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Stuartb

Hi,

I'm fairly new to this world and am buying an old farmhouse on which I want to put some renewable energy sources.

Initially I am just going to have solar PV on the roof and a wood fired backboiler in the lounge in addition to a standard gas boiler (Potterton - non combi). Having had a bit of a look around I am thinking that I would like some kind of thermal store to initially provide hot water using a combination of the above inputs (solar PV via immersun) and maybe ultimately to provide hot water for radiators too.

Any advice as to whether this would be appropriate and what sort of thermal store would be best or what a better solution would be?

Thanks

Stuart
 
A big Welcome Stuart to this plumbing forum.
I would concentrate on fantastic insulation and air tightness, also your plans for an "A rated" Condensing system boiler is a wise move, to widen your options for future renewable inputs into your DHW cylinder store.
Are you going to replace the current ground floor ? If so that could be your biggest thermal store over just for hot water, as space heating costs are a greater part of heating.
My first step as a thermal store, would be to consider insulating the whole floor slab as a giant heat store. On top of 100mm of Kingspan , I would have an underfloor piped heating matrix. I would heat each alternate circuit by various heat sources from the end of summer through to March. The thermal store would use all the cheapest renewable sources as possible, even if I could not afford them all from the outset at least the pipe/duct matrix. I slipped in ductwork there as a friend of mine has done this successfully for passive cooling in the summer, cheaper than air con & saving heat in to the store.
The other Heat inputs could be supplied from solar, wood, Ground source Heat pump, etc. etc.
I could go on with my ideas but please let us know more of your plans.
 
Hi Stuart,
Welcome, here's some starting points:
1) Insulate
2) Insulate
3) Insulate
That might sound strange coming from someone that sells and installs renewables technology for a living, however it is still the most economic form of energy usage / heating bar none.
Solar PV and an Immersun, excellent idea, as for thermal stores, these can only really be sized know what your heat load is and what you heat sources are. As for make, the two best on the market are probably Akva : :: AKVA SOLAR
or you could consider these from ACV [DLMURL="http://www.acv.com/gb-en/03_03/87/app.rvb"]SmartLine Multi-Energy (SLME) - ACV[/DLMURL] - you can always call the ACV rep and they will help you size it.

Sizing is absolutely critical and the heat load will be NOTHING like the output of your combi boiler - that will have (should have) been sized for hot water output, not building heat load.

You opresumably had an EPC done for the Solar PV - if recent then at the bottom will be an (inaccurate and incorrect though OK starting point) estimate of kWh heating and hot water usage. - What were thos figures?

Themal mass is a very good way of storing heat - the problem is how to get it into it - a wood fired stove shoves out a lot of heat in a short time, hence water is a great storage medium. If you run heat pumps, then underfloor heating and flooring mass is equally a great way to smooth out the load requirements - to use a wood burner and u/floor you will need a large thermal store.

Hence the sizing calculations.

Get yourself down to ecobuild at ExCel next Tuesday - Thursday for ideas :) Ecobuild 2014 - sustainable design, construction, energy and the built environment
 
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If it is an old farmhouse and you have other outbuilding you should also consider putting the Solar PV on roofs other than the house (we do it all the time :) )

Since you will be changing the hot water cylinder anyway you should also add in Solar Thermal (ST) to them mix, - it makes sense when you are chnaging / renewing the cuclinder anyway, plus the ST will attract the Domestic RHI payments.

Unless you are going to bring the property up to better than current (minimum) insulation requirements, then I would stick with mains gas as it will be more cost effective than heatpumps or biomass.

Bring it up to close to passiv house standards and assuming you have the land available, then consider a ground source heat pump, backed up with the wood burner is a potentially good solution.

Choose your installer carefully.
 
Hey Stuart,
Please come back, we did not want to put you off, just trying to give some helpful answers.
Yes the wood burning back boiler would be good for when it`s very cold have it connected into a big (300 ltr) cylinder with multiple input coils for future upgrades.
Tell us how far you have got with your plans and what you need help with.
 
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