I have been in the building services industry for 40 years and 10 years ago turned my 1930s’s house into a laboratory see https://engx.theiet.org/f/discussions/29622/my-new-ethos-for-heating-cooling-a-dwelling-and-how-i-have-incorporated-it-into-a-1930-s-house . I have been asked how I came up with structural thermal storage. I saw the following formular mentioned in the magazine; Temperature of the air in a room + The temperature of the walls / 2 = The temperature experienced in the room which shows that if the walls are warm less heating is required. So I feel that structural thermal storage should be installed to all solid, cavity wall or concrete buildings if possible. The structural thermal storage I had installed involved tiling lathes screwed at 1m intervals to the exterior over the pebble dash, to negate unevenness, and then screwed high efficiency insulation board over the lathes and then a propriety method was used to apply a self-colour silicon render to the boards to seal the property. This had the effect of placing the building in a thermos flask and making the building structure and contents a thermal store, hot in the winter and cold in the summer, saving a large amount of energy. I think that all heating involving radiators is inefficient, and that air-to-air heat pumps, as used in the rest of the world, are the way. Air to air heat pumps can provide heat, cold and/or dry air at the turn of a switch and can be installed in any property, they dry the air and are far more efficient and controllable than any heating that has radiators. They must be installed by Fgas registered engineers. They have an outside unit floor standing or fixed to an external wall and small fan units high on the wall in each main room, they are very quiet and cost a little over £1000 per room. The pipework can be installed within the structural thermal storage insulation, so the installation can involve little disruption. I think air to air heat pumps are better than radiator systems because:-
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The equipment and installation are considerably cheaper; 2 or more rooms can be installed in one day by one operative.
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They use less energy; they run at a lower system temperature; each room can be individually timed and have a stricter control of the rooms air temperature.
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They have no water whose volume requires heating, pumping and more heat exchangers which all require energy and it can freeze.
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They do not need any floor space in the building.
John Greengrass