Phew, what a scorcher (but a good day for solar power ...)

[clk320x]

Back to cold and miserable

Praying for another day like yesterday…

 

[MrGreedy]

peak 37 degs yesterday, 12 degs today

 

[ChrisEdu]

Shifted 3T of aggregate today

 

[poormansporsche]

At work I have a 50 / 50 chance of being allocated a van with air con by the Super Computer.

Wed Thurs Fri, the 3 hottest days of the year, no air con.
Today, cold, torrential rain, allocated a van with air con.
If I see that computer I'm kicking it in the algorithms

 

[merc07]

We're on a 'feed in tariff' (FIT) with the solar panels, so we get paid approx. 56p for each kWh generated (regardless of whether we use it ourselves or export it), plus another 4p (roughly) per kWh exported back to the grid. The FIT scheme was closed for new applications a few years back, but our contract runs till 2036. We import around 100 kWh a month (evening/overnight usage ... we don't have battery storage), but receive about 3 times the cost of that from the FIT payments.

The Kingspan water heating system is much older ... mid '90s I believe. There are two heat exchangers on the roof (one each side) with electric circulation pumps and the control box (shown in my picture) in the airing cupboard. It's a pressurised system, filled with glycol (antifreeze) to avoid problems in winter. The system is no longer made but Kingspan still have a network of engineers who will service/maintain them. We have the gas water heating turned off completely all summer ... even in the winter we just run it for an hour first thing in the morning and another hour late afternoon.

We can't take the credit for any of this stuff - it was all installed when we bought the house.

You don't see them much these days, I guess a standard immersion heater with an excess solar controller is the modern day equivalent ?

I only have a combi though and next to no mains pressure due to being up a hill and and a having a narrow lead mains pipe full of holes - I have to run a boost pump straight off the mains feed....

Not sure if a pressurised system can be added to a combi system ?

 

[BTB 500]

You don't see them much these days, I guess a standard immersion heater with an excess solar controller is the modern day equivalent ?

Yes I think so - a much simpler setup really. It's something we'd definitely look at if/when the Kingspan system gave up the ghost.

We have a Rayburn (Aga) as the boiler, so the heating/hot water system itself is pretty basic.

 

[Piff]

You don't see them much these days, I guess a standard immersion heater with an excess solar controller is the modern day equivalent ?

I only have a combi though and next to no mains pressure due to being up a hill and and a having a narrow lead mains pipe full of holes - I have to run a boost pump straight off the mains feed....

Not sure if a pressurised system can be added to a combi system ?

I did it in a previous house.
Basically used 2 motorised valves. On the radiator output from the boiler split the output with one on the radiator circuit and the second on the cylinder. IIRC Honeywell S Plan controls.
Effectively the cylinder was another "radiator" in the system.
Disconnected the hot feed from the boiler & took new hot feed from the cylinder.
Combi boilers are more than up to this as they are generally oversized.
We also upgraded the water main into the house from 15mm copper feed to 32mm alkathene as we were at the top of a hill with 30+ houses off the main in our street.
We went from a hot flow rate from the boiler of 8 - 9 litres a minute (took 20 - 25 minutes to fill a small bath) to full mains pressure at all outlets.

 

[merc07]

We also upgraded the water main into the house from 15mm copper feed to 32mm alkathene as we were at the top of a hill with 30+ houses off the main in our street.
We went from a hot flow rate from the boiler of 8 - 9 litres a minute (took 20 - 25 minutes to fill a small bath) to full mains pressure at all outlets.

I think that replacing the pipe will be the first thing to do.
Similar to yourself, I am the last on the hill, with less than 10 l/m flow.
I can probably get the neighbors in on it too, one ditch, 3 or 4 pipes.....

The water company don't want to know, don't want to help in any way so it's a case of saving up or putting up..

 

[Piff]

I think that replacing the pipe will be the first thing to do.
Similar to yourself, I am the last on the hill, with less than 10 l/m flow.
I can probably get the neighbors in on it too, one ditch, 3 or 4 pipes.....

The water company don't want to know, don't want to help in any way so it's a case of saving up or putting up..

Although I was at the top of a hill, the pressure in the road was OK. It was my 15mm copper supply pipe that was the problem. The copper was fairly thick wall compared to modern copper so the pipe was less than 13mm internal diameter. It's easy to check flow rate by timing how long it takes to fill a 2 litre jug from your kitchen sink cold tap,
A combi boiler then throttles the flow rate to allow it to heat the water passing through.
Our problem was that the previous owner of the house was a 99 year old lady. She had been talked into a new boiler and had been sold a low capacity combi. When we bought I was reluctant to change an 18 month old boiler which was essentially in the middle of the house for a condensing boiler which was what the rules had changed to at that time.
The solution of adding a mains pressure cylinder worked well, serving 2 bathrooms, kitchen & utility.
I also added an accumulator which I'm not sure was essential but we never had flow rate problems.