it and a comparison of pre-installation electricity plus wood costs, was higher than the current costs of all our electricity, so cheaper than wood. But we made sure to keep the cheminee in the main room just in case of power cuts. In the more than 7 years since we put the first one in we have had 3 fires, 1 in each of 2 winters just for the novelty, and once this last winter when we had a power cut.
To answer your supplementary question, we have positioned them both at one end facing down the longest length of each room. They are supposed to be directional but are not too good with that and also they tend to send the heat downwards, sensibly as heat rises, but if you have any object just there it will interfere somewhat with the heat arriving everywhere.
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Not forgetting you can have 1, 2, 3, 4 -6 fan units from 1 external compressor (depending on the model) so can have greater control on the area being conditioned. Obviously with Davids separate units you could have one heating a space and the other cooling a different space which you cannot do with a single compressor and multiple fan units.
Yes, and I rigged a heavy curtain between the 2 rooms (door has to be open to allow dogs free access outside 
) because the south facing one is obviously different to the west facing one, which also has tree shade and a terrasse overhang.
And in doing so you are invalidating your insurance. Which is your choice. They won’t pay out if something goes wrong.
A few months back a house burnt down in France and very sadly killed all the family because someone did not follow the rules.
And here are the rules…… https://picbleu.fr/les-articles/5-regles-pour-installer-un-poele-a-granule-de-bois-ou-pellet
Heat pumps are on their own circuit too.
If I was the contractor who installed your burner I would pray that nothing goes wrong.
Incidentally, I asked our electrician who is rewiring a house for me to provision for a pellet burner. So if I do decide to have one……and I have not ruled it out….I have a dedicated circuit exactly where I need it.
I am designing and building a small wooden house in Correze, very near the Dordogne river. I was instructed by architect advisers that in order to get planning permission, I shouldn’t have overhangs on the house too large, as it would look like a chalet, and that wouldn’t be accepted.
I have a fair bit of glass on the south wall, and am hoping that deciduous trees planted nearby will provide some shade in summer, and I’m also planning on having grapes and other climbing plants above the veranda on the south side. I’m aiming for maximising the shade from plants during the summer, without impeding the winter sun too much.
I’d have preferred to extend the south roof far out enough to block out the summer midday sun, but we’re having to work around the non-chalet look.
I appreciate the architects’ comments…
But I do know that if one talks things through, face to face, one can sometimes come up with a suitable compromise…
Could you have a chat at your Mairie, to explain why you want the overhangs (to protect the house from excessive heat). With “climate change” being a hot-topic… you might well find them amenable to your plans nowadays… or they might suggest an acceptable compromise… since having trees close to the wooden building might present a fire risk (?)
(I’m only looking for ways to persuade 'em to see your point of view…)
cant’ hurt to try…
and, yes, I know it’s not the Mairie which signs-off on Applications, but they should know what “tweeks” will help a project through the rockywaters… 
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What you could do is rather than extend the roof is build a wooden ‘auvent’ / large porch type thing on the south of the house. And tile it local tiles.
Tastefully done would solve both your problems and would look really nice.
Pinterest is your friend to find a design that you can show to your architect.
Not sure you actually need planning permission for an auvent just a declaration. So you could do it afterwards.
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