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Ady104/08/2023 00:32:21
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6137 forum posts
893 photos

We're making some big mistakes with trees at the moment

The open parkland near me gets grants via the council and they're planting them in useless clumps for speed and efficiency purposes. Stick 'em in the deck and get yer save-the-world cash asap.

They should be planting them boulevard style so that as people move about they are in permanent shade

Trees absorb massive amounts of sunlight and heat and this needs to be taken advantage of

DiogenesII04/08/2023 06:38:42
859 forum posts
268 photos

Trees are better growing in clumps, they more quickly establish an active working community of other organisms and a local microclimate that contributes to their establishment and ameliorates the threat of windblow as well as providing a more useful habitat for other forms of life.

Boulevard planting always delivers higher rates of tree mortality and has much less cooling affect as clump planting.

 

Edited By DiogenesII on 04/08/2023 06:46:44

Speedy Builder504/08/2023 06:52:28
2878 forum posts
248 photos

We installed our own air/air heat pump. We specified the contents of the kit based on room sizes and insulation values (graph supplied ranging from poor to excellent insulation). Part of the purchase included a technician visit to make all gas connections, evacuate the pipes and charge with gas (The units are pre gassed and no extra gas normally required). We installed for a 2 bed house for £3,000 against £10,000 for a complete install ! AND where we live, we often experience -12 deg C sometimes dipping lower. Although not helping the climate, the system is reversible and can be used as air con in summer when the temp last year reached 42 degrees. Our installation price included the cost of laying a small concrete pad, providing the isolated mains supply cable, isolator switch and fuse box etc.

Our friends replaced their gas boiler with an air/water system. No change made to the old radiator system and installation was done in less than a day.

On the BBC doc, it stated that all rads need replacing with larger ones etc, that the old hot water cylinder had to be replaced. I can see why, the cylinder was replaced with a "Heat store" but if the system could produce heat enough for domestic hot water, I don't see the need to increase the size of the rads ??

Bob

Baldric04/08/2023 08:13:36
195 forum posts
32 photos

Nearly 3 years ago, we had an air source heat pump, after we moved to a 1960s detached bungalow. There are several reasons we went for this, no gas in the village, oil tanks was in the way of a new workshop, old boiler was approaching end of life. The cost was about £10,000 I think, that included replacing some radiators, but not all as some were big enough, a new water tank, the old one was end of life as well amd all controls, pumps etc. Apart from an issue with the controller failing, exactly the same controller that can be used with any other system, we have not had an issue. We have felt warm, with the heat on 24hrs a day, we have solid concrete floors but do have cavity wall insulation.

We also now have solar panels, with batteries, we don't make a profit from that over the year, our 4kw system does mean we generated 3000kwh so far this year, but as an electric only household who work.from home, we do see a big difference in import. The amount you can get for export does seem to vary quite a lot, now we are with Octopus, we are getting 16p for each kwh exported, better than we first got with another supplier, so this year may show a better return.

Are these for everyone, probably not, but these are my real-world experiences, are we happy, yes. Would I go for an electric car, not at the moment, but then I regularly go to the office 130 miles away so to get a car with the range I want means it will be big, expensive car as I don't want to stop on that journey.

Baldric

Bob Worsley04/08/2023 10:44:43
146 forum posts

Read my way through all of this thread, what seems to be missing is some real, hard, numerical evidence that heat pumps actually work. By that I mean that the COP really is 3+, even in the middle of winter when the heating is actually needed.

I have bought several air con units from sales. These are a heat pump and are easily converted to a heating type heat pump by simply swapping the air flow through the unit, what was the cold output is now the air input etc. My measured conclusion is that the various compressors and fans take as much energy as the heat pump produces. There is a gotcha here of course, reading books on heat pumps and you finally find that if you want heat output then the air input radiator has to be at least twice the are of a similar rated cold output radiator. So these fancy heat/cool heat pumps you can buy are simply not up to scratch. There is very little heat in a cu m of air, and the air flow rate is a gale. You see these photos of ASHP installations on houses and they have a fan about 500mm in diameter, with the house wall only 100mm away. Why not bolt the ASHP to the wall 3m off the ground and facing into the wind, normally west, so the fan doesn't need to run to get quite a bit of air movement by default. Oh, sorry, looks ugly so the planning department won't allow it.

