On 11/12/2022 16:30, Owain Lastname wrote:
> On Sunday, 11 December 2022 at 13:35:35 UTC, Tim Streater wrote:
>>> It's actually quite sunny at the moment, but rather cold.
>>> About 300 watts of solar would keep a 1kW heat pump ticking over nicely?
>> That's as may be but even if you had a nominal 2kW of solar installed, you'd
>> not get 300W or more for more than about 5 hours out of 24.
>
> I have the heating on for less than 5 hours a day anyway :)
>
> Owain
>

But I'll bet the 5 hours are before it gets light in the morning and
after it gets dark in the afternoon.

--
mailto : news {at} admac {dot} myzen {dot} co {dot} uk

On Mon, 12 Dec 2022 03:30:36 +1100, Owain Lastname
<spuorgelgoog@gowanhill.com> wrote:

> On Sunday, 11 December 2022 at 13:35:35 UTC, Tim Streater wrote:
>> > It's actually quite sunny at the moment, but rather cold.
>> > About 300 watts of solar would keep a 1kW heat pump ticking over
>> nicely?
>> That's as may be but even if you had a nominal 2kW of solar installed,
>> you'd
>> not get 300W or more for more than about 5 hours out of 24.
>
> I have the heating on for less than 5 hours a day anyway :)

But it isn't the same 5 hours that the panels are delivering.

On 11/12/2022 10:58, Owain Lastname wrote:
> On Sunday, 11 December 2022 at 09:14:29 UTC, alan_m wrote:
>> I now know someone who over the summer had solar installed on the roof
>> to power the ASHP during winter!
>
> It's actually quite sunny at the moment, but rather cold.
>
Today, its covered on snow

Numpties are divided on whether to blame Brexit, or global warming.

But all agree the solution is more windmills.

> About 300 watts of solar would keep a 1kW heat pump ticking over nicely?
>
> Owain
>
>
>

--
"Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They
always run out of other people's money. It's quite a characteristic of them"

Margaret Thatcher

On 12/12/2022 08:43, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> On 11/12/2022 10:58, Owain Lastname wrote:
>> On Sunday, 11 December 2022 at 09:14:29 UTC, alan_m wrote:
>>> I now know someone who over the summer had solar installed on the roof
>>> to power the ASHP during winter!
>>
>> It's actually quite sunny at the moment, but rather cold.
>>
> Today, its covered on snow
>
> Numpties are divided on whether to blame Brexit, or global warming.
>
> But all agree the solution is more windmills.
>

Brexit is to be be blamed for everything.

More windmills just cure the climate emergency.

It's politically incorrect to call it global warming these days as that
gives the wrong impression that the UK population will not need central
heating in the winter months by 2035, or whatever year the world is
going to end unless we build more windmills.

--
mailto : news {at} admac {dot} myzen {dot} co {dot} uk

On 12/12/2022 10:50, alan_m wrote:
> On 12/12/2022 08:43, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>> On 11/12/2022 10:58, Owain Lastname wrote:
>>> On Sunday, 11 December 2022 at 09:14:29 UTC, alan_m wrote:
>>>> I now know someone who over the summer had solar installed on the roof
>>>> to power the ASHP during winter!
>>>
>>> It's actually quite sunny at the moment, but rather cold.
>>>
>> Today, its covered on snow
>>
>> Numpties are divided on whether to blame Brexit, or global warming.
>>
>> But all agree the solution is more windmills.
>>
>
> Brexit is to be be blamed for everything.
>
> More windmills just cure the climate emergency.
>
> It's politically incorrect to call it global warming these days as that
> gives the wrong impression that the UK population will not need central
> heating in the winter months by 2035, or whatever year the world is
> going to end unless we build more windmills.
>
>

Don't forget that if we, and the rest of Europe, have a few very hot
weeks during the Summer its climate change but if the whole of Europe
has snow its just the weather.

