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SJB

SJB

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#285868 22-May-2021 11:47
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We are doing some serious renovations to part of our house next year and I'm looking at the alternatives for heating and hot water.

 

The part we will renovate currently has a warm air system powered by a diesel boiler with the hot water system shared with the rest of the house using a traditional cylinder.

 

I'm considering installing a ground source heat pump for both the heating and hot water and to possibly heat an exercise pool outside if we can afford it. We have the ground available to install the necessary plumbing.

 

I'd also like to drive the heat pump using solar panels so that after the installation the whole system runs effectively for free. I do understand that I'm personally not likely to recover the costs of installation (unless I live to a record old age) but it would make the renovation more interesting and we would hopefully end up with a reliable system that is not reliant on external factors such as the power grid.

 

So I was wondering if any GZ'ers have tried anything similar and if they had any advice.


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  #2711323 22-May-2021 14:10
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what part of the country are you in?




SJB

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  #2711348 22-May-2021 15:28
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South Canterbury.


hsvhel
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  #2711537 22-May-2021 18:37
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are you going to store the generated power incase of low generation days to allow for running the heat pump? or is the solar large enough to cater for low light days





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SJB

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  #2711597 23-May-2021 08:20
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I was thinking of storage.

 

We seem to get a lot of low light days over the last few years and the layout of the hills around me doesn't help in that they seem to trap low cloud and without wind it hangs around for a while.

 

I have a large roof area that could take a fair number of panels.

 

 


wally22
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  #2711623 23-May-2021 10:10
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So a battery bank will be the first thing requiring replacement in the future.


pdh

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  #2711713 23-May-2021 13:13
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Have just commissioned my DHW & hydronic system (groundsource) this week.

 

Ran some hydronic flow last night for the first time.

 

Consider that (in 2021) it's much, much cheaper to store heat than KWH.
You should convert any extra energy to heat & store the heat in liquid form.
Rather than storing KWH in Lithium or LA cells - and then later converting it to heat.
The hot liquid (storage) is much cheaper to buy and maintain than electrical batteries.

 

I have one 1000 L brine (actually ethylene glycol) heat store.
Very, very well insulated.

 

It uses an internal thermocline to keep 54C water (uppermost) for the DHW and 40C water lower down for the hydronic.

 

You need to consider that the higher the temp of the heat store, the less efficiently the heat pump runs.
(ie: Getting the brine from 50 to 60C is harder for the heat pump than 30 to 40C.)
So you balance the cost of an extra storage tank against the efficiency loss / energy availability.
Spreadsheet time ;-)

 

 

 

 


hairy1
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  #2711718 23-May-2021 13:38
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Maybe I should be using our swimming pool as a heat store in Winter for our heat pump (extracting heat only) hmmm....





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