In the UK a GSHP seems a much better bet. We simply don't get sub-zero temperatures much, even a frost is a rarity. So the ground pipes only need to be 400mm or so underground and at 400mm spacing using 10mm bore pipe. The ground heat rises up from deeper down, gain from sun in winter is zero.

Keep replying, useful info.

mgnbuk04/08/2023 10:46:29
1394 forum posts
103 photos

I don't see the need to increase the size of the rads ??

Beacuse heat pump systems operate at lower water temperatures than gas/oil boilers to get anywhere near the quoted COP valuues quoted ?

My gas powered wet CH runs the rads at 70 C. The rads were apparently sized by the house builder 34 years ago to provide the required room temps at that temperature - and they don't have a lot in hand ! So attempting to run them at the lower temps used by heat pumps (40-45 C ) won't adequately heat the house. Plus the system installed uses 10mm microbore piping which, according to accounts I have read, isn't great for use with a heat pump.

So it would appear that to get adequate heating with a heat pump solution, I will have to replace all the rads and the piping - pretty well gut the house to put that in & I may not have sufficient wall space to get big enough rads in. I suppose I could rip up the floors to install underfloor heating, though. A £5K "incentive" isn't really much of one in this case.

And that is before the issue of heart pump reliability comes in - my direct and indirect knowledge of the reliabilty of these things is not positive. Of 3 systems installed in offices at work, one failed under warranty & one has stopped generating heat out of warranty (not repaired). All freeze the oustide unit in cold, damp weather (typical Autumn / Winter conditions in the Vale of York) - the built-in reverse cycling to heat the outside unit to prevent it becoming a solid block of ice proving inadequate. I had to buy a fan heater to supplement the heat pumps in cold damp waether in the main office . My former employer had a house built in an area without mains gas & this was specified from the outset to use an air source heat pump - lots of insulation & underfloor heating etc. for such a system to work efficiently. When it worked it was, apparently, effective and cheap to run. But the heat pump failed after a couple of years (out of warranty) and repair cost almost as much as a new unit - wiping out any savings. This happened twice to my former employer & once to the new owner of the property after he sold it. When the sytem failed again on the new owner, he had it replaced with a gas boiler operated from an LPG tank in the garden.

I had a wood burning fire installed this Spring (latest spec. suitable for use in smoke controlled areas), so I can heat at least one room independant of gas or electricty.

Nigel B.

Graham Meek04/08/2023 11:11:55
714 forum posts
414 photos

A couple of years back Cinderford was engulfed in smoke due to Forest England burning off loads of felled trees. This was not a one off occurrence and went on for nearly a week. This was part of another ill thought out plan, introducing non native trees.

As regards freedom of choice concerning the fitment of Heat Pumps or Hydrogen heating and cooking systems. The residents of Whitby in Cheshire have a different story to tell. Apparently they were going to be changed over to Hydrogen as part of an experiment whether they wanted to, or not. No freedom of choice there and the implications of such a move are legally mind boggling.

The cheapest form of renewables is "on shore" Wind Turbines. Yet it took 7 years for the one in Bristol to be erected due to the planning nightmare. I wonder if those people who oppose them would think the same when they cannot watch their favorite TV program, or charge their electric car because we do not have enough capacity.

The use of Modular Nuclear plants is another non starter in my book. Not that I am opposed to Nuclear. It is just that I feel no one will want one in their back yard. It could be however that like Whitby in Cheshire, those concerned don't get a say in the matter.

Regards

Gray,

John Doe 204/08/2023 11:28:38
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441 forum posts
29 photos
Posted by blowlamp on 03/08/2023 21:08:03:

Didn't a ship loaded with EV's burn for days when one of them caught fire last week? I think that's the second such event in less than two years. Think of the pollution too.

They're proving to be a real safety hazard and quite impractical when compared with what we already have.

 

Martin.

How many instances of conventional vehicle roadside fires have you noticed over the years - a car sized patch of black burnt melted plastic and mess on the hard shoulder, caused by fires in ICE vehicles - before electric vehicles were available? And how many traffic reports on the radio mentioned a vehicle fire? I notice probably a couple every year - saw one just the other day.

Yes, electric vehicles also have safety issues - as does any machine. Not a reason to condemn them out of hand.

