Heating an old stone farmhouse - Solar or other ?

Catweazle · Post by **Catweazle** » 11 Aug 2012, 21:03

emordnilap wrote:
Catweazle wrote:The house doesn't have a South facing wall with doors or windows
That sounds like a serious disadvantage; can it be remedied or (because only you know the house) do you not see it as a disadvantage?

It's a disadvantage with regards to allowing sunlight in, but then again it does suggest a wall-mounted hot air system might be possible.

I'm not too worried, with plenty of space and a substantial barn with flat ( not as in "horizontal", flat as in "not curved" ) roof I'm sure I have enough collection area, just have to work out how best to get the heat from the barn to the house.

One things for sure, the LPG has to go. I found a company that installs free wind turbines today, you keep the electricity they get the feed in tariff, same as the PV companies, but more likely to work in winter and at night. I'll have a look at one and if it's quiet enough that might be worth thinking about.

Out of the box I've been thinking about a hybrid heat-pump idea, solar plate collectors on the barn roof into a well / tank from where the heat pump collects, enabling it to work in winter. Just mulling over ideas at the moment, nothing will get done until next year - I haven't moved in yet.

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 12 Aug 2012, 14:55

The wind thing sounds good, but I trust it's not the type that's fixed to a building. What you might want to do in the meantime is get measuring the wind in different places/heights: location can make a heck of a lot of difference with WTs and it's not always intuitively obvious where's the best.

JohnB · Post by **JohnB** » 12 Aug 2012, 16:28

During a couple of recent renewable energy tours, Mid Teifi Housing & Energy Group were told by the owners of a wind turbine that they would install PV if they were doing it now, and by the owners of a huge pV array that with hindsight they would have installed wind!!

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 12 Aug 2012, 20:41

The grass is always greener in the other person's joint

Janco2 · Post by **Janco2** » 13 Aug 2012, 03:28

Why not get both!

Our WT works really well for us and generates a lot more than we use over a year but obviously much of it is exported to the NG and we have to import from the NG when the wind is not blowing.

Our recently installed PV panels tend to generate more during the sunny days when the WT is generating very little.

The two seem to complement each other very well but it is still early days for us with the PV panels.

Catweazle · Post by **Catweazle** » 13 Aug 2012, 08:06

Janco2 wrote:Why not get both!

In an ideal world I would, but the free installations companies want the FIT - not sure they could both get it.

How is the 6KW WT regarding noise ?

Janco2 · Post by **Janco2** » 13 Aug 2012, 09:09

Our WT is about 50 metres from our house.
There is a low level of noise from it when it is turning and as the wind speed increases so does the noise from the turbine but the actual noise that the wind makes drowns out the noise from the turbine.
Quite honestly neither of us notice the noise it makes. We often sit on a mound very close to it and simply enjoy the scenery and the birds singing etc.
We have double glazing and never hear the turbine from inside.
Probably the maximum noise it makes is comparable to that of a car travelling on a country road at around 30mph.

As early adopters we only get a 9p FIT rate for the WT. The rate is considerably higher now.
Hope this information is of help to you.

Catweazle · Post by **Catweazle** » 13 Aug 2012, 13:43

Janco2 wrote:Probably the maximum noise it makes is comparable to that of a car travelling on a country road at around 30mph.

That's a useful analogy, many thanks.

The installer would keep the FIT, we would benefit from free electricity.

ujoni08 · Post by **ujoni08** » 13 Aug 2012, 15:49

Catweazle, I like your idea of storing sun energy in a large heat store, ready to extract it later. I've read a bit online about inter-seasonal heat-stores. There are a few different ways to go about it, but AFAIR essentially from solar collectors, you heat a large underground slab of concrete or a large tank of liquid all Summer. You can also use it in conjunction with a GSHP, which can cool the house by storing heat in the underground store. In Winter, your heat exchanger extracts heat and up-scales it for under-floor heating. It's the heating equivalent of canning excess fruit and veg

Lot of expense up front, but many decades of virtually free heat. I'm not sure if it would be enough to run it without any other source of heat, e.g. a wood stove, but certainly seems like a good idea, along with massive insulation, draft-proofing, etc. I'm sure others on here know more than me about it, and you can also check on Navitron for more ideas.