What is the best way to heat my house given a clean slate approach?

Property & Home
,
21

HI Dusty,

thanks for joining the debate! - This was actually my initial thinking as well. extreme evidence of this principle is found in volcanic regions where people still like to live in what are essentially caves there so that they light a fire one day and live off the heat for the rest of the week.

I t has been pointed out to me though that the energy spent heating the walls up is the key issue here. Insulating the walls means that this heat gets reflected back into the room so it heats up quicker and so you never get to the “heat sink” level of energy before it is warm enough.

On balance I’m inclined to think that with walls like I have then these will be the least of my insulation concerns and I would rather keep the rustic look rather than make the inside feel like a modern estate house. Could save me a lot in materials and labour as well.

cheers

Alan

22

Hi Stella,

I cant disagree with that. If you reflect the heat inwards then you never need to get it hot enough to use the walls as a heat sink.

I guess it comes down to prioritizing which is most important to insulate, and the cost of doing so vs the benefits. at the room layouts I’m looking at i calculate 500 sqm of wall to insulate so at a cost of say 5 euro psqm (just a random figure plucked from the air) that would be 2500 euro.

i need to think about what the returns will be on that and the loss of the aesthetic feel of living in an old property.

thanks for you comments so far as they are all making me consider what my priorities really are

cheers

Alan

23

As always… one comes up with a solution to suit one’s pocket and ones ideas.

Incidentally, there is a long way between stone-splendour and a modern-box :upside_down_face: :wink: :wink:

24

I remember watching a house build on Grand Designs. The house had large south facing windows or possibly patio doors for sunlight to heat interior thick concrete walls acting as a heat reservoir.

25

I watched an amazing one… many years ago… a build in Israel… the external stone wall panels absorbed the heat from the sun during the day… and then turned 180 degrees to let the stored-heat gently warm the interior of the building during the evening/night… :hugs:

26

HI Graham,

great point again. My father used to work for the CEGB (electricity generation board) in the UK and had a degree in engineering and also used to present this theory - essentially low level maintenance of a steady state is more cost efficient than high burns and turn off.Ii guess similar to driving a car at a steady 50 mph rather than accelerating and breaking to an average of 50 mph.

He has admitted though in later years that in a modern well insulated house with modern thermostatically controlled heating appliances, this may not necessarily always be the best way, especially if the house is empty for most of the day…

seem to be two approaches

1, insulate to death everything so that you can apply a small amount of very controllable heat to each space when required as it will only take a small amount a little time to heat these well insulated spaces up. there will be little heat to spare for a heat sink but arguably in these conditions none is required.

2, leave very thick walls bare (while insulating everything else) so as to use them as a heat sink for any excess heat to be returned into the room. this will require an initial burst of sustained heat at the start of winter and steady low level thereafter.

MY thinking is that a wood burner is more in tune with the second rather than the first, having experienced overly hot open fire/wood-burner heated rooms in the past.

so a choice is possibly between spending money on wall insulation vs spending on building a system to use a woodburner in the central room to be both a primary source of heat for that room and to feed hot water into a wet radiator system, possibly linked to the current electrically heated balon.

If we make an assumption that these two costs are comparable, the issue then moves onto the ongoing cost of heating - wood vs electric. I feel many people talk about the savings moving to a wood burner system, but few seem to take into account the cost of wood and/or the cost of the physical labour in dealing with the wood - even if it is just stacking and loading the fire.

This then also leads to the issue of green electricity generation at my own house - solar, wind and water powered as if i can crack these and ally them to the solar and compost hot water generation mentioned earlier then i can have the possibility of a carbon neutral house.

Any thought on that would be great, or maybe that would be a new thread?

cheers

Alan

27

amazing things…

https://www.tulikivi.com/en

28

HI Micheal,

yup the house has a south facing double doorway so big that we still needed a top window to fill the frame and south facing windows a 6 ft guy can up in. No windows facing north.

