Clubjazz - Honda Jazz & HR-V Forums
Other Hondas & General Topics => Off Topic (Non-Honda) => Topic started by: Jocko on February 21, 2019, 06:47:16 AM
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According to The Committee On Climate Change report, they recommend a ban on Gas boilers for home heating, in all new houses built after 2025. Talk about cat and pigeons?
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/21/ban-new-gas-boilers-by-2025-says-committee-on-climate-change (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/21/ban-new-gas-boilers-by-2025-says-committee-on-climate-change)
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47306766 (https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47306766)
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According to The Committee On Climate Change report, they recommend a ban on Gas boilers for home heating, in all new houses built after 2025. Talk about cat and pigeons?
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/21/ban-new-gas-boilers-by-2025-says-committee-on-climate-change (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/21/ban-new-gas-boilers-by-2025-says-committee-on-climate-change)
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47306766 (https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47306766)
'The water could be heated by waste heat from industry'. quote from the BBC report.
Who are these muppets, we don't really have any industry left to produce waste heat -- same as we don't have much industry left to train all the apprentices that have suddenly become flavour of the month again after a gap of 30 to 40 years where no-one has been trained ( except as plumbers or gas fitters, tattooists, and hairdressers and tanning salon assistants ).
We missed a great opportunity to use waste heat from power stations ( like the Russians have always done) to heat local houses ( when we actually had power stations that is ). Problem with ground source heat pumps not everywhere is suitable, and while air heat pumps are quite economical ( about 2:1) they are nowhere near as economical as ground source ( about 4 or 5:1 ).
A gas boiler working at 90% efficiency is a better alternative than using electricity from a gas fired power station at a much lower efficiency when generating and transmission losses are part of the equation.
Government and experts keep talking about global warming but once again over-population is never mentioned because big business ( who now have governments on their payroll ) need an ever-expanding population as a market for their goods.
to me 'expert' can be broken down into two parts
ex = former / used to be
spert ( spurt) = a drip under pressure
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The UK is in the top 10 of the most industrialised countries in the world. We may no longer have our heavy industry but we are still a highly industrialised nation, as a trip to any industrial estate will show.
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/10-countries-with-the-highest-industrial-outputs-in-the-world.html (https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/10-countries-with-the-highest-industrial-outputs-in-the-world.html)
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The UK is in the top 10 of the most industrialised countries in the world. We may no longer have our heavy industry but we are still a highly industrialised nation, as a trip to any industrial estate will show.
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/10-countries-with-the-highest-industrial-outputs-in-the-world.html (https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/10-countries-with-the-highest-industrial-outputs-in-the-world.html)
True, but all the old heat producing industries like steelworks have pretty much been decimated. A CNC machine or robot produces no real waste heat that can be captured and used, and an increase in quarrying / mining is not going to heat local houses ( unless they are mining and burning coal like Germany continues to do ).
The UK produces a tiny fraction of world pollution but we seen to be determined to keep pushing up the cost of our energy to reduce the already insignificantly small amount by a vanishingly small amount.
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All the industries I worked in spent time and money cooling waste water used for various various processes throughout the plant. Even the hospital I worked in, before I retired, had water that required cooling. Which seemed silly as another part of the system was busy hearing water! (It was an old system in an old hospital, so the waste water was just "wasted". The new system, in the new extension, uses the waste water.)
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I recall reading, not that long ago, that the UK was going to have Passivhaus regulations by 2016 and part of that was there would no gas in the house.
I'd love to improve our mid-60's house but I think it's got such fundamental construction issues - lots of cold bridges etc - that it needs knocking down and rebuilding. I wonder who'd like to pay for that?
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I have a relatively new boiler and will (next week) have completed a programme of replacing all my radiators. I have to say I would really rather have been able to install hard wired oil filled, individually controlled radiators in every room. Next time around, I will seriously consider this. In the meantime, I may look into the practicality of individually timed thermostatic valves in every room.