--
mailto : news {at} admac {dot} myzen {dot} co {dot} uk

On Sunday, 11 December 2022 at 17:34:56 UTC, alan_m wrote:
> > I have the heating on for less than 5 hours a day anyway :)
> But I'll bet the 5 hours are before it gets light in the morning and
> after it gets dark in the afternoon.

No, I'm in bed then.

Owain

"Owain Lastname" <spuorgelgoog@gowanhill.com> wrote in message
news:7424f2f8-c5a0-42a3-8494-c120334d7a40n@googlegroups.com...
> On Sunday, 11 December 2022 at 17:34:56 UTC, alan_m wrote:
>> > I have the heating on for less than 5 hours a day anyway :)
>> But I'll bet the 5 hours are before it gets light in the morning and
>> after it gets dark in the afternoon.
>
> No, I'm in bed then.

We have gas central heating and radiators. Our house is L-shaped and the
radiators in the two wings are on two different circuits: the same boiler
can feed radiators in either zone or in both zones, determined by motorised
valves. All that was done by the previous owners. Since then, when we had
the boiler replaced (it was starting to corrode) we chose to replace the
conventional wired thermostats and timer with two Hive thermostats/timers.
So we are able to see from the Hive app exactly how long the heating has
been on in the two zones each day.

One zone also has supplementary heating from an Aga and from a
wood-/peat-burning stove, so the central heating is on for less time in that
zone that for the other zone which has no other source of heat.

Looking at the figures for a typical weekday at the moment, the "unheated"
(no Aga/stove) zone is on for about 3.5 hours per day and the "heated"
(Aga/stove) zone is on for about 2.5 hours. That's with the present outside
temperatures that are around -5 to +5 degrees C. Going back a few weeks when
outside temp was around 8 deg C, the zones were on for 1.5 hours
("unheated") and 0.5 hours ("heated"). That's for thermostats set to 18 deg
C during the day and 15 deg C between about 2300 and 0800 overnight.

So far we seem to be using about 0.5 to 0.6 times the gas that we used for
corresponding months a year ago, when we had the thermostats set to about
21-22 deg C during the day and 18 deg C overnight.

It's amazing what an increase in the price of gas does to make us economise.
Actually the biggest economy was the simplest: previously we'd tended to
keep the kitchen door open so heat was free to move between the two wings of
the house, and we tended not to shut the bedroom doors (in the "unheated"
wing of the house). We closed the doors as the first form of economy, even
before we altered thermostats, and saw a significant decrease because we
were now heating just the parts that needed to be heated, and not heating
the long corridor outside the bedrooms etc.

On 11/12/2022 00:02, Paul wrote:
> On 12/10/2022 5:15 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
>>>
>> "Your Children wont know what Snow is" (some climb-it alarmist)
>
> Posted: Dec 08, 2022
>
> https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/mount-washington-water-shortage-1.6679165
>
>
>    "...mean visitors will have limited terrain to play on
>     and will have to bring their own drinking water."
>              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> It depends on what we run out of first.
>
>    Paul
>

Once the Andes snow caps and glaciers have gone, Peru will no
longer have enough water to be able to grow asparagus all year
round and air-freight it to Europe.

That will piss off quite a few guardian readers

Welcome to your free sample of Net Zero.

Reminds me of an incident in Luton many years ago.

The gas supply network cocked up and cross-connected a medium pressure
gas pipe to the local distribution pipework, which instantly wrecked all
the pressure regulators and some meters. This left 1000's of homes
needing new regulators, and all meters and all appliances needing to be
tested before reconnection - a massive job.

Gas board drove around distributing electric heaters.

3 hours later, local substation transformer exploded into flames.

Now, no power, and no quick fixes for either. I think they got some
large gensets running in a day for some people, and a new substation
transformer fitted in a few days, but the gas took weeks to recover.
Even a temporary loss of pressure in the low pressure network requires a
protected process of visiting every property at least twice before
everyone is back on again, but in this case, quite extensive repairs too.

Andrew

Andrew Gabriel <andrew@cucumber.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> Even a temporary loss of pressure in the low pressure network requires a
> protected process of visiting every property at least twice before
> everyone is back on again,

And if they can’t access your meter they dig up your pavement and
physically cut your supply pipe so that they can restore the supply to your
neighbours.

