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Post by Bentley on Jun 8, 2023 21:02:49 GMT
Very old? My last house had floorboards and it was built in the 70s. Cold floors will lose heat . Do all houses have floorboards UK? Ground floors in houses built before about 1950 are usually covered with floorboards laid over timber joists which are suspended over an underfloor airspace. In the past 50 years solid concrete ground floors have become the norm, although they may be overlaid with timber strip flooring or chipboard. As I said , my last house had floorboards and was built in the 70s. My present house was built in the late seventies and has a solid concrete floor. My present floor has Marley tiles in places , Marley tile adhesive in others .
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Post by zanygame on Jun 8, 2023 21:28:41 GMT
Do all houses have floorboards UK? Ground floors in houses built before about 1950 are usually covered with floorboards laid over timber joists which are suspended over an underfloor airspace. In the past 50 years solid concrete ground floors have become the norm, although they may be overlaid with timber strip flooring or chipboard. As I said , my last house had floorboards and was built in the 70s. My present house was built in the late seventies and has a solid concrete floor. My present floor has Marley tiles in places , Marley tile adhesive in others . I didn't doubt you, its just unusual in a 70's house to still have floor boards.
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roots
Full Member
Posts: 116
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Post by roots on Jun 8, 2023 21:49:00 GMT
Floors with floor boards don’t always have a screeded floor . I know what I meant …concrete floor… Ok. Most modern houses have a concrete floor. Only very old ones have timber floors with floor boards. What I think you fear is that your screeded floor does not have any polystyrene insulation under them. That they are concrete straight onto hardcore. Sorry, I was in the building trade for 30+ years before I invented my current business. Not sure how much heat is lost by concrete floors, but most heat travels upwards, so roof and walls are the most effective insulators. How many Kw of electricity do you use/year?
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Post by jonksy on Jun 8, 2023 21:51:39 GMT
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Post by Pacifico on Jun 9, 2023 6:35:39 GMT
Rather apt letter in todays paper where the correspondents gas boiler packed up..
SIR – Our 14-year-old gas boiler died recently. So what to do?
Our house is nearly 50 years old, but thanks to a rolling programme of improvements over the past 25 years it gets – just – an Energy Performance Certificate rating of B (Letters, June 7). We thought the solution would be a heat pump, but we were wrong – for three main reasons.
First: price and delivery. A gas boiler cost £5,000, fitted, and delivery took three days (it was made in England). The best quote we got for a Chinese heat pump was £12,000 after the grant, and delivery would take three months – meaning three months with no heating or hot water from the immersion heater.
Secondly: disturbance and extra costs. Our house has half-inch copper pipes embedded in the floor screed. The advice was that, because the heat pump works at two times the flow rate and 50 per cent higher pressure, the probability of leaks was high, so better to replace all the piping with plastic – both disruptive and costly.
Thirdly: lack of electricity. We would have to give up our electric vehicle charging point, as the local transformer doesn’t have capacity to provide power for EV charging as well as a heat pump and other domestic consumption.
Stopping or restricting the sale of gas boilers will not achieve change. Investing in electricity distribution infrastructure and making the cost of heat pumps the same as gas boilers might. Requiring all new-builds to have PV panels, batteries and heat pumps makes far more sense.
Peter Jenks Salisbury, Wiltshire
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Post by zanygame on Jun 9, 2023 7:12:07 GMT
Ok. Most modern houses have a concrete floor. Only very old ones have timber floors with floor boards. What I think you fear is that your screeded floor does not have any polystyrene insulation under them. That they are concrete straight onto hardcore. Sorry, I was in the building trade for 30+ years before I invented my current business. Not sure how much heat is lost by concrete floors, but most heat travels upwards, so roof and walls are the most effective insulators. How many Kw of electricity do you use/year? On average through the coldest 3 months the 3 combined use about 6kwh per day. Average through the year is about 2.2kwh per day. Just did a reading. In the last 30 days they have used 72kwh.
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Post by zanygame on Jun 9, 2023 7:15:11 GMT
Rather apt letter in todays paper where the correspondents gas boiler packed up.. SIR – Our 14-year-old gas boiler died recently. So what to do?
Our house is nearly 50 years old, but thanks to a rolling programme of improvements over the past 25 years it gets – just – an Energy Performance Certificate rating of B (Letters, June 7). We thought the solution would be a heat pump, but we were wrong – for three main reasons.
First: price and delivery. A gas boiler cost £5,000, fitted, and delivery took three days (it was made in England). The best quote we got for a Chinese heat pump was £12,000 after the grant, and delivery would take three months – meaning three months with no heating or hot water from the immersion heater.
Secondly: disturbance and extra costs. Our house has half-inch copper pipes embedded in the floor screed. The advice was that, because the heat pump works at two times the flow rate and 50 per cent higher pressure, the probability of leaks was high, so better to replace all the piping with plastic – both disruptive and costly.
Thirdly: lack of electricity. We would have to give up our electric vehicle charging point, as the local transformer doesn’t have capacity to provide power for EV charging as well as a heat pump and other domestic consumption.