Re the £18,000 price of heat pump installation: Yes, totally agree that is a ridiculous figure. I suspect that plumbers are cashing in on the intelligent rich part of the population who will the first to look into this and have it fitted. Prices will come down as more companies join in and competition increases. Ditto electric cars, which are frankly an obscene price.

But as SoD says; oil and gas will not always cost what it costs today. The price is going to rise and rise, at which point, those who converted to electric, (or hydrogen, or whatever), will be very thankful that they did so.

Like everything in life, it will require a cost - benefit analysis. If I was in my 70's, I would probably not reap the benefit of shelling out £18,000. Although, having said that, it would only be a grand a year if you lived to 88 - or actually, much less than that, because you would not have to pay for 18 years' worth of oil or gas heating.

.

Edited By John Doe 2 on 04/08/2023 11:36:04

Samsaranda04/08/2023 11:47:46
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1688 forum posts
16 photos

The Politicians headlong rush into legislating for electric vehicles and the banning of the sales of new petrol and diesel engined vehicles is beginning to come back and bite them. Analysis of the carbon footprint of the production and use of electric vehicles has shown that they are in fact overall more polluting and damaging to climate change than the conventional petrol engined vehicles that they will replace. This has been established by more than one independent source, so far from slowing climate change then ev’s may well accelerate it. The goal of being Carbon Neutral is a hoax, I doubt that any country will be able to demonstrate that they achieve it without seriously fraudulent statistics being created. Any of Mankind’s activities will have an impact on the growth of climate change, the main problem creating climate change is the rate of population growth, the only way of effectively reducing climate change is to reduce the 9 Billion population on earth to a reasonable 4 or 5 Billion, I don’t see that happening anytime soon. The only reason we have an ever expanding problem of climate change is down to the population growth and each additional human will contribute to an ever increasing global temperature. Do we realistically believe that if we constrain our countries activities to reduce climate change all the third world countries will voluntarily conform to reduce climate change, I don’t think so. I realise my posting may seem doom laden but I am being realistic and coming to my conclusion based on the 76 years of experience that I have gained throughout my life, I fear for the way things will be at 2050 and beyond, it’s not the world I desire for my descendants to live in. Dave W

JA04/08/2023 12:14:27
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1605 forum posts
83 photos

So far I have stayed away from this topic but I now feel like saying something.

  1. Global warming is happening.
  2. It is more than likely caused by manfind's use of fossil fuel.
  3. Mankind must reduce its reliance on carbon based energy.
  4. Carbon Neutral is not a hoax. It is a target to aim for.
  5. The reaction to ignore it because of its complexities and inplications is not surprising.
  6. To overcome the problem needs courage, understanding, patience etc. All these are missing in our present leaders and much of industry. It also requires some form of World leadership!!

As an engineer who specialised in thermodynamics all the can be explained by entropy. To argue about heat pumps misses the point.

JA

John Doe 204/08/2023 12:28:12
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441 forum posts
29 photos

Can you cite your sources, Samsaranda? I would be interested to read more.

Re population; you may be right, but how do you reduce it? How do you tell people not to have more than 2 children, and how would you enforce that?

Using and generating 'renewable' electricity has to be better for the environment than burning coal, oil, or gas.

 

Speaking of gas, I've realised another reason why heat pump installations are so expensive. At present, only a Gas Safe registered engineer is allowed to work on your gas central heating boiler. You are not allowed to even investigate or fix even just the electrical side of a boiler, and certainly not the gas side. This is why plumbers are so expensive - only they are allowed to work on gas boilers, so they can charge very high prices.

When heat pumps come in - which are effectively only large fridges, working in reverse - the guaranteed work for plumbers will dry up, since we will be perfectly able to maintain a simple device with a fan and a compressor, and no fuel combustion or emissions. So, I suspect plumbers are cashing in now to make up for lower income period on the horizon.

.

Edited By John Doe 2 on 04/08/2023 12:31:30

Nigel Graham 204/08/2023 12:30:08
3293 forum posts
112 photos

A heat-pump is fine within its limits: it needs to be connected to a system suitable for it (which may mean replacing all the pipes and radiators), in a home insulated and ventilated suitably for it (which means many existing houses are not.

