The house has a large modern kitchen which incorporates a boiling hot water tap. I wasn't initially very keen on this idea as I thought the loses from it would mean I would be wasting a lot of energy. However this didn't turn out to be the case and because lots of cups of tea are drunk it may be that there is actually a saving from unused boiled water in the bottom of a kettle. An additional advantage was that the heating element doesnt draw 3kW like a kettle so was more likely to be powered by the output of the solar panels. One downside of the kitchen however was the single very small radiator positioned at its far end. Its output was nowhere near enough to heat the room sufficiently in winter. The flat roof extension to the kitchen did have the requite 50mm of PIR insulation, but this was between the rafters and was punctured by the numerous downlights in the ceiling, producing a very cold room. As there wasn't really enough room to fit more radiators, we decided to go for an Air to Air Heat pump, more commonly called an AC unit. We had used these for heating and cooling in Malta and found them good and quite cheap to run. The unit was a Mitsubishi 2.5kW. This produced plenty of heat for the poorly insulated kitchen and as a bonus could provide cooling if we experience another very hot summer. The outdoor part of the unit is small and virtually inaudible.
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AuthorEx Radiographer, Information Analyst, Teacher and Self-builder. Now retired Archives
December 2023
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