Stopping or restricting the sale of gas boilers will not achieve change. Investing in electricity distribution infrastructure and making the cost of heat pumps the same as gas boilers might. Requiring all new-builds to have PV panels, batteries and heat pumps makes far more sense.
Peter Jenks Salisbury, WiltshireBloody ground source again. I don't know why they are trying to force heat pumps to behave like boilers, they are completely different.
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Post by Dan Dare on Jun 9, 2023 8:33:45 GMT
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Post by Bentley on Jun 9, 2023 9:24:57 GMT
As I said , my last house had floorboards and was built in the 70s. My present house was built in the late seventies and has a solid concrete floor. My present floor has Marley tiles in places , Marley tile adhesive in others . I didn't doubt you, its just unusual in a 70's house to still have floor boards. They can’t be that unusual because I had another house built in the 70s with floor boards too. Afaik most houses built in the seventies and a few decades before are still around .
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Post by Bentley on Jun 9, 2023 9:27:40 GMT
I would need a whole new system . The rads need to have twice the surface area . I would need a hot water tank and a means to heat hot water. I don’t believe that more cavity wall would help and I have a screeded floor which IMO would take away a lot of heat . I’ll stick to gas and wait for hydrogen. You wouldn't need radiators at all. I do need radiators. The alternative is a heated Floor or warm air . Both would be expensive and not necessary better.
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Post by Orac on Jun 9, 2023 9:27:57 GMT
It's a case of 'buyer beware"
The heat pump model works theoretically and sometimes in practice. The direct heater model thing works in all cases.
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Post by Dan Dare on Jun 9, 2023 10:51:27 GMT
There needs to be some way to disentangle discussion of the merits and otherwise of heat pumps, EVs, solar panels and so forth from the frankly dopey conspiracy theories about Net Zero, the Unelected Dictators of Brussels and their handmaidens in Westminster, and apocalyptic visions of a cold, damp and low-mobility future.
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Post by Bentley on Jun 9, 2023 10:54:21 GMT
There needs to be some way to disentangle discussion of the merits and otherwise of heat pumps, EVs, solar panels and so forth from the frankly dopey conspiracy theories about Net Zero, the Unelected Dictators of Brussels and their handmaidens in Westminster, and apocalyptic visions of a cold, damp and low-mobility future. Considering that we are obliged to accept heat pumps on the premise that if we do not then we are contributing to AGW and hindering net zero ,that might be difficult.
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Post by colbops on Jun 9, 2023 11:24:43 GMT
There needs to be some way to disentangle discussion of the merits and otherwise of heat pumps, EVs, solar panels and so forth from the frankly dopey conspiracy theories about Net Zero, the Unelected Dictators of Brussels and their handmaidens in Westminster, and apocalyptic visions of a cold, damp and low-mobility future. There is plenty going on in that regard. I was at a meeting with DESNZ last week along with other industry representatives discussing Building Regulations, OFGEM , assurance schemes, and new accreditations to ensure trades are upskilled, deliver reliable systems backed by assurance schemes using alternate technologies appropriately delivered by qualified people. I'll be going to another next month. A few uninformed people on a forum spouting on about the merits (or otherwise) of heat pumps isn't going to change anytime soon if ever, but developers, consultants, contractors and consumers will be in a position to make more informed choices and better decisions before too long. Saying heat pumps are shit is like saying wood is shit. There are lots of different types of wood. Some types of wood might not be suitable for certain applications. Wood might not be the right material for a certain job. The quality from one source might be lower or higher than from another, which might impact where and how it should be used. That doesn't make all wood shit. If you understand wood and how it is graded, you will end up with the right material for your needs and it will do the job it is supposed to. The same logic applies to heat pumps.
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Post by Bentley on Jun 9, 2023 11:31:12 GMT
There needs to be some way to disentangle discussion of the merits and otherwise of heat pumps, EVs, solar panels and so forth from the frankly dopey conspiracy theories about Net Zero, the Unelected Dictators of Brussels and their handmaidens in Westminster, and apocalyptic visions of a cold, damp and low-mobility future. There is plenty going on in that regard. I was at a meeting with DESNZ last week along with other industry representatives discussing Building Regulations, OFGEM , assurance schemes, and new accreditations to ensure trades are upskilled, deliver reliable systems backed by assurance schemes using alternate technologies appropriately delivered by qualified people. I'll be going to another next month. A few uninformed people on a forum spouting on about the merits (or otherwise) of heat pumps isn't going to change anytime soon if ever, but developers, consultants, contractors and consumers will be in a position to make more informed choices and better decisions before too long. Saying heat pumps are shit is like saying wood is shit. There are lots of different types of wood. Some types of wood might not be suitable for certain applications. Wood might not be the right material for a certain job. The quality from one source might be lower or higher than from another, which might impact where and how it should be used. That doesn't make all wood shit. If you understand wood and how it is graded, you will end up with the right material for your needs and it will do the job it is supposed to. The same logic applies to heat pumps. I said “Heat pumps range from air source ( which are shit for older houses ) to ground source heat pumps ( that are still shit for older houses ).” I never said that they were shit for new builds , in fact I said the opposite .
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