There is a proposal from Northern Gas Networks for a town gas to natural gas style conversion to hydrogen. When I read the proposal, it seemed to make a lot of sense to me.
https://www.northerngasnetworks.co.uk/2018/11/23/hydrogen-blueprint-unveiled-to-make-over-3-7-million-homes-near-emission-free-by-2034/
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I'd love to improve our mid-60's house but I think it's got such fundamental construction issues - lots of cold bridges etc - that it needs knocking down and rebuilding. I wonder who'd like to pay for that?
Perhaps you would like my house, a typical 1932 built semi, no cavity walls! don't ask what my gas bills are!
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I rent a flat which has no cavity walls, no insulation, no double glazing and two and a half 1960's storage radiators. On a cold winter evening we just go to our bed. Our electricity bill shows low, medium, and high consumption for a similar house. Our bill is 2.5 x the high consumption. Why don't we move? We cannot afford any better.
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I recall reading, not that long ago, that the UK was going to have Passivhaus regulations by 2016 and part of that was there would no gas in the house.
I'd love to improve our mid-60's house but I think it's got such fundamental construction issues - lots of cold bridges etc - that it needs knocking down and rebuilding. I wonder who'd like to pay for that?
I've actually been in a Passivhaus near Northwich in Cheshire. It's owned by a friend of a friend and he is a bio chemist of some sort so a clever man. He bought a 3 bedroomed house and used the spare equity from the sale of a larger house to get this property up to Passivhaus standards. The sum of £85,000 seems to spring to mind but I might be wrong here. Anyway, it needs little or no heating. The insulation is on a scale I've never seen before and the windows have absolutely no draughts at all. So much so there has to be some specialised ventilation system. One figure that did stick in mind was that they spent £15 per month on all their energy needs.
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I rent a flat which has no cavity walls, no insulation, no double glazing and two and a half 1960's storage radiators. On a cold winter evening we just go to our bed. Our electricity bill shows low, medium, and high consumption for a similar house. Our bill is 2.5 x the high consumption. Why don't we move? We cannot afford any better.
I would suggest you look at a free standing oil filled radiator then Jocko. I have one in my extension and the heat it can put out is impressive and yet it costs very little to run. It is a wonderful option to have when you need to add a boost to a system which is just not coping - in our case when it is really cold outside and there is a lot of glass in that room.
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The UK is in the top 10 of the most industrialised countries in the world. We may no longer have our heavy industry but we are still a highly industrialised nation, as a trip to any industrial estate will show.
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/10-countries-with-the-highest-industrial-outputs-in-the-world.html (https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/10-countries-with-the-highest-industrial-outputs-in-the-world.html)
True, but all the old heat producing industries like steelworks have pretty much been decimated. A CNC machine or robot produces no real waste heat that can be captured and used, and an increase in quarrying / mining is not going to heat local houses ( unless they are mining and burning coal like Germany continues to do ).
The UK produces a tiny fraction of world pollution but we seen to be determined to keep pushing up the cost of our energy to reduce the already insignificantly small amount by a vanishingly small amount.
I agree,Your absolutley on the button.
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Perhaps you would like my house, a typical 1932 built semi, no cavity walls! don't ask what my gas bills are!
I'd never thought about it before, but I guess without a cavity the entire fabric of the house is a cold bridge.
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I'd never thought about it before, but I guess without a cavity the entire fabric of the house is a cold bridge.
The thermal performance can be improved by such measures as an internal lining of insulation-backed plasterboard or an external layer of expanded polystyrene covered by rendering. Plus a foot of fibreglass insulation in the attic. Flats have fewer external surfaces so should be cheaper to improve *although be careful with external insulation).
I've got an infra-red thermometer which makes it easier to find the cold spots. Improving them is another matter.
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Improving them is another matter.
It's a can of worms insulating and sealing up a house that was never meant to be like that, especially in the attic. An old builder friend is dead against cavity wall insulation if the house wasn't built with it in. Mind you, it's rarely fitted properly (kept away from the outer brick skin) even on new houses.
