Space heating without fossil fuels

[dan_aka_jack]

What are the options for keeping warm in the UK without fossil fuels?  A few of them seem to be:

1) Build a new house which meets Passive House standard (super insulation, maximum benefit from solar energy coming in through windows, heat recovery for gasses/liquids leaving the house)

2) Grow your own forest and use wood-burning stoves

3) Stick a >100,000L tank of water in the middle of your house and heat it during the summer with solar

4) Build a lard/WVO CHP system; possibly one which also drives a heat-pump for sucking latent heat from the ground?

5) Pre-heat your air intake to about 8 degrees C using a ground-air heat exchanger.

Any other options?

Also - in general, I have heard a number of people say that heatpumps are not a great investment - is this true?  Heat pumps seem very popular with the projects on Grand Designs!

Many thanks,
Jack

[martin]

heat pumps are like most renewables - brilliant if used in the correct context!
For a new build with underfloor heating, where you're already generating your own electricity, absolutely perfect
What the heat pump salesmen don't tell you is to be very careful with your maths - they'll trumpet loud and long over the "free" power, and completely gloss over the fact that the one unit of power you have to put in is the most expensive by a country mile....electricity!
SO, if you had mains gas at around 2p unit, and electricity was 10p, you'd be barking mad to go that route......... (4 units of heat out of the heat pump=10p, 4 units gas=8p!)

[lightfoot]

Hi Jack,

If you have the space and don't mind a bit of work, then maybe a log batch boiler might be an option, if you want more automation and and bit less work, the other options are wood pellet or chip boilers, but you will pay more for both the equipment and the fuel.

lightfoot.

[Panda_Badger]

Jack,

You seem to have been getting more and more anxious over the past couple of weeks, covering all bases with all things sustainable. At least the penny has dropped with you, when most of the population is in ignorant bliss over the looming energy crisis. Okay, maybe bliss is too strong a word, maybe ignorant ignorance might just cover it.

The thing about heating systems is, by their very definition the fact that heat of some sort is needed to perpetuate them, or rather the using/burning to release the energy therein. A good example of this is a woodburning Aga, Rayburn, etc connected to the heating system/ hot water. This cooks your food, warms your room(s) and heats your water. This setup is not so good when the weather is warm for obvious reasons, but it's what a lot of people used all the time in the past, and many still do.

As with Listers and the like, a great benefit is the CHP aspect, just like with the Aga. Energy is a precious commodity, so must be extracted fully.

It looks like we are going to be burning things for a long time yet, but the luxury of having high calorific fuel to use is going to be short lived. Buying a house near woodland could be a good investment.

All the best, Pete the Panda.

[odbob]

UK's a big place and so.....
Live next to a fast flowing river, generate your own electricity, drop the ground source loop for the heat pump in the water, sit back and  enjoy  

[dan_aka_jack]

Thanks for all the replies!

You seem to have been getting more and more anxious over the past couple of weeks, covering all bases with all things sustainable. At least the penny has dropped with you, when most of the population is in ignorant bliss over the looming energy crisis. Okay, maybe bliss is too strong a word, maybe ignorant ignorance might just cover it.

Yes, I am getting a bit anxious, aren't I?  Must be all the caffeine (and a light smattering of TheOilDrum.com).  The sad thing is that I'm really not in a position to act on most of this advice at the moment... I'm just gathering info so that - when the opportunity comes to move - I can make some reasonable sensible decisions.

It's graphs like this that scare the c*** out of me:



(especially the grey dotted line extending into the future labelled "sustainable level"!)

graph from http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3386#more

[renewablejohn]

dan aka jack

other options

drill bore hole deep enough to use the earths crust as a heater

move to Bath and tap into the hot springs

buy a farm and use a straw burner

buy a salt marsh and use the the tide to generate electric

[lightfoot]

I guess the obvious one is.....move somewhere warmer 

[dhaslam]

Also giant reflectors in geostationary orbit to reflect light into cities.  Eliminates street  and house lighting, also should  make  solar systems work better.   

[dan_aka_jack]

Here's an interesting article about GSHP with lots of other heating options in the comments (including using the ground as a thermal store)

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3593#more

[billi]

again  heatpumps  are here to fool people .....

is it coal or gas or nuclear power that is produced with about 30 % efficientcy  and the rest is wasted heat   and then we install heatpumps .....  to use even more electricity  must be a joke ...

agood gasburner has better ratings

even a bigger joke here in ireland that you get a grant for a heatpump but not for a woodburning boiler

[dhaslam]

Of course it depends on where the electricity comes from also as one  person suggested  heat pumps are  preferable to  direct electrical heating.   I am hoping to power my heat pump  by wind power and probably use it  only  in windy weather.    The Americans are much less sceptical than Europeans about new technology and some of their systems can be very expensive.  It is interesting that some areas are sunny enough to use solar powered heat pumps in winter.  I am still considering about 2k or so PV panels but mainly for summer general  use  electricity, I don't think our one sunny day in six is much use for winter energy source.   

[spongebobgreenpants]

I too had planned to run my heatpump with assistance from wind power. Luckily i have held off investing a large amount of cash in a 6kw turbine whilst monitoring the wind resource at my site.

Two friends living nearby were not so lucky, having invested in well known brands of 2.5kw and 6kw machines. Power production has been woefully short of the manufacturers estimated outputs with payback times of 26 years and 50+ years, based on production so far.

These folks were advised by the installers of the suitability of their sites.

Just goes to show, a bit of time invested in monitoring should pay off in the long run. (oh... and take the sales pitches of so called accredited installers with a large pinch of salt)

good luck
SB

[odbob]

yes, it's a common occurence that fact (that which is actually achieved by these alternatives) is way below the fiction spouted by sales people

I've said many times, "it may be free energy out there but the collection of it is certainly not free"

Insulate and seal

[dhaslam]

The site is fairly windy.  Lough Derg  has fairly  strong winds but they fluctuate a lot over the day when sailing I sometimes have used the  water to land  breeze along the banks to scrape home in the evening.   There are  two  wind farms in the general area and they have the same wind variation, they can go from 100kw output to 600kw in about 20 minutes.  I do intend to record the wind on the site for a few months before deciding, after all  I am supposed to be an accountant.