Re: Turn your home into a mini power station...

[Bruno Prior <bruno@xxxxxxx>]

Sorry this is late. The original message got bounced and I didn't notice.

Shmern wrote:
>
> The Geothermal (Heat pump) technology looks good, very good in fact.
Im
> seriously considering it for my impending build. But will want to
see/speak
> to people who have it installed. Anyone here dabbled with it ?

Yes. I've got one in my barn conversion. Got a few teething troubles
with the controls to sort out (mainly to do with how it combines with
the LPG boiler), but basically it works fine. Just a question of getting
the right bit of kit having priority at the right time (it's quite a
complicated system).

For a UK manufacturer, have a look at Kensa Engineering's website -
http://www.kensaengineering.com.

The statement in another message that the payback on all these
technologies is too long is probably wrong for heatpumps now. You can
get £1200 grant from the government towards the cost. Take that off the
typical £3000 - £4000 for buying and installing an average-sized
domestic heatpump and ground loops, and it's not much more expensive
than buying a normal boiler. In theory, it shouldn't take long to make
back the money from the energy savings. At least, that's what Richard
Freeborn at Kensa argues. In fact, he had some justification for why his
kit was no more expensive than a boiler, though I struggle to see how
that is not an exaggeration.

It's rather late, so I won't go into detail now, but I'm happy to
provide more information to those who are interested.

Cheers,

Bruno