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Improving them is another matter.
It's a can of worms insulating and sealing up a house that was never meant to be like that, especially in the attic. An old builder friend is dead against cavity wall insulation if the house wasn't built with it in. Mind you, it's rarely fitted properly (kept away from the outer brick skin) even on new houses.
Filling up the cavity can cause massive problems with damp , we had contractors in our area late 2017 trying to meet their targets for government retro-fit cavity insulation ( the houses on our estate are about 20 years old and already have sheets of expanded polystyrene half the cavity width ). We had an extension on the south side of house about 10 years ago and it was insulted with 75mm of rockwool battens ) last winter I decided to check the surface temperature of the internal walls on the fully insulated south side and the older partially insulated north side. There was 0.2 deg C difference on average colder on north wall ( 1 checked in several places across both walls upstairs and downstairs ). Makes you wonder what difference the blown insulation makes, our neighbour had it done ( 1 of only 3 out 10 houses ) and said it made no difference to their heating bills. Someone I used to work with had the cavities insulated and suffered horrible condensation and damp patches inside the house, had to buy a dehumidifier to make house liveable again..
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Flats have fewer external surfaces so should be cheaper to improve *although be careful with external insulation).
My flat is a maisonette with three sides of two floors outside walls. The lounge has an area which used to be a veranda, but is now floor to ceiling single glazing. And it is in to the prevailing wind. The problem with a rental property is I am not allowed to do anything internally or externally. I even have to get permission and approval to decorate.
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I recall reading, not that long ago, that the UK was going to have Passivhaus regulations by 2016 and part of that was there would no gas in the house.
I'd love to improve our mid-60's house but I think it's got such fundamental construction issues - lots of cold bridges etc - that it needs knocking down and rebuilding. I wonder who'd like to pay for that?
I've actually been in a Passivhaus near Northwich in Cheshire. It's owned by a friend of a friend and he is a bio chemist of some sort so a clever man. He bought a 3 bedroomed house and used the spare equity from the sale of a larger house to get this property up to Passivhaus standards. The sum of £85,000 seems to spring to mind but I might be wrong here. Anyway, it needs little or no heating. The insulation is on a scale I've never seen before and the windows have absolutely no draughts at all. So much so there has to be some specialised ventilation system. One figure that did stick in mind was that they spent £15 per month on all their energy needs.
Even if heating the house costs £2000 a year, the payback period at present prices is over 40 years, so a good project to prove a point but not good financially - if you bought £85,000 of premium bonds you would get a good return and still have your capital !
The best ventilation system you can fit uses a heat exchanger between outgoing warm air and incoming cool air to save wasting heat. Air source heat pumps ( reverse cycle air conditioning ) can produce 2 to 3 kw of heat for every 1kw used to drive the pump, and work down to about -5degC IIRC.
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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/property/advice/11411880/Could-the-cavity-wall-insulation-scandal-rival-PPI.html
Retrofit cavity wall insulation is a mechanism driven by government to fulfil climate change targets, but the targets for actually installing it have to be met by energy companies, same as badly implemented 'smart' meters. The people who knocked on our door ( in late 2017 ) told my wife that cavity wall insulation was becoming mandatory in 2018 and you would not be able to sell a house without it, these were a different company to the ones I told we didn't want it a couple of months earlier. I wrote to trading standards and our MP complaining about these people's hard sell tactics.
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I had the cavity wall insulation done the summer before last and am very happy with it. Mine's a small 1911 Yorkshire stone faced terrace. There's a uneven cavity so blown fibre wasn't an option. These days they do it with squirty foam. Fortunately I'd heard about it from a retired architect I see dog walking who had it done. So when a couple of lads knocked on the door offering it I said yes. Within the hour their mates had 'surveyed' the house - photographed everything on their mobiles. Less than a week later one young man did the job in a morning. So they're not all cowboys - well done for reporting them though.
