RE: Re: Underfloor heating and HA control?

["Nigel Giddings" <nigel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Richard,

Thanks for the information, it confirms a lot of my thinking...

In Summary it would seem the most critical part of the design is
insulation and that provides benefit all year round in stable
temperatures, even in the summer! My house is not completely sealed yet,
issues with windows and soffit, but during the summer it was cooler
inside than outside. Only after a month of very high external
temperatures did the internal temperatures creep up beyond ideal... My
concern is that normal living will add to the heat in the house, baths,
showers, even fridges and freezers. I doubt the cooker would get a lot
of use during a heat wave though?

I notice you always heat, albeit to relatively low temperatures (16 - 18
deg C) at times. I have always assumed this is the best way. My parents
constantly turn on and off their CH and you are constantly experiencing
the lag.

You also confirm the need for MVHR in the house to control ventilation.
Different people have different personal stragies with windows, it would
seem the MVHR can reduce the randomness of people opening windows... It
probably also makes the house freasher without the issue of draughts
associated with windows. How do you operate the MVHR, is that on a timer
of some sort?

I would argue you have quite sophisticated control of your system albeit
distributed across several programmable thermostats ;-)

I hope I will be as please with my heating system.

Nigel



-----Original Message-----
From: rb_ziggy [mailto:rb.lists@xxxxxxx]
Sent: 21 October 2006 00:43
To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Subject: [ukha_d] Re: Underfloor heating and HA control?

Nigel

See below - no trouble!

Just one other point, we also have MHRV. I'm convinced this plus the
UFH and good insulation (i.e beyond current building reg standards and
we took a lot of care to ensure it was continuous and draughts were
eliminated) is the reason that everyone who stays with us for a period
remark how comfortable the house is.

Richard

--- In ukha_d@xxxxxxx <mailto:ukha_d%40yahoogroups.com>
, "Nigel
Giddings" <nigel@...> wrote:
>
> Hi Ziggy,
>
> Good to get a real world experience !
>
> From what I have heard it takes everyone about 2 weeks to sort out the
> thermostats...

Yes - took a couple of weeks to get the settings right. The 'standard'
programmable thermostats in each of the 8 zones have, I think, 6
setting periods per day and different ones for the weekend. As we
have family in the house we just run the same weekday & weekend. (no
lie-ins with the kids!)

We don't use all 6 really. Have a 20 deg period early morning, 18 for
main day, 20 from about 5 to 10pm and 16 for the night. These are my
recollection, its something like this. In practice, the heating is on
in the morning period and evening only unless its bitterly cold
outside. This seems to work fine for us.

>
> I wanted to pick up on your temperature overshoot during the evening
and
> how you cope with it now, five years later. Do you have programmable
> thermostats or do you manually turn them down?

Programmable thermostats as noted above. Having set them, I've never
touched then since except to change the batteries and reset the time
when they drift too far (I often dont even bother with setting for BST
as heating is usually off during this period!)

Overshoot was only a prob in the first couple of weeks. In practice
it gets warmer through the evening by a couple of degrees max (never
gets above 21.5 though on these settings). So we dealt with
'overshoot' by turning off earlier.

>
> Does this overshoot vary day to day due to shifting of the time of
dusk?

Not that we can detect - insulation and v high quality windows (k
glass, argon etc etc) seem to negate this. In the summer the house
also stays pretty cool too - even in prolonged heatwaves, the house is
noticably cooler than friends places (though it was still too hot in
July for my liking).

>
> Do you have adolescents in the house?

Not quite, two boys nearing that though!

>
> How do you find the heating in the Bathroom, is it supplemented with
> Towel rails?

No, and I'm glad we didn't bother. I didn't mention before but
heating in the bedrooms comes on less than downstairs. If I built
again I'd be tempted to super-insulate and not put any heating in on
the first floor. I know this sounds strange but in our bedroom and
en-suite which is at the end on the house, I think the heating only
comes on a few times a year in the coldest snaps. It's obvious because
we have a slate floor in the en-suite, when the heating's on in the
morning, its noticably warm. Nice! But if it came on all the time it
would be way too warm.

(Don't forget the MHRV is moving air around the house gently so there
are no cool pockets like a bathroom.)

If you like it really warm, you could perhaps put a rail in the
bathroom but my wife really hates the cold and has never had an issue.

>
> Do you have a DHW Loop?

No - but this would have been a good idea. Only place we need it is
in the kitchen & utility which is a way from the tank. We had
intended to do this (I've got a pump sitting in the garage). But I
forgot to tell the plumber to fix for it and by the time I'd realised
it was all done (i.e found it in the box of spare bits a couple of
weeks later) and I didnt feel like ripping plasterboard from ceilings.

>
> Thanks in advance
>
> Nigel



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