Tim

--
Please don't feed the trolls

On 14/12/2022 07:36, Tim+ wrote:
> Andrew Gabriel <andrew@cucumber.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> Even a temporary loss of pressure in the low pressure network requires a
>> protected process of visiting every property at least twice before
>> everyone is back on again,
>
> And if they can’t access your meter they dig up your pavement and
> physically cut your supply pipe so that they can restore the supply to your
> neighbours.
>
> Tim
>
>

Or in my case in 1985, when my air-hostess neighbour was
somewhere over the atlantic, BG dug up the pavement in
front of her house (terrace of 5) and cut and clamped
the gas pipe and my gas supply immediately failed.

Entire block of 5 houses had been built 6 feet furthur
down the slight slope because the site foreman decided
that the house at the upper end of the terrace needed
more garden. Gas installers laid the supply to each
house strictly according to the plans.

On 14/12/2022 06:56, Andrew Gabriel wrote:
> Reminds me of an incident in Luton many years ago.
>
> The gas supply network cocked up and cross-connected a medium pressure
> gas pipe to the local distribution pipework, which instantly wrecked all
> the pressure regulators and some meters. This left 1000's of homes
> needing new regulators, and all meters and all appliances needing to be
> tested before reconnection - a massive job.
>
> Gas board drove around distributing electric heaters.
>
> 3 hours later, local substation transformer exploded into flames.
>
> Now, no power, and no quick fixes for either. I think they got some
> large gensets running in a day  for some people, and a new substation
> transformer fitted in a few days, but the gas took weeks to recover.
> Even a temporary loss of pressure in the low pressure network requires a
> protected process of visiting every property at least twice before
> everyone is back on again, but in this case, quite extensive repairs too.

Sheffield does it well

https://www.thestar.co.uk/news/politics/council/sheffield-councillors-ask-what-went-wrong-in-fargate-container-park-shambles-3952149

> On 14/12/2022 06:56, Andrew Gabriel wrote:
>> Reminds me of an incident in Luton many years ago.
>>
>> The gas supply network cocked up and cross-connected a medium pressure
>> gas pipe to the local distribution pipework, which instantly wrecked all
>> the pressure regulators and some meters. This left 1000's of homes
>> needing new regulators, and all meters and all appliances needing to be
>> tested before reconnection - a massive job.
>>
>> Gas board drove around distributing electric heaters.
>>
>> 3 hours later, local substation transformer exploded into flames.
>>
>> Now, no power, and no quick fixes for either. I think they got some large
>> gensets running in a day for some people, and a new substation
>> transformer fitted in a few days, but the gas took weeks to recover. Even
>> a temporary loss of pressure in the low pressure network requires a
>> protected process of visiting every property at least twice before
>> everyone is back on again, but in this case, quite extensive repairs too.

My parents and their neighbours lost their gas supply for about 10 days when
a water main burst and rupture the gas main alongside it, flooding the gas
main with water. The "gas board" responded very promptly and brought in lots
of people from the surrounding area to fix the rupture gas pipe, evacuate
the water from the main and get gas restored, but with probably 50 houses
affected, it took a long time to get everyone going. They *gave* (didn't
want it back) my parents a couple of electric heaters and a small hob/oven,
and arranged a rebate on their electricity bill for the less efficient form
of heating. At least their sub-station withstood the extra electricity
usage... As you say, with gas the turning on process is long and tedious,
in case people have left any gas appliances turned on during the gas outage.

When there was a major power cut (JCB through underground HV cable) to the
town where I used to work, supply to our office block was restored within a
few minutes. Brilliant! The loud unfamiliar throbbing of an engine showed
that site facilities had cranked up the standby diesel generator. A few
minutes later the lights went dim and there was a tremendous explosion and a
huge fireball. The generator had overheated, igniting the diesel fuel,
because it was specced for the days when most of the computers were a few
big mainframes; it had never been upgraded to account for the "modern" trend
towards one PC on each person's desk, plus many development servers etc. I
think it was also suspected that the engine oil was low/nonexistent so the
engine itself may have seized. After that, there was no power for about 6
hours, so very little work could be done. Somehow the canteen managed to put
on a decent (but cold) lunch for everyone.