The result? My bills have come down but they were low to start with (I lined the attic put 100mm of kingspan 6 years ago, no problems and made about as much difference). The big difference is increased comfort. The house isn't cold in the mornings. Most of the untraceable draughts in the kitchen have gone. I can set the heating to switch off earlier. As useful, the heating effects from the sun falling on the walls is reduced so I was able to keep the house comfortable last summer. And no damp - I control it at source, ventilating the kitchen and bathroom as needed and using a dehumidifier to dry clothes.
So just from my point of view the, admittedly poor, payback period isn't the whole story. Then there's the previously ignored costs of gas heating's contribution to climate change. I'm just old enough to remember coal fire and ice on the inside of the bedroom window in the morning in a house built in the 50s. I don't really remember the awful air pollution. The point being things can get both better and less polluting and I'm quite prepared to believe they need to get better still.
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Loft insulation is not an option for me either. I live on the top two stories. The building originally had a flat, concrete roof, but about 30 years ago they added a pitched roof on top of that. But there is no access into the enclosed space.
The woman down stairs from me is moving out because the house is so cold (another private tenant) The council properties in the complex have all had double glazing fitted, and are currently in the process of having new, efficient, Fischer storage heaters installed. Just the poor private tenants that are left to suffer!
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To do a proper survey the contractors are supposed to poke a boroscope into the cavities to see what condition they are in and if there are any problems ( wall ties bridged with fallen mortar etc.) another problem with retro-fit insulation is if it blocks airbricks and stops ventilation to under the floors, that is when dry and wet rot start attacking the wood. The contractors who came around by us certainly never looked in the cavity first and their hard sell tactics were completely wrong, they suggested that the builders who constructed our houses were guilty of not insulating the cavities when they build the houses ( wrong, they did it to the standards of the time - built 20 years ago and they fitted polystyrene boards about 30mm thick into the cavity, which still left room for airflow - I do not know where the blown insulation would have gone and it would undoubtedly have blocked the airbricks ). I know what is already in our cavities because when we had the extension built they had to disturb existing walls. As I said having checked the inside wall temperature and finding such an insignificant ( 0.2 degC ) difference between a north facing original wall and a south facing wall with 75mm of carefully installed rockwool battens I am very happy that the cowboy retro-fit blown insulation was completely unnecessary and potentially very harmful.
I have seen programs where people have gone to extreme lengths to reduce heat loss, including fitting massive thick expanded polystyrene boards over all windows and doors at night ( don't know where they keep them in the daytime), filling the loft with fibreglass and insulating the rafters and lining walls with insulation inside and on outer walls ( apparently insulation cladding on the outside of walls is by far the most effective).
The best and by far tha most cost-effective thing most people could do to reduce heating bills is to get a dehumidifier with humistat set to about 50 to 55% to keep the walls dry, this increases the insulation value of the walls and makes the whole house more comfortable, and because the walls are dry the heating also does not have to supply extra heat to evaporate the damp in walls every time it comes on. The dehumidifier passes the 180watts or so that it takes to run the motor back into the room as heat and also gains heat due to reclaiming the heat it initially took to evaporate the water back and this warms the air it blows back into room ( this is the same mechanism that boosts the efficiency of a gas condensing boiler when it is in condensing mode, by about 15 to 20%). A dehumidifier is also the cheapest way of drying washing indoors.
EBAC make some very good models, and made in UK :) ( County Durham). Our first Ebac lasted over 10 years, still worked but got a bit noisy, our second one ( 180watt 20 litres a day - 3850e ) is about 5 years old and no problems. After the initial drying of the house when you first run a dehumidifier ( when it may remove 6 or 7 litres a day for first week ) it will hardly run after - ours is in smart mode and probably runs max 4 hours a day and removes about 0.5 to 1 litre a day except when drying washing :o
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The best ventilation system you can fit uses a heat exchanger between outgoing warm air and incoming cool air to save wasting heat.
