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Nov. 23rd, 2005 07:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ewtFigured out mostly how all the heating stuff works here.
Still haven't figured out how to have hot water without heat; either you just turn all the radiators off (this doesn't seem to wnat to work with the ones in![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mstevens' bedroom), or one of the switches that says "DO NOT TOUCH" is lying. We have options for constant heating, heating according to the mechanical timeclock, or no heating at all. At the moment it's on the timeclock. It's set to come on rather early at 6am (later than that and I have huge troulbe getting out of bed at 6.30, which I have to do often enough it's important), and then goes off again by 9am. It comes on again for 18.00 and then is off by 22.00; I have no idea whether this is 'normal' use of heating or not but it seems to leave the house tolerably warm for the times when people are in it (I don't mind the heating being off when I'm at home by myself in the day, I can always move around or use a hot water bottle or a fan heater or even switch it to constant for a few hours if I'm not coping at all - and my housemate is usually out all day at work), and we usually have enough hot water to do everything we need to do as long as washing people happens before washing laundry.
Figured out that the thermostat on the wall in the living room does do something after all - it regulates the temperature at which the pump comes on. With the pump off the house will still be heated some, because the hot water will all try to go up, but the pump means we can make lots of warm fast if necessary. So far it seems like the pump works pretty well, in that if it is left at a certain temperature the living room does indeed mostly stay at that temperature.
I've set it to 18C because I'm not feeling so ill with that nasty cold any more and though I'm having a hard time staying warm this year, I'd rather wear two sweaters than turn the heating up. All this talk of gas shortages and some of my students still insist on having their houses at 22C when there are no old/ill people around. Grah. I know an awful lot of gas is used for electricity generation and I know a lot of it is for industrial purposes but it doesn't help to have every household heating the great outdoors, does it? And with insulation what it is in this country, that's probably what happens most of the time.
So, the insulation to-do list, not necessarily in order:
-find where the draught in the loft is coming from and make it stop being a draught. It's probably the same place that bird got in a few weeks ago.
-make fleece curtains for the windows, lower priority goes to the ones in the porch and the loft (the porch has the inside door, and the loft window is double-glazed) than to all the others which are generally wooden sash windows with multiple panes of glass in each window
-draught excluder for the kitchen door
-shiny stuff to go behind radiators
-find various draughts in the kitchen and see if they can be stopped sensibly
-curtains for outside walls, like whatshevek did in Bath? I'm not sure of this. We don't have any outside walls that don't already have lots of windows. Getting the windows sorted is definitely more important.
There's already draught excluder on the front door and the loft is insulated.
Warm Front is a UK government program offering grants to households trying to increase their heating efficiency. They offer everything from energy-efficient lightbulbs and hot water tank jackets to financial help with installing things like condensing boilers, loft insulation and cavity wall insulation.
Bear in mind that even if heating costs don't go up dramatically in the next year or so, improving the energy efficiency of your house adds value to your property.
Still haven't figured out how to have hot water without heat; either you just turn all the radiators off (this doesn't seem to wnat to work with the ones in
mstevens' bedroom), or one of the switches that says "DO NOT TOUCH" is lying. We have options for constant heating, heating according to the mechanical timeclock, or no heating at all. At the moment it's on the timeclock. It's set to come on rather early at 6am (later than that and I have huge troulbe getting out of bed at 6.30, which I have to do often enough it's important), and then goes off again by 9am. It comes on again for 18.00 and then is off by 22.00; I have no idea whether this is 'normal' use of heating or not but it seems to leave the house tolerably warm for the times when people are in it (I don't mind the heating being off when I'm at home by myself in the day, I can always move around or use a hot water bottle or a fan heater or even switch it to constant for a few hours if I'm not coping at all - and my housemate is usually out all day at work), and we usually have enough hot water to do everything we need to do as long as washing people happens before washing laundry. Figured out that the thermostat on the wall in the living room does do something after all - it regulates the temperature at which the pump comes on. With the pump off the house will still be heated some, because the hot water will all try to go up, but the pump means we can make lots of warm fast if necessary. So far it seems like the pump works pretty well, in that if it is left at a certain temperature the living room does indeed mostly stay at that temperature.
I've set it to 18C because I'm not feeling so ill with that nasty cold any more and though I'm having a hard time staying warm this year, I'd rather wear two sweaters than turn the heating up. All this talk of gas shortages and some of my students still insist on having their houses at 22C when there are no old/ill people around. Grah. I know an awful lot of gas is used for electricity generation and I know a lot of it is for industrial purposes but it doesn't help to have every household heating the great outdoors, does it? And with insulation what it is in this country, that's probably what happens most of the time.
So, the insulation to-do list, not necessarily in order:
-find where the draught in the loft is coming from and make it stop being a draught. It's probably the same place that bird got in a few weeks ago.
-make fleece curtains for the windows, lower priority goes to the ones in the porch and the loft (the porch has the inside door, and the loft window is double-glazed) than to all the others which are generally wooden sash windows with multiple panes of glass in each window
-draught excluder for the kitchen door
-shiny stuff to go behind radiators
-find various draughts in the kitchen and see if they can be stopped sensibly
-curtains for outside walls, like what
shevek did in Bath? I'm not sure of this. We don't have any outside walls that don't already have lots of windows. Getting the windows sorted is definitely more important.There's already draught excluder on the front door and the loft is insulated.
Warm Front is a UK government program offering grants to households trying to increase their heating efficiency. They offer everything from energy-efficient lightbulbs and hot water tank jackets to financial help with installing things like condensing boilers, loft insulation and cavity wall insulation.
Bear in mind that even if heating costs don't go up dramatically in the next year or so, improving the energy efficiency of your house adds value to your property.