Cost may reduce and reliability might increase with time; but you can't beat physics and they will not heat water to the same temperature as a combustion-type boiler will; hence needing an auxiliary, electric immersion-heater tank.

In theory at least the heat in the atmosphere is practically inexhaustible but an air-source pump seems to work better the lower the temperature-range for a given heat transfer (hence given electricity consumption). While others have pointed out they can freeze up, so presumably need an internal heater just to keep them defrosted!

'

What is the advantage of a ground heat-pump over air one?

The ground does not freeze beyond a short depth: it is rare except perhaps in parts of Scotland for that to exceed about a foot down. (Earthworms survive by burrowing below the frost.)

'

What is its disadvantage?

Apart apparently from needing a very large pipe array to be any use, the one question I have never seen asked is of depletion by the specific pump in its specific location.

Can it remove more heat from the finite volume of ground it uses, faster than Nature can replenish it? That rate will depend very heavily on the local geology and meteorology. They would probably be influenced further if all the surrounding homes use them too, and perhaps very variably as different households use theirs at different rates.

With a long, cold spell perhaps with a lot of cloud cover, or indeed snow, minimising warming from the Sun, combined with very low local heat conduction through the local rocks from deep below, how long will an individual pump's patch of ground take to regain the temperature and amount of heat it enjoyed prior to switching the worm-fridge on?

Longer, I suggest, than it took to cool it.

Conversely, if we determine the maximum heat extraction for the specific heat source, will that be sufficient to be at all useful for any more than frost-protection?

I suspect the proponents of ground-source heat-pumps look at areas of very high geothermal activity - as in Iceland but rare and far less powerful in Britain - as their exemplars, and will not think about real use in this country's extremely varied ground , weather and artificial (man-made) conditions.

#####

I agree with Samsaranda but I am afraid the root of the problem - too many people - is probably the hardest of all to address in any sane, humane way. That's why it is hardly addressed at all.

Anecdotally there are already couples choosing not to breed through fears of what their offsprings' world may be; but to what extent is another matter. Almost certainly the number of such couples is too low to be significant, and will stay so unless it becomes a very widespread fear, one enough to over-ride a powerful natural instinct in enough people.

The "Third" (or "Developing" as they seem to prefer) World people cannot be blamed for wanting more and better. They see the rich countries wasting precious resources such as water on idiocies like lawns in deserts... many of them lack clean, reliable, potable water just for drinking. At least the water is not finite, as metals and oil are: it all returns to the sea eventually. Similarly they can't be blamed for wanting fancy electronics or cars: many of them would not mind a simple telephone and local buses. (Nor would many in this country, mind having the latter...)

I fear whatever we do, the future is grim, maybe not as closely as 2050 but certainly much beyond that.

IanT04/08/2023 12:56:20
2147 forum posts
222 photos

The problem JA is that thoughtful debate is simply not allowed in these areas. Anyone with doubts or questions are immediately dubbed climate deniers and effectively silenced. Dominc Lawson being banned from the BBC comes to mind. So before we go any further let's agree that there is a problem with climate change and that emmissions are a likely cause.

Now lets look at the logic of "Net Zero".

If we make something in this country it has a carbon footprint. If we ship that item (to be made) elsewhere and then import it, it has no/zero carbon footprint apparently. If we drill for gas and oil here, then that's really bad but fracking gas in the US, freezing it, shipping it across the Atlantic and then re-gassing here is a much preferable strategy. This is what in finance would be described as 'Creative Accounting'.

People also have to have some hope that they can survive these challenges. EVs are touted as being much cheaper to run but if they cost on average £10k more to purchase, then (at £1.40/litre and 35mpg) I can drive 55,000 miles for free (that's about 14 years for me). Heat pumps may be great but if I live in an old, draughty house (as I do) and can't afford to upgrade (rebuild?) it, then heat pumps are not a practical solution to my heating needs.

So let's accept that the problem is real but that we also need real solutions that folk can actually afford. At the moment I believe that shortages (& the high cost) of energy are far more of a threat to my well being than anything else. Many more people currently die from the cold than from the heat and that's not likely to change going forward.

Regards,

IanT

 

Edited By IanT on 04/08/2023 12:59:49

John Doe 204/08/2023 13:01:15
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441 forum posts
29 photos

A ground source bore-hole will supply about 6kW - (per day, I assume).