And now sentiment is turning against those - you can never fully get rid of the background noise of the fans which some peeople just can't live with, and it's very difficult (even at significant cost) to keep the systems clean so they harbour nasty things and are being being blamed for sick building syndrome.
A colleague in Sweden told me they've largely stopped fitting them there.
There are fully passive (no fans) versions but they need complex contruction with tall 'chimneys' etc and you've still got the cleaning issue.
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I recall reading, not that long ago, that the UK was going to have Passivhaus regulations by 2016 and part of that was there would no gas in the house.
I'd love to improve our mid-60's house but I think it's got such fundamental construction issues - lots of cold bridges etc - that it needs knocking down and rebuilding. I wonder who'd like to pay for that?
I've actually been in a Passivhaus near Northwich in Cheshire. It's owned by a friend of a friend and he is a bio chemist of some sort so a clever man. He bought a 3 bedroomed house and used the spare equity from the sale of a larger house to get this property up to Passivhaus standards. The sum of £85,000 seems to spring to mind but I might be wrong here. Anyway, it needs little or no heating. The insulation is on a scale I've never seen before and the windows have absolutely no draughts at all. So much so there has to be some specialised ventilation system. One figure that did stick in mind was that they spent £15 per month on all their energy needs.
Even if heating the house costs £2000 a year, the payback period at present prices is over 40 years, so a good project to prove a point but not good financially - if you bought £85,000 of premium bonds you would get a good return and still have your capital !
The best ventilation system you can fit uses a heat exchanger between outgoing warm air and incoming cool air to save wasting heat. Air source heat pumps ( reverse cycle air conditioning ) can produce 2 to 3 kw of heat for every 1kw used to drive the pump, and work down to about -5degC IIRC.
Speaking to the owner he wasn't interested in the financial returns at all. That said, most people would be so it remains a non starter for the majority.
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To do a proper survey the contractors are supposed to poke a boroscope into the cavities to see what condition they are in and if there are any problems ( wall ties bridged with fallen mortar etc.)
We've had three sets of people look at ours and none of them would do it. I told the last lot and they absolutely insisted it would be OK using little sticky balls, but their surveyor, who made a considerable journey to get to us, said no. Issue is the cavities are too narrow in places. They also weren't happy about debris in the cavities although they said they could remove that.
The (identical) house next door to us has been done - no issues, and it's noticeably 'cosier' in their house than ours is.
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Speaking to the owner he wasn't interested in the financial returns at all. That said, most people would be so it remains a non starter for the majority.
I suppose, like road charging, it could easily be made to be worthwhile by massively increasing fuel costs. Have to be careful what you wish for!
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To do a proper survey the contractors are supposed to poke a boroscope into the cavities to see what condition they are in and if there are any problems ( wall ties bridged with fallen mortar etc.)
We've had three sets of people look at ours and none of them would do it. I told the last lot and they absolutely insisted it would be OK using little sticky balls, but their surveyor, who made a considerable journey to get to us, said no. Issue is the cavities are too narrow in places. They also weren't happy about debris in the cavities although they said they could remove that.
The (identical) house next door to us has been done - no issues, and it's noticeably 'cosier' in their house than ours is.
As I said in previous post a dehumidifier with a humisat can make a massive difference for less than £200 up front and very low running costs (between £50 to £100 a year depending on how your walls are constructed and how much cooking and showering and drying washing indoors you do ). Your home will definitely feel more cosy and be cheaper to heat, probably the thing with the most instant result and the shortest payback period, and your windows will not get fogged up and the best thing is your bedding loses that damp feeling and instead of soggy sheets and duvet the bed linen stays nice and crisp....
As for retro-fit cavity wall insulation here is some more info
http://www.askjeff.co.uk/cavity-wall-fill/
A lot of people who have had the bead type insulation have reported ant infestations in the cavities - strange......
