Electric Heatpumps.

Andy C: 
. . .

Interestingly, I am currently involved with a major project for a local businessman where we have installed a large ASHP setup to heat his house which he is extending. Despite not being short of money he has been moaning about the ASHP running costs (currently £20-30k/year). Due to large areas of glazing he also wanted a/c to cool about 14 rooms so we've fitted a VRV system which enables it to extract heat from those rooms which need cooling and dump it into the hot water or heating systems. Result, free hot water! 

I feel this would be a better approach for heating houses than trying to get heat pumps to replace gas boilers. Should we go down the road of the USA with new houses having central air systems ducted to each room? Should be better and more efficient than trying to heat up water/floors through UFH and allows for cooling in those sweltering hot summers we get!

When we moved to Hampshire, in the mid-1980s, we saw ducted air heating installations in several houses, including in the one we eventually bought. The good point of this system was, to my mind, the speed with which a cold room could be warmed up from cold. Open the sutter for that room and one could feel some benefit almost immediately and it would not take long for the whole room to feel warm. Whereas turn on a radiator and can take a few minutes for the radiator to fully warm up, and it takes rather longer to fully warm the room.

Human nature comes into this. I think one reason why people sometimes keep heat on in an unused room is a precaution against suddenly deciding to use the room and needing to suffer the cold before it warms up.

There are some downsides to ducted air heating. One is it can be a bit noisy. In our lounge then, the outlet was smack between my stereo speakers; not appreciated when I wanted to listen to hi-fi music. Another is that this system can be easily designed and built into a new house but adapting to an older house, like our present 1950s-built house with radiators, is less easy and probably very expensive.

One often hears the USA criticised for being one of the world's biggest polluters, but I think the Americans are onto a good thing here. A flexible heat-pump system, which can also cool the house in summer and use the heat to heat water! In their language, that sounds just swell! Let's have it over here. 

Andy C: 
. . .

Interestingly, I am currently involved with a major project for a local businessman where we have installed a large ASHP setup to heat his house which he is extending. Despite not being short of money he has been moaning about the ASHP running costs (currently £20-30k/year). Due to large areas of glazing he also wanted a/c to cool about 14 rooms so we've fitted a VRV system which enables it to extract heat from those rooms which need cooling and dump it into the hot water or heating systems. Result, free hot water! 

I feel this would be a better approach for heating houses than trying to get heat pumps to replace gas boilers. Should we go down the road of the USA with new houses having central air systems ducted to each room? Should be better and more efficient than trying to heat up water/floors through UFH and allows for cooling in those sweltering hot summers we get!

When we moved to Hampshire, in the mid-1980s, we saw ducted air heating installations in several houses, including in the one we eventually bought. The good point of this system was, to my mind, the speed with which a cold room could be warmed up from cold. Open the sutter for that room and one could feel some benefit almost immediately and it would not take long for the whole room to feel warm. Whereas turn on a radiator and can take a few minutes for the radiator to fully warm up, and it takes rather longer to fully warm the room.

Human nature comes into this. I think one reason why people sometimes keep heat on in an unused room is a precaution against suddenly deciding to use the room and needing to suffer the cold before it warms up.

There are some downsides to ducted air heating. One is it can be a bit noisy. In our lounge then, the outlet was smack between my stereo speakers; not appreciated when I wanted to listen to hi-fi music. Another is that this system can be easily designed and built into a new house but adapting to an older house, like our present 1950s-built house with radiators, is less easy and probably very expensive.

One often hears the USA criticised for being one of the world's biggest polluters, but I think the Americans are onto a good thing here. A flexible heat-pump system, which can also cool the house in summer and use the heat to heat water! In their language, that sounds just swell! Let's have it over here.