On 14/12/2022 19:55, ARW wrote:
> On 14/12/2022 06:56, Andrew Gabriel wrote:
>> Reminds me of an incident in Luton many years ago.
>>
>> The gas supply network cocked up and cross-connected a medium pressure
>> gas pipe to the local distribution pipework, which instantly wrecked
>> all the pressure regulators and some meters. This left 1000's of homes
>> needing new regulators, and all meters and all appliances needing to
>> be tested before reconnection - a massive job.
>>
>> Gas board drove around distributing electric heaters.
>>
>> 3 hours later, local substation transformer exploded into flames.
>>
>> Now, no power, and no quick fixes for either. I think they got some
>> large gensets running in a day  for some people, and a new substation
>> transformer fitted in a few days, but the gas took weeks to recover.
>> Even a temporary loss of pressure in the low pressure network requires
>> a protected process of visiting every property at least twice before
>> everyone is back on again, but in this case, quite extensive repairs too.
>
> Sheffield does it well
>
> https://www.thestar.co.uk/news/politics/council/sheffield-councillors-ask-what-went-wrong-in-fargate-container-park-shambles-3952149
>
>

Have they got bored with cutting down all the wonderful trees that
Sheffield has (had) ?.

On 16/12/2022 14:03, Andrew wrote:

>
> Have they got bored with cutting down all the wonderful trees that
> Sheffield has (had) ?.

I think so.

On 14/12/2022 20:11, NY wrote:
>They *gave* (didn't want it back) my parents a couple of electric
> heaters and a small hob/oven, and arranged a rebate on their electricity
> bill for the less efficient form of heating.

When Lou's boiler was condemned by the council (or their Gas safe
subcontractors) the council made sure the electric fire in the lounge
worked (it didn't as I had changed the fused spur for a socket - so they
put a plug on it), gave her a fan heater they did not want back and then
went to check her immersion heater worked.

The immersion was not wired in from the DP switch in the airing cupboard
to the immersion. The council electrician had no heat resistant flex on
the van and he phoned me to ask if I could do it when I got home from
work as he was finishing work in 10 minutes:-)

On Sunday, 18 December 2022 at 10:41:02 UTC, ARW wrote:
> On 14/12/2022 20:11, NY wrote:
> >They *gave* (didn't want it back) my parents a couple of electric
> > heaters and a small hob/oven, and arranged a rebate on their electricity
> > bill for the less efficient form of heating.
> When Lou's boiler was condemned by the council (or their Gas safe
> subcontractors) the council made sure the electric fire in the lounge
> worked (it didn't as I had changed the fused spur for a socket - so they
> put a plug on it), gave her a fan heater they did not want back and then
> went to check her immersion heater worked.
>
> The immersion was not wired in from the DP switch in the airing cupboard
> to the immersion. The council electrician had no heat resistant flex on
> the van and he phoned me to ask if I could do it when I got home from
> work as he was finishing work in 10 minutes:-)
Not having a flex from switch to immersion would avoid unexpected consumption/bills. I like it!

On 18/12/2022 18:39, John J wrote:
> On Sunday, 18 December 2022 at 10:41:02 UTC, ARW wrote:

> Not having a flex from switch to immersion would avoid unexpected consumption/bills. I like it!

And I like to have a bath with Lou - and we both like it hot:-)

On Sunday, 18 December 2022 at 20:01:44 UTC, ARW wrote:
> On 18/12/2022 18:39, John J wrote:
> > On Sunday, 18 December 2022 at 10:41:02 UTC, ARW wrote:
>
> > Not having a flex from switch to immersion would avoid unexpected consumption/bills. I like it!
> And I like to have a bath with Lou - and we both like it hot:-)
Hard boiled or scalded nuts anyone? :-(