12349 Heating/Hot Water

[FONT=Arial]We have an old'ish pellet boiler which supplies hot water & central heating to our smallish 2 bedroom apartment & largish 2 bedroom house (same building). We don't live out here permanently yet, but find that when its fairly cold outside (ie 10-15 degrees C on average, ie now) we only really get 2 or 3 min showers before the water goes cold. A hot bath is out of the question!![/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Also, in the summer, we have to have the boiler running 24/7 just for showers & washing up. In the summer it uses around a bag of pellets every 2-3 days, which we think is ok & around a bag a day at present (heating set at 18 degrees in the house for around 3-4 hours a day). We do realise that when we live here permanently there will be a difference in 'retained heat', compared to arriving to an internal temp of around 12-13), & that should make a difference. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]The annoying thing is that it needs cleaning once a week & it does seem to be such a waste of pellets to keep the water hot just for short showers etc in the summer. Although with the ambient water temp much warmer in summer, the showers are much better!! [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]We had a quote from our plumber to install 'additional services' to use in the summer:[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]1. 2 small instantaneous gas water heater (14l per min), powered from gas bottles (no tank), one for each of the properties.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]2. A gas bolier with hot water tank (300l) to supply both properties, again powered from gas bottles.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Both quotes were around 2500 Euros + iva.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]It seems like we'd be paying a lot of money for not a lot of gain (maybe just reducing a little hardship & better showers in the colder weather).[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Does anyone else have any other suggestions? Would the gas cost be less than the pellet cost & would we be changing gas bottles every few days? [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]We like the idea of solar heated water panels plumbed into the water supply...how effective would this be for our needs? We're guessing not great in winter but would provide lots of hot water in the summer. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]We've also considered replacing the pellet boiler with a new modern one but from some quick & basic research we're looking at at least double the spend & not sure if they produce great 'on demand' hot water.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Any advice would be helpfull!![/FONT]

Category
Building/Renovation

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 05/05/2009 - 04:14

Don't forget ongoing running costs when you chose your system, what seems cheap now could cost you a few times more when you use it.
I suspect your answer lies in the 'no brainer cascade' below:
Wood is the cheapest, reliable energy source available to you - so
Burn lots of it in a stufa with a back boiler.
Solar takes over in the summer and the energy is free - so
Get some solar panels
These are unregulated heat sources which need buffering/storing - so
Have a large heat store tank (300 litres or preferably more)
You will be virtually gas free but a gas boiler is handy for those days that fall between the systems and for instant results.
If you are not inclined to heave wood about then ignore above and talk to Geotherm about heat pumps.
If you borrowed the money to build a PV solar car port (€0.48/kw hr - paid to you - tariff on 3kw) and ran a heat pump you could be on the way to the most economical system ever, with do-able cash flow.
Prices - to give you some targets:
Stainless tank 350l with special large stufa ports, extra large 10m solar coil, heat pump ready, all pumps and controls fitted £2,300
Stufa - £1,700
5m2 flat panels €1,200

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 05/05/2009 - 05:18

Hi, we use a pellet burning stove just for the central heating, for hot water we have a combi boiler and because we have no mains gas we use the 25 litre bottles, we find just for hot water it lasts nearly a month, if you use it for central heating it will last a few days, so pellets for me are best for heating and gas for hot water. I am thinking about solar pans for the summer but doing the sums now becuase it is mad to think we would have 3 energy sources in one house, you can drive yourselves mad with it all but |I will honestly say you will get 3 weeks min out of 25litres of gas just using hot water, we are a family of 4 so showers etc are used a lot.

Good luck

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 05/05/2009 - 09:14

[quote=Vigneverde;119892]Hi, we use a pellet burning stove just for the central heating, for hot water we have a combi boiler and because we have no mains gas we use the 25 litre bottles, we find just for hot water it lasts nearly a month, if you use it for central heating it will last a few days, so pellets for me are best for heating and gas for hot water. I am thinking about solar pans for the summer but doing the sums now becuase it is mad to think we would have 3 energy sources in one house, you can drive yourselves mad with it all but |I will honestly say you will get 3 weeks min out of 25litres of gas just using hot water, we are a family of 4 so showers etc are used a lot.

Good luck[/quote]
The 25Kg gas bottles will just last a very short time as vigneverde says. We rented a small apartment whilst waiting for the work to finish here. 2 x 25kg bottles used for heating/hot water lasted 2 weeks. Used only for hot water and cooking we managed to get about 3 - 4 weeks. At E100 per replacement in 2005 for the 2, then it is not even worth contemplating