sagraiasolar's activity

2 years

Sally, having swallowed cheese Directs down holes a scented breeze Enticing thus, with baited breath Nice mice to their untimely death

... surely it orto be 'lettuce' and beautiful worms

Thanks Fillide - the snag is that the web site was constructed on the Microsoft small business platform. They are no longer supporting the platform so the web site officially is not functioning although they may pull the plug properly any day now. I refuse to transfer to their new platform so I'm going to buy Xsite -pro and start again. I'm just finishing writing a technical restoration book for Kindle publishing then I'll get down to it. You might be right about a Wordpress blog .. they are a bit touchy about biz plugging though... a chum of mine who writes on things Italian was chucked off for mentioning a rental opportunity.  Meanwhile though I'll continue to e-mail the newsletter to anyone who cares to be on the list so do all check in if you'd like to get it. I did a heat pump open coffee morning last month and that was fun with a slideshow - Aermec enjoyed it and have offered their showrooms in Perugia for the next one... so much to do and the strimmer is calling.

The laws of physics will answer this one for you. Resistive electric elements use electricity very efficiently only as far as you get out what you put in - and pay for - and certainly no more. Carbon elements don't break the laws of thermodynamics so they certainly don't have performance edge over any other resistive element. Heat pumps have come into this conversation and the comparison is easy to make. A resistive element has a Coefficient Of Performance or COP of 1 - same in same out.  An air source heat pump driving fan coil units at 40c instead of your proposed radiators will give a COP of er .... consults table ... 2.5 when the outside temperature is Zero and rising to  a COP of over 3 for just a few degrees above. So it produces out of thin air more times than what you paid for and in this instance is 2.5 times better than some carbon strands. Without writing the full essay, this is the way to go and if you mix a bit of wood energy with a small air source heat pump you can have a delightful heating system that won't cost the earth to run.  By the way - deep snow and power cuts this winter reinforced the desirability of having mixed source systems. I have added a couple of tweaks to my standard system to make it fully workable without any power and retain some cooking facilities too.  And finally my web site kindly mentioned by Chris Notton is liable to disappear any minute as Microsoft have withdrawn support so I have to rewrite it when I get some time... if you want to grab the Excel models off it before it goes now is the time.  If you ever want a copy of 'The Heating Guide' just PM me and I'll happily send it to you.

I expect you've got the picture from previous comments - 6kW of course.  To complete the picture you should know there are cheaper rates for heat pumps and they are delivered on a second meter. I've just spent some time factoring this into a whole house heating model and it is fascinating to see how cheap it all gets particularly as houses get bigger.  ##if you are sticking with combined wood power then this won't apply as you'll only need a baby heat pump and the normal power is cheaper.  I assume you're not going for gas. Also it's still valid to think about PV power ... this effectively upgrades your 6kW rating as quite often the sun will be adding to the total. ... and paying the bills at the same time

Thank you all for the helpful and detailed comments ..... If I get somewhere soon on this I'll report back. Saluti

... wise of you to ask.  We used a big company (beginning with a letter at the front of the alphabet) and they gave an estimate based on the size of our flat... didn't come round for a look. Only after they had taken all our kit away did they add on a huge amount for extra space needed... there was virtually no furniture involved.  After waiting for weeks if not months for the kit to arrive we were told they had to wait for other orders to make up the truckload. Then they asked if there was reasonable access to the house ... just to make sure there was no quibble we spent €5,000 concreting the drive. Then late one night a huge truck arrives that looks like an ocean liner with lights all down the side... no way it would go through the gate and it had to drive away for 12kM just to find somewhere to turn round. It was finally transhipped from the road to our house at our expense. I now use Bearsbys. Helpful, flexible etc.. based in Kent.

http://www.reuk.co.uk/Rainbow-Power-300W-Hydro-Generator.htm     Im very envious of your river and if I had one I'd be doing this just for the fun of it.. Here is a link to a fairly serious bit of kit....  I expect you know that it is flow and height that makes the power so you need to take a large pipe from a higher dam and mount the turbine as low down the line as possible.  £1,500 plus fitting and wiring strikes me as quite a pricey way of getting 300 watts though. There's lots of info in old newsletters on the heatingitaly web site about the various alternatives, in particular some chat about oversize solar arrays set with a winter bias. I mention this because a similar investment will produce several kilowatts of power over a useful part of the year with a broad enough production profile to overlap nicely with wood power when winter comes. Going back to the water power - if you go DIY water turbine on You-tube you get a few interesting projects where car alternators are hooked up to simple turbines.

yup - been there..  after our replica old tiles had been laid the painters came in and stained them with water splashes from their brushes... lots of them as in 'this is how we keep the dust down' There was nothing for it but to use an abrasive sander thingy to skim the tops of the tiles a bit.  The result is that the floors now have an even older worn look... not at all horrible.