Carbon Cutters - Home Heating

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Running on Empty

Required reading:

Chris Goodall "How to Live a Low-Carbon Life"

Richard Heinberg "The Party's Over"

George Monbiot "Heat"

Required watching:

The Power of Community - How Cuba Survived Peak Oil - DVD

The End of Suburbia - Oil Depletion & the Collapse of the American Dream - DVD

The Revolution

This is a revolution. If you want to shut an airport then stop flying. Want an end to factory farming? Grow your own. An end to pollution? Change to renewables. An end to war & poverty? Microgenerate. Life for your childen? Stop needing oil. YOU have THIS Power. You do not need Government. Seize the initiative. Bring democracy to your community. Be an example to your children. Take responsibility. Change for good today.

"Conventional" Home Heating Systems

If your Boiler was fitted prior to 1995 then the chances are that it is not a modern A Rated Condensing one. This new technology is so much more efficient than the old fashioned boiler that if everyone in the UK were to have one it would save enough energy to heat an additional 3.7 million homes every year.

However it is not only your old boiler that could do with a change. How about your Heating Controller? Is it ancient? What about a programmer? Can you switch heating and hot water on/off based upon the time of day? Will this provide a day by day setting or is it the same program for every day including weekends? How many periods of heat do you get per day? Or do you just leave it on all day long? What about your radiators? Do they have Thermostatic Radiator Valves? Unsure what to do? The answers are easy. Read on...

The Modern Boiler

The modern gas or oil-fired boiler has evolved a long way in the last twenty years. You'd be surprised. If you are lucky enough to ever look inside an old style boiler (right) and compare it to a modern one (below), they are worlds apart. A twenty year old Gas Boiler will look like the inside of a 100 year old steam engine whilst the modern Boiler will look like the inside of a Personal Desktop Computer. What changed? "Condensing" - that what happened. Essential some technology was inserted to extract more of the heat from the exhaust. A new boiler will hum audibly and eject far more steam. As the water in the exhaust 'condenses' the water vapour becomes visible as steam. That is a good thing, it means the hot water/air mixture is colder because more of the heat has been taken out and put into your water not the air outside.

This is good news as 60% of domestic CO2 emissions are coming out of your central heating system. An "A Rated" boiler is one that is at least 90% efficient. When we started our research in this area we found that there were hundreds of Boiler to choose from. In fact the variety and choice available is just too confusing. We tried to find a way of getting the data on a spreadsheet like you can for Car CO2 Emissions but this proved very difficult. The raw data is available but it has no "key" to understand what it means. It is aimed at the Industry Professional with the Database tools to understand the Data.

We concluded this was largely a waste of time. Since April 2005 all Boilers fitted in the UK must be "A Rated" anyway.

Alternatives

If you are now thinking about upgrading your Heating systems and stop wasting fossil fuels you may wish to go that extra mile and invest in a non-fossil-fuel alternative. They are covered elsewhere on this site but they fall into these main categories:

Solar thermal is a very cost effective way of getting 50 to 60% of your Hot Water needs supplied by the Sun. Such systems are sized so as to not provide too much hot water on the hottest sunniest days so they will fall way short of your total requirements on most days of the year. You won't get the sun to heat your house this way.

Wood Burners work as conventional boilers do and can heat your house and heat your water. They should be complemented by Solar Thermal. Wood boilers work with hopper-fed wood chips or pellets. They are self-lighting so no need to go out and cut a tree down then load the system with logs!

Ground or Air Source Heat Pumps are a very efficient way of heating your home with electricity using heat from the environment surrounding your home. However it cannot efficiently get the temperature of the water high enough for hot water requirements. Likewise the low water temperature make it difficult to heat your home this way too. The best way is with under floor heating or with highly expensive and specialist radiators (thin ones, twice the size of conventional radiators, made of aluminum). Not an option for most people.

We haven't mentioned Combined Heat/Power as all the indications are that this technology will not be generally available to the domestic market. Experiments so far suggest this would only be as good as an A Rate Boiler. We probably have to wait for the technology to catch up. Also, don't forget that this will still use Fossil Fuels. However efficient it may be it is not a sustainable solution.

Resource

Millablog

We changed our old Gas Boiler in our House. The original boiler was 14 years old and so inefficient. The replacement one is what they call a "condensing" boiler. This makes it "A" Rated. I don't know about these things but I know it hums happily to itself and lots of steam comes out of the back! It's a steam engine but so hi-tech! Learn more in this popup.

Some Advice

Take it for granted that if you ask for your Boiler to be replaced in the UK it will be with an "A Rated" one and you will save money and fossil fuels. However, ask around for a recommendation and get a few quotes. The wholesale prices for Boilers to the trade are openly available on the internet. It is not a Trade Secret. When you get a quote get a breakdown of the price. We have seen the boiler quoted at over £1200 GBP when, in fact, it only costs £600 GBP. Use this knowledge to get the price down. Boilers are cheap but the labour is expensive.

Ensure that the Plumber is CORGI registered and make sure they "deslug" or 'flush' the system with a cleaning agent. This will clean the inside of the radiators and make the system work just a little bit better. Ask your Plumber what Boiler they will fit. If they all recommend the same Brand ask why. Be suspicious of a Plumber who recommends a larger boiler than you need. These things are measured in kilowatts and sized for the number of bedrooms. They work most efficiently when they are on most of the time. If you get one that is too big it will be switched off most of the time and will get cold. Get the smallest one you can.

Radiators

Unless you are switching over to a low temperature heating system such as a Ground Source Heat Pump then should not really need to change your radiators. However, make sure that each is fitted with its own thermostat - a thermostatic radiator valve or "TRV". The ensures that each room is heated appropriately. A sheet of aluminum foil behind each one will reflect the heat out into the room.

If you want to get new radiators consider the latest aluminum radiators. These are really thin and lightweight meaning they have low thermal mass. They pass their heat out very quickly making your heating system very responsive. Get ones that are quite large as the larger the surface area the better they are at passing out the heat. The quicker you get warm, the more likely you are to turn the thermostat down.

Control Systems

It is a sad fact of life that it is estimated than most people do not know how to use their Heating and Hot Water Control system. It is nothing to be ashamed of - most people couldn't program a VCR to record TV for them. I am sure we all know of circumstances where people instinctively just switch the system on without rationalising why they are doing it. Heating Control systems are quite sophisticated these days. This is probably half the problem. People are baffled by the layer of technology and don't program the system to work autonomously. Instead they just have it switched on all day and all night every day of the week. It doesn't matter that they do not need it at night or during the day when they are out to work.

Do a simple check. Is your Heating and Hot Water on most of the time? What controls that? A timer? Is that timer set to meet you actual needs when you are in the house? Is it heating the system up for no use when you are not around?

If you know this stuff already then maybe your Controller is not sophisticated enough. You can get Controllers now that can program Hot Water Separately from Heating. They can use a different program depending upon the day of the week and have three 'on' slots in the day rather than two. It can be as elegant and sophisticated as you wish - but don't make it more than you can manage!

References:	We cannot claim to be the world's leading expert on Boilers and heating systems. If there are any factual errors in this report, or if you know of some exciting technology we haven't mentioned here, then please drop us a line via our Contacts page. We will be happy to hear from you.

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