The guys who built this house several 100 yrs ago knew what they were doing!!! :wink:

I guess the same principle would apply to well insulated walls with double glazed windows facing south? i’e, you would get the heat in, it would reflect off the insulated panels and bounce around the room heating it faster than if the walls were being used as a heat sink, but with less retained heat for cloudy days?

thinking that this would also apply to the large stone floors?

cheers

Alan

29

Beautiful as well!!

30

Our double glazing does not let much heat through, either way… so we open the windows facing the sun… when we want the heat to come in… like today, fantastic weather… (probably snow tomorrow :woozy_face:)

If we are going out, we can close the shutters and the heat still comes in but the house is secure… :thinking:

31

Only if the walls were insulated on the outside of the building else no reservoir of heat. In sunny climes solar would ideally play a big part of water heating in warmer months. I am reminded of an uncle who lived in a large bungalow in Ontario, Canada. He enclosed and glazed an area outside the building and had a number of large barrels of water which released heat in the evening. He did come unstuck though when he installed a heat exchanger in the greenhouse to add warmth to the house. All the plants froze :grinning:

32

I guess that logically would be the issue with double glazing, but then why does solar heating a wall as a heat sink through double glazed windows repeatedly appear as a heating option on those really cool house-building programs - one for me to research obviously.

The shutters are an issue i agree . security vs solar heating.

just found this…

What about sun on double glazing?

Double glazing does not impede solar heat gain therefore it will still allow winter sun penetration. Unprotected double glazed windows will still require appropriate summer shading.

The best solution for managing solar heat gain is to actually shade your North and West facing windows in summer, but allow the sun to stream through in winter. Tinted glass will help reduce heat transfer in summer but equally blocks the valuable solar heat gain in winter. Once the sun is off the glass the double glazing effectively insulates your home from heating up in summer and prevents heat loss in winter.

33

from personal experience… yes, some warmth does pass, but not much. As I say, we open the windows to allow the warm air to enter… wonderful in winter …

In the excessive heat, we keep everything closed including the shutters…during the day… and only open when/if there is some coolness to take advantage of.

34

Unless it were Pikington K glass fitted back to front and reflecting infra red back out rather than keeping it in. Rather unlikely though it is strange that less heat than expected passes through.

35

yup - see earlier - planning to have both hose-pipe solar in the summer and compost heat in the winter to pre-heat the water going into the water tank. Heat exchangers do sound too complicated for me :wink:

Thanks for all the replies on here, have really helped me move onto some practical actions for the next steps.

also now looking at the idea of an all glass porch on the front of the house so it really grabs the winter sun and acts as a kind of heat sink as well as a heat airlock so you don’t lose all the heat when opening the front door. Canopy on top for the summer.

36

These are a couple of things that we’re considering;

Thermal store log burners to give a long and slow release of heat.

Wood gasification boilers and super insulated thermal stores to burn wood very efficiently (90-93%) and then store the heat in a 2-5,000 litre thermal store
https://www.stovesonline.co.uk/wood_burning_stoves/Gasification-boilers.html

Haven’t taken the plunge yet but happy to hear any thoughts on the topic.

37

Hi Ray

Thanks for the link. I am also looking at this type of thing as an option.

FYI the route i have now decided on - having already replaced all the windows with modern double glazing - is

  1. get all the insulation of the downstairs ceiling finished so i can seal this off as an apartment for the winter if i want to - I’m leaving the walls at present as i am going to test the heat retention of the very think stone walls as i like the look of them.

  2. close off the broken woodburner as the repairs would not be worth it

  3. make sure i have enough electrically powered storage heaters to heat the downstairs in these circumstances

  4. Insulate the roof upstairs - already done the windows so this will capture whatever heat escapes from downstairs passively raising the temperature upstairs. this could then potentially be used as part time rooms in the winter with the use of halogen heaters

  5. Connect pre heating hot water system to solar for the summer and compost for the winter

  6. In the future look to set up a stove similar to the one you suggest which will feed into a n integrated hot water and central heating system.

  7. looking at electricity generating options to feed into the house and possibly back into the grid.