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I think I would jump on the Dehumidifier thing, Culzean, if we did not have our windows open all the time. I mean all the time, there is at least one window open - usually the bathroom. I have the bedroom window open at night. And right now the sun os bearing down into my home office / music studio and so I have the blind down and the window open.
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I think I would jump on the Dehumidifier thing, Culzean, if we did not have our windows open all the time. I mean all the time, there is at least one window open - usually the bathroom. I have the bedroom window open at night. And right now the sun os bearing down into my home office / music studio and so I have the blind down and the window open.
In normal circumstances the air outside the house will always have a lower humidity than the air inside, purely because the activities inside the house like boiling a kettle, showering, cooking and just breathing will raise the humidity inside. This is especially true in winter when colder air cannot hold anywhere near the moisture that warmer summer air can. It is OK to have the bedroom window open as long as the dehumidifier is not in the bedroom and the door is closed. Having a dehumidifier means that you no longer have to open windows to clear condensation out of the house, because opening windows in winter is very wasteful of heat. Basically ( and you will already know this Richard with your scientific training) the cold coil of the dehumidifier becomes the coldest spot in the house and the fan blows air over it to condense out the moisture, the air then continues over the warm radiator of the heatpump and collects the energy added to the refrigerant from the condensation of water - so blows warm dry air out.
Refrigerant dehumidifiers work fine down to 5degC and are a lot more energy efficient than the dessicant type, which will work at a lower temperature ( but when does the inside of your house ever get below 5degC ? ) - the dessicant type have to regenerate the moisture absorbing granules regularly which needs the application of quite a lot of heat to dry it out.
I also find in summer that the house feels cooler and more comfortable with lower humidity than it otherwise would.
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Reviving this topic, partly because of the dramatic change in circumstances since this conversation started, and mainly because I am now researching dehumidifiers for my son's house. They bought it 30 months ago and it was clearly redecorated to hide the damp issue. The cavity walls have been filled with something or other and the house is like something from Victorian times now with respect to damp. They have a baby and I really want to get the damp sorted so I think a dehumidifier is the way to go. Anyone else got views on this?
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My house was built in 1926 and others of the same design all had major problems when cavity wall insulation was installed. (I believe there is now a new method that works for these houses. )
So there is potential for problems with cavity wall insulation. Especially if it was done by a bit of a cowboy. The causes of damp is a complex subject It may pay you to consult an expert. There might be a simple and relatively cheap structural fix such as blocked air bricks or the damp proof membrane bridged. It may save you the cost of buying a dehumidifier and its ongoing running costs. I got damp in my single storey kitchen solely due to a hairline crack in a roof tile. It cost pennies to fix.
Even if the necessary remedial work is quite expensive it might still be better option to stop the damp at source rather than be perpetually fighting it.
How old is the house? It might not even have cavity walls. Buyers dont always get told the truth. It may need an expert to decide if the damp is rising from the ground, or running down from above perhaps due to faulty roof, gutters etc . Damp creeps and its source is not always obvious.
And if there is paperwork for the work being carried out, could it still be covered by a guarantee? 10 years ,maybe longer.
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I've read that there are a lot of cowboy cavity insulation outfits. They drill holes and squirt in inappropriate stuff that blocks the airbrick airflow and condensation takes over big time.
With regard to dehumidifiers, investigate the descicant type as they work in lower temperatures so can be more effective.
I've got a descicant in my garage with a permanent water exhaust hose and that is very effective. It can reduce the humidity from >90% down to <75% in an hour.
It's old now and therefore out of stock but this is what I got : https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B001FCMHU8/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
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I went to check something I'd heard before:
Desiccant dehumidifiers..... blow out air that is 10-12C warmer than the air that came in! This makes the desiccant dehumidifier a good choice for warming up a room. Just place it in a chilly hallway or room and it should get warmer as a result.
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I followed culzeans advice and bought an Ebac 3850e. Brilliant. We use it for drying the washing as it has a Laundry setting. It isn't expensive to run and it puts a little heat into the room.
