Home energy saving tips /ideas...

[mrcharly-YHT]

wow that is serious efflorescence.

Do you have air vents into the under floor space?

[Mrs Pingu]

There are air bricks, I assume they're under the floor...

[Polar Bear]

The air bricks should vent into the cavity space, i.e. below the floorboards but above the soil.  Ours are situated at joist level.

I insulated part of our underfloor from below.  It was a dirty and difficult job even with 9 courses of brickwork space to work in.  Yours looks a bit more cramped..  I have done / am doing the rest from above.

[Snakehips]

Well, I just stuck my head down through the hatch under the front door. That was interesting. Plenty crawl space so potentially the ability to insulate the floor from below. And install cat5 cable if needed.
The photo below is of the wall directly under the front door, it's north facing. It appears to be wearing a fur coat of efflorescence. It doesn't exactly make me feel that getting cavity wall insulation would be a good idea, although that's just what I can see from the hatch, I didn't go having a crawl about. Also, IANA cavity wall insulation surveyor.
IMG_20211106_155422 by The Pingus, on Flickr

This photo shows what I assume is a clay demijohn and then on closer inspection it looks like someone's put a bagged up floor cleaning device or something under there. 
IMG_20211106_155031 by The Pingus, on Flickr

Further inspection some time...

This deserves a thread all its own, The View Under My Floorboards or something similar, or has there already been one? I have a similar space under mine and I'm contemplating a visit in the near future. Might take a camera next time.

[Kim]

This deserves a thread all its own, The View Under My Floorboards or something similar, or has there already been one? I have a similar space under mine and I'm contemplating a visit in the near future. Might take a camera next time.

Oh, we should have a photo of the stack of bricks and random debris that supports our landlord-quality floor.

[Pingu]

This deserves a thread all its own, The View Under My Floorboards or something similar, or has there already been one? I have a similar space under mine and I'm contemplating a visit in the near future. Might take a camera next time.

https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=121458 

[DuncanM]

The EPC for our house was done in 2012 (67 D) - since then we've installed low energy lights, Tado (including the remote TRVs), just under 4kW of solar PV including an iBoost to heat the hot water, and some improved windows. Looking at it, the top 2 recommendations are cavity wall insulation and a new jacket for the hot water tank, at lots of money and almost nothing, so I don't know why we didn't do the latter - will get on that one.

The smart meter that was installed only works as a dumb meter - the installer said they would need to come back to do something else to it but they never did, and it's inaccessible because there's a (broken) car in the garage now. Ultimately, I'd like a battery and a heat pump system - then we could get entirely off gas, and use a lot of the solar we generate during the warmer months, including to power the EV.  That would seem both financially prudent and carbon saving. However, I'd also like to make the house more pleasant to live in, and that's why I'd like to talk to an expert. The EPC people don't really seem all that knowledgeable about what is actually possible and what is beneficial (eg maybe an air-air heat pump downstairs would mean we don't need much heating for a huge amount of the year and would allow my wife to keep her office toasty, but they don't qualify for any sort of grant (because they can be run in reverse for aircon) so don't appear in any guidance I can find). Also, if humidity needs to be brought down, then there has to be a way to recover the heat while dumping the moisture outside (rather than just opening windows), but that sort of thing doesn't appear anywhere on any list.

[fruitcake]

If a house has a South facing rear wall and sufficient land (i.e. a garden), and the owner has the funds, a substantial amount of heat can be gained directly through a conservatory, if that conservatory is designed wiith solar gain in mind. That means having a way of stopping the place overheating during summer. 

IIRC therewas a house in Nottinghamshire that was built to passivhaus standard with a two-storey conservatory as the main heat source. It had a concrete floor as heat storage. The conservatory was vented to allow the owners to reduce solar gain in the warm season. The owners were an Australian couple who designed and built the house and documented it in a book (which is how I know about it), but alas I don't remember the title or authors. Others here may know of it. It was built to test what was possible in the UK, and, for me, it demonstrated the potential efficacy of solar gain through a conservatory.

[DuncanM]

It would be interesting to see a comparison between solar PV and heat pump vs solar gain from a conservatory. My guess is the former would be more efficient and easier to modulate heat (but much less nice to sit in! )

[mrcharly-YHT]

If a house has a South facing rear wall and sufficient land (i.e. a garden), and the owner has the funds, a substantial amount of heat can be gained directly through a conservatory, if that conservatory is designed wiith solar gain in mind. That means having a way of stopping the place overheating  during summer. 

