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| Building thermal insulation. |
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| Zero999:
--- Quote from: Siwastaja on July 22, 2022, 03:46:29 pm ---I think people dying out of cold vs. hot are different segments. Ignoring really harsh climates like Siberia, so in UK and similar, it's much simpler to protect oneself from cold vs. hot. So dying out of cold means total homelessness, lack of any kind of shelter, lack of clothes, lack of motivation to harvest some cardboard boxes or used clothes out of trash - basically, total inability to live. Probably many who died out of cold in statistics would have died out of drugs or alcohol if not cold. But ignoring the danger of heat can easily be explained by much smaller motivational issues, like "I don't want to invest in air conditioner, it's just a few weeks a year, besides it consumes a lot of power, and I have been on this planet for 85 years, bloody youngsters and their toys". But we are getting back to this again, people in UK should be aggressively installing air-to-air heatpumps whenever possible, as they will significantly ease the energy problem during winter, and also help during summer. Of course it is then tempting to use a lot of energy to provide comfortable cooling but the net effect is still positive. --- End quote --- The problem in the UK is, a lot of old and vulnerable people live in homes with inadequate insulation and can't afford high fuel bills. It's obviously easier to keep warm when it's cold, than cool, when it's hot but the UK still gets many more cold days vs hot. The figures I posted above still shows death from cold is still more likely, than due to heat. I accept it's not solid data, but a ratio of 2 deaths from the cold, for every death from heat makes sense, given our climate. This might change in the future. The fact is heat pumps don't make financial sense. A heat pump installation costs 10 times the price, compared an efficient gas boiler. Gas is much cheaper than electricity, so a heat pump isn't even cheaper to run. Perhaps this might change in future, especially for new builds, as a lot of the cost is ripping everything out and starting again. I certainly wouldn't consider a heat pump. I don't have a hot water cylinder and I don't even use hot water very often. I take cold showers most of the time and have found modern detergents are good enough to wast my dishes in cold water, or I'll just boil the kettle. We need to work on improving insulation, which will provide protection against both hot and cold. Here's a photograph of the loft insulation in my house and my parents'. My parents' house did come with some insulation, but they upgraded it around 25 years ago. They both look pretty similar, even though my house was build in 2016 and my parents' back in the 1950s. EDIT: This is odd, the picture of the insulation in my parents' house has been flipped 180 degrees by the forum software. I checked the original file and it's the right way up. I don't know why it's upside down here. :-// |
| tom66:
Heat pumps make sense if you can take advantage of arbitrage (which requires a lot of capital!) For instance a home battery of 15kWh or so can be charged at night on off peak rates and a heat pump can then provide heating/cooling during the day (hot water running overnight as a tank will hold that just fine.) As much demand as possible should be shifted into this off peak period, e.g. home appliances. Off peak rates are about 1/4 that of on peak and this is likely to remain the case as wind power and other renewables kick in. At say 8p/kWh you are looking at an equivalent unit price of 2p/kWh for heating and cooling at a COP of 4. If you add solar then you can using a flexible tariff sell energy back to the grid at 50p+/kWh during peak times whilst you draw down on a battery during that period. The problem is a home energy storage system even without solar is knocking on £5k so you have to be in it for the long haul to make this pay off. This is "Vimes' theory of socioeconomic unfairness" again. |
| themadhippy:
--- Quote ---off peak rates are about 1/4 that of on peak --- End quote --- Please tell me who your energy provider is as my off peak rate is about 2/3 of peak |
| tom66:
--- Quote from: themadhippy on July 24, 2022, 04:49:12 pm --- --- Quote ---off peak rates are about 1/4 that of on peak --- End quote --- Please tell me who your energy provider is as my off peak rate is about 2/3 of peak --- End quote --- Octopus Go, I pay presently 5.5p/kWh in the off peak (5hrs from 8.30pm) and 14.2p/kWh on peak. Next year this goes up to 8.25p/kWh and ~40p/kWh so that's 4.8x difference. If I wanted 4 hours off peak, I'd pay 7.5p/kWh instead but I like the extra hour. You need a SMETS2 smart meter to benefit from this. It makes for cheap EV usage and since off peak starts at 8.30pm (moving to 9.30pm) it captures some of the late evening usage, and the tumble dryer gets put on then. |
| themadhippy:
--- Quote ---I pay presently 5.5p/kWh in the off peak (5hrs from 8.30pm) and 14.2p/kWh on peak. Next year this goes up to 8.25p/kWh and ~40p/kWh --- End quote --- Ah a different off peak tariff to the traditional economy 7,i'll have to run some numbers,but the 10p a unit more peak cost to what im paying and only 5 hours off peak initially make it look like i'd be worse off |
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