Which reminds me. I'll have to set it up in the car to give it a thorough drying out before the winter sets in.
https://www.ebac.com/dehumidifiers/3850e-dehumidifier (https://www.ebac.com/dehumidifiers/3850e-dehumidifier)
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Looking at the Ebac 2000 series for my lad Jocko. I think Culzean's advice was great and I prefer the non desiccant design as they are more energy efficient. They do a 7 day free trial so we’re going to try that.
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Looking at the Ebac 2000 series for my lad Jocko. I think Culzean's advice was great and I prefer the non desiccant design as they are more energy efficient. They do a 7 day free trial so we’re going to try that.
I wanted it, particularly for drying washing, hence the reason I chose the one I did.
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If the damp is condensation then a Dehumidifier will certainly help. If its damp coming through the building then you need to get that sorted at source as no Dehumidifier can cope with that amount.
We have an EBAC. Not the cheapest to buy but I consider it to be well worth the outlay as its quiet and efficient and (other than emptying and occasional cleaning of the filter) it needs no intervention to work at its best
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Have had a Meaco desiccant dehumidifier for sometime now, performance is great and at 650W it doesn't break the bank, thou obviously costing a lot more to run now, performance is good for laundry drying.
https://www.meaco.com/products/meaco-dd8l-dehumidifier
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The reason I went for the Ebac was it is only 250w consumption. They reckon 43p/day.
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I wonder how much 43p a day equates to today with inflated prices
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I can see the attraction of an economic fix, especially with a baby to protect and finance. And it may be the best solution. But even 43p a day is £156 a year,(or more at todays prices) and if and when they hope to sell the house the prospective buyer and their building surveyor may not be impressed with a temporary solution.
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The reason I went for the Ebac was it is only 250w consumption. They reckon 43p/day.
250W = 6kWh per day if running continuously. At 30p/kWh that's £1.80 per day = £657 per year. The big question, however, is how many hours per day and how many days per year would it need to run to get the damp under control?
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The reason I went for the Ebac was it is only 250w consumption. They reckon 43p/day.
250W = 6kWh per day if running continuously. At 30p/kWh that's £1.80 per day = £657 per year. The big question, however, is how many hours per day and how many days per year would it need to run to get the damp under control?
The whole point of these Ebac models is they sense the levels of condensation and learn the patterns of the household. So they minimise time on. Also, I believe the 43p/day includes some element of savings on heating bills due to the house being less damp and hence needing less energy to heat.
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I can see the attraction of an economic fix, especially with a baby to protect and finance. And it may be the best solution. But even 43p a day is £156 a year,(or more at todays prices) and if and when they hope to sell the house the prospective buyer and their building surveyor may not be impressed with a temporary solution.
A permanent fix, if indeed one is possible, would run into many thousands of pounds. That's a non starter. They will be moving home within the next 4 years I expect.
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The whole point of these Ebac models is they sense the levels of condensation and learn the patterns of the household. So they minimise time on. Also, I believe the 43p/day includes some element of savings on heating bills due to the house being less damp and hence needing less energy to heat.
Mine is a Meaco https://www.meaco.com/products/meacodry-abc-range-12l-dehumidifier but behaves similarly and will stop if it reaches the pre-set minimum humidity and the power consumption (<200W) is no more than a couple of incandescent light bulbs. It had a good test a few days ago drying a replastered bathroom. 23 hours of operation dropped the humidity from 88% to 81% and produced a bucket of water (and warmed the room slightly as the power used become heat). Drying progress was better thereafter.
If combating damp in a house then the dehumidifier workload will depend on the rate that new moisture is entering. Is it, for example, coming through a specific wall only when there's rain? I wonder if an infra-red thermometer would help identify troublespots as they will be colder than the surrounding area.
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<snip> the dehumidifier workload will depend on the rate that new moisture is entering. </snip>
... and if the damp ingress is faster then the dehumidifier can extract it then you will never win until the source of the damp is removed.