IIRC there's a house Nottinghamshire that was built to passivhaus standard with a two-storey conservatory was the main heat source. It had a concrete floor as heat storage. The conservatory was vented to allow the owners to reduce solar gain in the warm season. The owners were an Australian couple who designed and built the house and documented it in a book (which is how I know about it), but alas I don't remember the title or authors. Others here may know of it. It was built to test what was possible in the UK, and, for me, it demonstrated the potential efficacy of solar gain through a conservatory.

There are a bunch of them in York.

The architect told the owners (it was an owner builder scheme) that they wouldn't need central heating. Several didn't believe him. Last I heard they regretted spending the money because they never need heating.

[Polar Bear]

If a house has a South facing rear wall and sufficient land (i.e. a garden), and the owner has the funds, a substantial amount of heat can be gained directly through a conservatory, if that conservatory is designed wiith solar gain in mind. That means having a way of stopping the place overheating  during summer. 

IIRC there's a house Nottinghamshire that was built to passivhaus standard with a two-storey conservatory was the main heat source. It had a concrete floor as heat storage. The conservatory was vented to allow the owners to reduce solar gain in the warm season. The owners were an Australian couple who designed and built the house and documented it in a book (which is how I know about it), but alas I don't remember the title or authors. Others here may know of it. It was built to test what was possible in the UK, and, for me, it demonstrated the potential efficacy of solar gain through a conservatory.

Are you thinking of Hockerton?  A superb project.  I visited years ago and still harbour dreams of a Hockerton Hobbit House.

[FifeingEejit]

This sounds like something I used to try while home alone during SCE study leave, shut south facing porch windaes and doors and see how hot I could get it.

Record was 40 odd.
It never gets all that warm in winter, like bringing clothes horse into house instantly not warm but that house is sheltered by trees from the south.

My place has the porch on the north, warm in summer... Run heater to get heat pump dryer up to operating temperature range erm now...

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk

[fruitcake]

What I remember about the house is that it looked conventional for its locale; they didn't want it to look like an eco-house. That meant choosing the local brick for the exterior, and other conventional materials. Their choice of a 1m thick concrete floor as the heat store may not be considered sustainable nowadays, but maybe the massive carbon footprint of concrete wasn't as widely recognised when this project was built (which was the 1990s IIRC). Amusingly the house was too cold for the first twelve months because it took that long for the 1m concrete slab to fully dry. After that it sat above 15C all year round with no fuel inputs. The other interesting thing was that the house was designed to be off-grid for all services including water. That meant rainwater filtration and storage in the basement and pumps to raise that water to the bathroom and kitchen.

I've since seen houses designed for solar gain using the same physical principle (large windows and a huge thermal mass) with 50cm thick stone internal walls as the heat store.

[Mrs Pingu]

DuncanM I was reading about the gadgets on this page last night.
https://www.heritage-house.org/damp-and-condensation/solving-damp-problems-in-your-home/controlling-humidity.html
Which made me think of the things I posted about a couple of months back, single room MVHR, like this sort of thing. They sound like a good idea but no idea if they are any good or not...https://www.fastlec.co.uk/blauberg-heat-recovery

[Mrs Pingu]

Meanwhile I am waiting for a local company to come & drill GBFO holes in the walls and install a bathroom fan and cooker hood so we can stop showering and cooking with the windows open. Not coming til the 30th Nov though.

[mrcharly-YHT]

I still think that the biggest problem we face in the UK is the expectation that, when it is 0C outside, every room in our house will be over 21C.

[Polar Bear]

It's because folk want to wear their flouncy fashions and not even give a first thought to the consequences of burning gas 18 hours a day let alone a second thought.  It never ceases to amaze me how people flit between overly warm houses and overly warm cars even in the depths of winter.

There will be a reckoning for many, poor and not so poor with the costs of gas and electricity this winter. 

We run our CH for three hours a day in the evening and not continuously.  It seems more than enough to be honest save for those exceptions when the temperature stays stubbornly below zero for an extended period.

[Kim]

My graph informs me that our heating has run for over 3 hours on two days this month, with an average of 95min/day, to maintain an indoor average temperature around 20C.  That's higher than usual for the outdoor temperature because barakta is currently living in the (relatively cold) dining room, and we're pissing all the heat out of the downstairs a few times a week by doing the wheelchair ramp dance.

