Hi I'm Stuart, a 75 year old active DIYer

[stuartg]

I started out life as an electrical engineering student then apprentice in an electric control gear company in the early 1970s
I then spent most of my working life designing computer systems and running projects to implement them
I retired some 14 years ago and am spending my time transforming my bungalow in North Wales.
Furthermore, I have to use professions for gas work, but that will stop as I am now replacing gas with air to water heat exchanger and solar water heating.
I may cover my garage roof with electric solar panels to reduce my increasing electricity usage

 

[Jim09876]

Welcome Stuart and thank you for your service.

 

[ShaunCorbs]

Hello and welcome

 

[Ric2013]

Dyfi valley by any chance?

 

[stuartg]

Hello and welcome

I won't be asking about gas, I'm working towards NO gas by mid next year and renewal heat/electricity panels, I may need advice as I install them, I'm not claiming any grants as the surveys commission etc swallow those all up and more. What I don't yet know is how I get the meter removed and the supply capped and stop paying the daily charge (£90 per year}

Dyfi valley by any chance?

No, Prestatyn

 

[ShaunCorbs]

Contact your supplier eg edf etc

 

[stuartg]

Contact your supplier eg edf etc

Thanks

 

[Lou]

Welcome! How is life at the seaside?

 

[Dan]

I started out life as an electrical engineering student then apprentice in an electric control gear company in the early 1970s
I then spent most of my working life designing computer systems and running projects to implement them
I retired some 14 years ago and am spending my time transforming my bungalow in North Wales.
Furthermore, I have to use professions for gas work, but that will stop as I am now replacing gas with air to water heat exchanger and solar water heating.
I may cover my garage roof with electric solar panels to reduce my increasing electricity usage

Hi Stuart,

Thanks for joining the forum and posting an introduction. If you ever need help with the forum itself please message me by clicking on my name to start a new conversation. Or @Dan me and that'll notify me but I'm not the quickest to reply that way.

 

[stuartg]

Welcome! How is life at the seaside?

 

[stuartg]

Love it- we've lived in North Wales for 25 years and inherited our bungalow 8 years ago. We
tried to sell it then rented it out and finally decided to sell our house and live in it.
It was a mess, and we have completely transformed it from a small 3-bedroom bungalow with tiny kitchen
to sitting room, utility room, large kitchen with dining table, 3 reasonable bedrooms, 1 in the loft with a full staircase, a fourth occasional guest room and created both a bathroom and a shower room both with basins and toilets from the original 1 bathroom. I have done most of the construction work and plumbing but draw the line at plastering, it is still a work in progress with another 2-3 years before completion. We are embarking on getting rid of gas next year with air source heat pump and solar water pre-heating, all explained on my other post.

 

[Roy_66]

Hi Stuart,

Can I ask the control gear company?

Also are you doing/done underfloor heating? or big rads?

Cheers,

Roy (Amateur plumber)

 

[gewone]

Hi and welcome onboard mate! 👊🔥

 

[stuartg]

Hi Roy,
The control is all provided with the LG MONOBLOC 7Kw
The solar is following a little later but will come with its own controller and is free-standing with its own tank. See my post in the renewable energy forum.

Just leaving central heating radiators, it's fine and adequate, we have a multi-fuel in the sitting room for when the temperature drops, but last year we only had 1 frost and the year before we had none. The only problem with no gas is the conservatory, but maybe use a small bottle gas heater, if we bother. Prestatyn by the sea is remarkably warm.
The cost of the heat pump and the 2 tanks is £3,370 including all necessary controls and connects similarly to a non combi gas boiler, with thermostat control to give hot water priority, but 7Kw should be adequate for our needs.

 

[Roy_66]

Hi Stuart,

Prestatyn sounds a great place by the coast to make this kind of technology work, as well as a great place to live. I need to catch up on your other posts in the various bits of the forum.

Silly question: Are you happy with the through life costs of the Monobloc. Interesting how much training you might need to service those.

Some alternative standby heat sources for a bit of redundancy sounds a good idea.

Cheers,

Roy

 

[stuartg]

They maintain that "Thanks to its combined design, the unit is easy to install, service and maintain." They also have a service support desk and encourage DIY installation. Its

LG HM091M.U43 R32 Therma-V Air Source Heat Pump 9kW MonoBloc​

and it has an interesting breakdown strategy. On any type of failure It keeps it heating water, either by ignoring failed cutouts or in the unlikely event that the compressor fails, heating the water by electricity until an engineer arrives.
Also, both my tanks have immersion heaters and there's always the faithful fan heater. And of course the fire in the sitting room

Obviously all that would not help in the event of a power cut, but we've only had one in the time we were here and that was isolated and power restored in 30 minutes.
At 9Kw, it is probably 60% overkill for our size of house and family, but the figures provided for annual running cost make it only marginally more expensive that our present gas bills once the daily gas cost reduction at £90 per annum is taken into account and once we have the solar panels installed it will have warm water input to start with even on dull days.

P.S. whereabouts do you live