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The source of the damp is condensation from human beings. The house is too airtight following the cavity wall insulation, so they have to have the windows open all the time.
The Ebac 2250e with antibacterial filter pack is arriving Thursday. I shall report back when there is further news.
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What would worry me is the surveyors damp machine when they come to move.
May make it unsellable, especially if the buyers need a mortgage, may get refused.
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Well it will be a much dryer property than when my lad bought it, as this situation was not of our creation.
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The source of the damp is condensation from human beings. The house is too airtight following the cavity wall insulation, so they have to have the windows open all the time.
Thank you for this clarification. Older types of cavity insulation could cause transfer damp though a wall. Airtightness is a separate issue and those who insulate cavities usually have external doors and windows replaced to minimise heat loss through draughts. Some modern houses have mechanical ventilation with heat recovery units to provide fresh air without the heat loss but a dehumidifier can make a useful contribution towards controlling humidity.
There's some useful guidance (eg extractor fans in bathrooms) in this article https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63642856 and I found this document interesting https://www.labc.co.uk/sites/default/files/zch-thermalbridgingguide-screen.pdf as it highlights where current building practice can reduce the cold spots (eg around doors and windows) which are difficult to fix in older buildings despite the cavity wall insulation and better doors and windows.
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I have cavity wall insulation. Yes it stops heat from the inside escaping. But it also stops heat from the outside getting in. On many days I have gone outside and thought that it is warmer outside than inside, because the insulation has not allowed the warmth outside to get through to the inside which I am paying to heat
Keep safe
John
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I have found that too but if it is that warm outside I am not needing to heat the inside of the house.
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I have cavity wall insulation. Yes it stops heat from the inside escaping. But it also stops heat from the outside getting in. On many days I have gone outside and thought that it is warmer outside than inside, because the insulation has not allowed the warmth outside to get through to the inside which I am paying to heat
However, you might welcome the insulation on a very hot summer day. Ideally, a house should have the windows (with blinds or shutters) on the south side to catch the sun when available and wanted. My previous house had the main windows west-facing and got too hot on a summer evening and consequently my current house has south-facing windows.
Unfortunately, planners and architects fail to properly consider welcome and unwelcome solar gain and put standard house designs on a map with whatever orientation and layout looks nice on the map. Trees in the wrong places area also a problem.
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However, you might welcome the insulation on a very hot summer day.
I live in Scotland. What is a very hot summer's day?
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6th July ;D
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I live in Scotland. What is a very hot summer's day?
Isn't anything over 20C very hot for you Scots?
I was in Scotland in mid July 2021 when there was a heatwave. I found the weather to be pleasant but the local people were complaining of the heat.
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We live in a 160 year old stone built house..walls up to 1 meter thick in places.
In hot weeks, the house starts off cool and by the end of the week is very warm. I don't know how many hundreds (or thousands ) of tonnes of stone are involved but it takes days to cool down again if the weather changes.
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You may be interested to know that I understand Samsung are about to launch an Air Source Heat Pump that has been on trial in Scandinavia for the past 3 years at -25 degrees and produces constant hot water at between 70-75 degrees. It is potentially a game changer as it could replace gas boilers without having to change central heating systems.
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Someone needs to invent something as a lot of houses have nowhere to site a large ground based heat pump.
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Even an Air Source Heat Pump is a large device. We will end up with them stuck on the outside of buildings like you see air con units in Hong Kong and the like.
(https://newsmedia.tasnimnews.com/Tasnim/Uploaded/Image/1397/04/13/1397041310313088014646494.jpg)
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What would worry me is the surveyors damp machine when they come to move.
May make it unsellable, especially if the buyers need a mortgage, may get refused.
Sold my house a few years ago, way before the Covid era, the young couple needed a mortgage to buy it.
I was amazed, no visit from a surveyor, nobody came to check our house before it was sold.
I mentioned this to our purchasers and they said building society took an average house value in our road and had no plans to visit.