If it were properly cold, it would be a lot higher.  But as rental scum we can't insulate anything, and have to make do with intelligent use of heating.

[ian]

I confess I like to be warm (our heating is set to 20.5 degrees in the evening, but that's the hallway and makes the rest of the house around 20 degrees (it gets warmer upstairs). I will wear a jumper and trousers, but I draw the line at getting dressed up as a polar bear for purposes other than scaring everyone's favourite global maple-shagging scaredy beavers, the Canadians.

[FifeingEejit]

My heating app has started telling me runtimes.
27hrs 20mins ish last week, Sunday despite being mild was worst at nearly 5h

That for 18 degrees during the day and 14 overnight (I can't sleep if there's constant noise so I want the boiler off)

Tuesday was the day I attempted to balance the radiators so had it going full welly for a bit.

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[salar55]

My heating app has started telling me runtimes.
27hrs 20mins ish last week, Sunday despite being mild was worst at nearly 5h

That for 18 degrees during the day and 14 overnight (I can't sleep if there's constant noise so I want the boiler off)

Tuesday was the day I attempted to balance the radiators so had it going full welly for a bit.

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk

Are your internal walls not stuffed with soundproofing/insulation to deaden noise and helping  to have rooms at different temps. 🤔

[DuncanM]

DuncanM I was reading about the gadgets on this page last night.
https://www.heritage-house.org/damp-and-condensation/solving-damp-problems-in-your-home/controlling-humidity.html
Which made me think of the things I posted about a couple of months back, single room MVHR, like this sort of thing. They sound like a good idea but no idea if they are any good or not...https://www.fastlec.co.uk/blauberg-heat-recovery

Those look great, I will have to investigate.  Thanks for the links .

[quixoticgeek]

I still think that the biggest problem we face in the UK is the expectation that, when it is 0C outside, every room in our house will be over 21C.

Why?

I am getting so so so so so fucking pissed off with people thinking we shouldn't be warm. It's 2021 and we have both the means and the technology such that we can sit in our homes at 21+°C when it's -20°C outside, and with zero emissions.

It is simply criminal that house builders have not been building better quality housing in the last four decades. We've known about high quality insulation, sealing, and the rest of the Passivhaus standard since as far back as the 80's. With such a building I should be able to be my comfortable 23°C with just the input of a single candle.

It's gross negligence on behalf of the government that more is not being done to make zero emission heating possible for more people. it's gross incompetence that efforts to improve insulation have failed to reach the levels we need through poor design of the bureaucracy behind it.

But, in all this, we should not be shaming people for wanting to be warm and comfortable. If you wanna turn the heating off and wrap up in a blanket, go for it. But don't go trying to shame others.

Yes space heating is approx 17% of emissions. But the only thing stopping this being fixed is capitalism. The technology is there. It's just not evenly distributed. And the only thing stopping that is ideological belief in the scarcity of money. There's no excuse for it.

J

[Mrs Pingu]

My graph informs me that our heating has run for over 3 hours on two days this month, with an average of 95min/day, to maintain an indoor average temperature around 20C.  That's higher than usual for the outdoor temperature because barakta is currently living in the (relatively cold) dining room, and we're pissing all the heat out of the downstairs a few times a week by doing the wheelchair ramp dance.

If it were properly cold, it would be a lot higher.  But as rental scum we can't insulate anything, and have to make do with intelligent use of heating.

This geek appreciates your nice graph.
I'm quite impressed the temp of your home is so stable for such a short period of heating. Our bedroom was down at 14.5°C at 6am one morning this weekend (am guessing that was the morning after it had been blowing a hoolie all night) after the heating going off the evening before.

[FifeingEejit]

Are your internal walls not stuffed with soundproofing/insulation to deaden noise and helping  to have rooms at different temps. 🤔

Dinnae be daft, it's 2 layers of plasterboard either side and some wood hauding it aw up.

I'd need individual room thermostats for that anyway, I'd been randomly messing around with the lockhead shields because they've got plastic caps that let me adjust them and I can't help my self but fiddle with shit.
Some rooms were still cold with a south wind long after the room with the thermostat is up to temperature, and v.v. with a north wind.


If I want that... then I need to find a plot, a shitload of money and pronto before my dad's too aged to do the architect/project management side of things... because there's no fucking way that I... squirrel.