I know it's a line from a old song but the heat pumps working like I hoped it would, it's amazing what a difference a competent air conditioner engineer can do.
The weather has be really miserable but the pump is keeping up with the change in temperature. mmmm waaarmmmmm...
Friday 25 July 2008
Monday 21 July 2008
Moving Right Along
The heat pump is now 'fixed' again (watch this space).
As a little light relief this weekend we set the profiles of the new house out, waiting for the approval from the local council, this is before we can start digging the hole for the foundations and turning this green an pleasant land into a sea of mud.
To help stop this happening we will scrape all the topsoil off around the house and put down some base course metal, we will be paving these areas so it should stop Oscar from tramping too much mud inside, well that's the plan, I have discussed this fully with the dog (Oscar) His suggestions of more food and walkies will be considered as a bribe.
Thursday 17 July 2008
Home Heating
As I wait for the nice man from Fujitsu to appear and repair our heat pump, it would be a good idea to give you my thoughts on heat pumps. (reliability of the unit aside)
The things that the manufactures don't explain fully is "with air-source heat pump systems, it is not generally a good idea to size an heat pump (EES) to provide all of the heat required by a house. For maximum cost-effectiveness, an EES should be sized to meet 60 to 70 percent of the total maximum "demand load" (the total space heating )The occasional peak heating load during severe weather conditions can be met by a supplementary heating system. A system sized in this way will in fact supply about 95 percent of the total energy used for space heating". (reference Canadian govt)
Note: these numbers are arrived at under a perfect lab test environment and as far as I can figure over a whole year, so it's another game of playing with figures.
In the real world this figure covers days when its warmer and days when its colder so if you have 2 weeks with cold temperatures, a time when you really need heat, the pump cannot met your needs.
We put this system in as a test in our office studio area, if it didn't meet our requirements we would not have to 'live' with it in the future.
Would we put another system in the house?, we may, but it would not be a air system but a underground loop system that takes the heat from the ground ( usually the ground temp only changes by a few degrees during the year, so system works more with more consistency and effectiveness)
Recommendations:
The things that the manufactures don't explain fully is "with air-source heat pump systems, it is not generally a good idea to size an heat pump (EES) to provide all of the heat required by a house. For maximum cost-effectiveness, an EES should be sized to meet 60 to 70 percent of the total maximum "demand load" (the total space heating )The occasional peak heating load during severe weather conditions can be met by a supplementary heating system. A system sized in this way will in fact supply about 95 percent of the total energy used for space heating". (reference Canadian govt)
Note: these numbers are arrived at under a perfect lab test environment and as far as I can figure over a whole year, so it's another game of playing with figures.
In the real world this figure covers days when its warmer and days when its colder so if you have 2 weeks with cold temperatures, a time when you really need heat, the pump cannot met your needs.
We put this system in as a test in our office studio area, if it didn't meet our requirements we would not have to 'live' with it in the future.
Would we put another system in the house?, we may, but it would not be a air system but a underground loop system that takes the heat from the ground ( usually the ground temp only changes by a few degrees during the year, so system works more with more consistency and effectiveness)
Recommendations:
- make sure you get a written commitment from your supplier on the repair response times,
- who you can turn to if you need to escalate the call out, if the service agent doesn't perform.
- make sure the warranty/guarantee covers transfer of service agent (servicing and change of ownership) 'we still having problems in this area'
Monday 14 July 2008
Heat Pumps (Fujitsu)
Don't believe everything you read, they aren't as great as they are cracked up to be, our new Fujitsu ASTS18LDC Heat Pump (May 2008) has now failed us twice and just at the time when the weather takes a dive.
They really are not that efficient when the temperature drops to below 5 deg C and even though the area we are trying to heat is insulated to the max thickness bats, plus double glazing we still have to bring in the trusty old gas heater.
I think all the hype you hear is a little like that children's story of 'The Emperor's New Clothes.
Now all the unit does is blink red and green lights at me and blow cold air.
Plus that I have just had a call from the nice man at Mitre 10 to tell me that it will be 4 days before they can get someone from Fujitsu to service it, oh, the joys of living away from the city ....................!#$%&!
They really are not that efficient when the temperature drops to below 5 deg C and even though the area we are trying to heat is insulated to the max thickness bats, plus double glazing we still have to bring in the trusty old gas heater.
I think all the hype you hear is a little like that children's story of 'The Emperor's New Clothes.
Now all the unit does is blink red and green lights at me and blow cold air.
Plus that I have just had a call from the nice man at Mitre 10 to tell me that it will be 4 days before they can get someone from Fujitsu to service it, oh, the joys of living away from the city ....................!#$%&!
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