Yes, potentially the ground might eventually cool if we all had multiple bore-holes and extracted maximum power from them, but unlikely I feel, and again, not a reason to dismiss the idea.

Because we will need alternative energy sources from now until new technology, such as Thorium reactors and fusion reactors and tidal flow generators are sorted out, so we need something now to bridge the gap. And of course there are already alternative energy sources such as solar water heaters, (which can boil, even in the UK), and PV cells.

The problem with the status quo is that fuel is cheap - even at £2,500 per year. Even at this price, most of us can't be bothered to change - or cannot afford to change - with the current much higher prices for alternatives. £2,000 for a gas boiler versus £18,000 for a complete new heat source installation?? Not going to happen. The price of alternatives will need to be cheaper for most of us to change.

It would be ironic, wouldn't it, if too many air-source heat pumps over-cooled the atmosphere to below pre-industrial levels. ?!!! Wouldn't happen of course, because they just move heat, not create or destroy it.

Graham Meek04/08/2023 13:26:42
714 forum posts
414 photos

IanT,

I am with you and as I said earlier big money is controlling things not us, or the politicians.

Generally,

There is no doubt that there is a big problem with the climate. However we need calculated and well thought out solutions not knee jerk reactions which seems to be the current trend.

The stupidity of it all comes when burning wood pellets is carbon friendly. The carbon will be recaptured by the trees that are planted to replace the ones which have been felled.

How do trees capture carbon emitted from airliners which puts carbon in the atmosphere above where it would normally be found? I have not yet seen a ban on all fossil fueled aircraft by 2030.

Regards

Gray,

Bazyle04/08/2023 13:44:21
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6956 forum posts
229 photos

Don't panic about overcooling your soil. I haven't redone the calculations but a m3 of earth yields 1KWh per degree temp change. So with a surface not borehole the snaked out pipe which covers a lot of ground has only a small effect which is very localised, to a couple of feet range because of the low heat conductivity of the soil.
One of the problems is the way people are still thinking of overheating their entire house rather than reverting to the position 70 years ago of just heating one room. Mid winter I think 500W continuously would be affordable so plan to add insulation until that is enough.

Samsaranda04/08/2023 13:53:21
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1688 forum posts
16 photos

As an aside to my comments above I feel that in some way I am doing my best at present to reduce my contribution to climate change because I currently have 4Kw of solar generation and 12Kwh of battery storage, on sunny days in the summer, not very frequent at the moment, I am able to be self sufficent and not draw any power from the grid, this only happens on selected days during June, July and August when the sun is strong enough, makes me feel good though.

In respect of my comments about the world population I was only stating facts and in no way do I advocate any methods of population reduction, the world population is what it is and nothing can change that. Dave W

blowlamp04/08/2023 14:15:25
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1885 forum posts
111 photos

The fires in Europe turned out to be started either by negligence or deliberately by activists. How many occured in zero populated areas?

The legacy media weather predictions were over the top and not borne out in reality.

The fear mongers are now claiming we have 'global boiling' - where's any evidence of that? My heating came on throughout July and into August.

Martin.

duncan webster04/08/2023 14:55:51
5307 forum posts
83 photos
Posted by John Doe 2 on 04/08/2023 13:01:15:

A ground source bore-hole will supply about 6kW - (per day, I assume).

kW per day is not a sensible unit

Nigel Graham 204/08/2023 15:45:32
3293 forum posts
112 photos

DAVE W -

No-one is advocating positive ways to reduce the population. Well, I hope not. China tried but found it led to very undesirable results. The most anyone can hope for a is a gentle decline so the overall population does not become unbalanced in proportions of sex and age.

.

Martin -

The "boiling" metaphor was used by one politician, (head of the UN?), so what do we expect but silly language; though presumably others have latched onto it in the usual ovine way.

Anyway he was taking about the world at large, and some areas' heatwaves in particular, not just our gentle small region of it.

The forest fires thought to be by arson were not started in populated areas, but near enough to them to be at the very least extremely unpleasant or indeed dangerous.

.

Duncan -

Not only itself a silly "unit" that looks as if quoted from an advertisement. Assuming constant heat-flow (can that be assumed?), it is a mere 0.25kW/h, and anyway means nothing without the system's output temperature as well.

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