I’m going over which showers and bathrooms should or could be wet rooms and found the Schlüter-KERDI-SHOWER, which looks amazing. It might be crazy expensive compared to alternatives.
They have nice looking flush to floor or very low profile showers too.
I was pondering the temperature of the cold water tap!
To get hot water, a domestic hot water system needs to take the cold water up to around 50 degrees C.
– I know there are also considerations to periodically take it above 60 degrees C to prevent the Legionella bacterium growing in the water system.
Looking at the chart below from http://www.zenexenergy.co.uk/Zenex1/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9&Itemid=5&limitstart=1:
I assumed that the mains water pipes were deep enough to cause less seasonal variation in the output temperatures, between 4°C in the winter and up to 20°C in the summer.
I’m not sure why the graph has a lower summer temperature for domestic hot water (DHW).
Although the project is a long way off being ready for a full and final SAP Calculation (SAP background and definition below) I wanted to put the planned building, with the current details, past an experienced SAP consultant to see where it comes out.
This meant that for a lot of figures, there are assumed values, which are a lot worse than the planned values.
For example the SAP calc’s used a figure of 4.0m³/m²/hr at 50Pa.
Even with these default values, the house exceeds current UK requirements.
The initial value has come out as 74 and an emissions (t/year) figure of 5.53.
Adding in the planned 4KW PV system gives figures of 82 and 3.71 (respectively).
That is an annual saving of 1.82 tonnes of carbon. This highlights the level of carbon created at generation (power plants) and the transmittal loss to point of use, PV removes this element and has such a positive affect in reducing CO2.
The SAP consultant (Grant Williams, Tel: 01249 650051) was also able to give his general feedback:
The thermal values issued by ARCO2 are as good as I get to see in all of my clients ….
You seem to be on top of the project with regards to the air tightness this is very refreshing as a vast number rely on mastic post construction.
Also you are very aware of the importance of the thermal bridges I have entered a standard figure for this at a Y Value of 0.08 however if someone has completed the calculation I can alter this at a later date.
The final rating will be improve upon just by issuing the make and model of the Ventilation, Boiler and Closed Log Burner as I have used default figures which are at the bottom of the required efficiency to pass the Compliance.
Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP) calculations show details of the Target Emission Rate (TER) versus the Dwelling Emmission Rate (DER).
To be comparable for all properties, the SAP rating is adjusted to floor area, so that it is essentially independent of dwelling size. It takes into account the following range of factors, which contribute to energy consumption:
SAP has been adopted by government as part of the UK national standard for calculating the energy performance of buildings.
The Ecofab panels are either thicker and filled with straw bales, or a bit thinner and filled with the above sheeps wool. The wool is a waste / by product from the leather industry, often for leather seats in car manufacture.
The cover the top surface with a water replant for if they get wet on-site before they are sealed into the building.
Although the main pipe that goes from Perranporth to the sewage treatment plant by Cligga goes past the front of the house, that is under pressure and isn’t a pipe we can discharge into.
At the moment Silver Spray is a soakaway !
So, as the house is being “upgraded” we’ll be fitting an on-site sewage treatment plant. These treat the toilet waste and to a level where the water meets the rules to be discharged into the groundwater.
This is what the neighbouring properties all have.
Next door to the east, Ramoth have a Klargester BA 450 BioDisc (now part of Kingspan Environmental) unit, that was installed by Dorset based Environmental Drain Services Ltd.
Talking to Environmental Drain Services:
As we head towards sending in the planning permission (we’ve had 2 positive pre-planning meetings), the design has been sent for a preliminary SAP analysis.
A fundamental objective is to create a thermally efficient building, so that over it’s lifetime, the amount of energy to keep the interior at a comfortable temperature and humidity more than offsets the cost (money and environmental cost) to achieve this efficiency.
In crude financial terms, the cost of heating an uninsulated house is nearly three times that of heating a modern well insulated property of the same living area.
Heated buildings loose energy in 3 ways:
The SAP assessor will look at all of these. They will multiply the Ψ (psi) values by the total length of their construction in the building to get a y-value. The y-value is analogous to an aggregated u-value for all the junctions in the building.
What y-values are used in the SAP calculations can have a big impact on the end figure.
Either:
or “8 Ways to Keep Winter Gear From Mucking Up an Entryway“, from http://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/5264166/
Create open storage. “Good air circulation is critical with wet and snowy jackets,” says Jeff Murphy, president of Murphy & Co. Design. Open cubbies not only keep the air moving but make it easy to see a jacket or backpack quickly.
Stock up on baskets and bins. Use containers that slide neatly into divided shelves to keep hats and gloves dust free.
Don’t scrimp on hooks. Hooks are inexpensive.
I was trying to work out how curtains, in the 2 north facing bedrooms wouldn’t bunch up on the sides and block some of the view.
A buddy who’s building a house, said easy, curtain rails that curve and go alongside the side walls !
Genius !
I’ve been sent some info by Cernunnos Homes (“Renewable Energy specialists for the domestic & commercial sector.”) in praise of the ESP Ecocent system. Peter one of the Cernunnos founders has put this into his own house:
If you not decided on a hot water system – take a look at the ESP Ecocent.
No RHI (exhaust air source is not considered green)
Can be integrated with RegaVent MVHR system (so in the summer the Ecocent can cool the house by recycling the air from which heat extracted back through the ventilation system).
When I got back to them about this meaning that the MVHR system isn’t re-directing captured warmth from air being expelled from the house to the cold air being pulled back into the house, they replied:
“…. normal MVHR is transfering heat out to heat in.
However in the summer you want heat out and cold in, which is what the Ecocent delivers by cooling the air via the compressor.
In the winter we can either bypass (so extract and expel from the outside and leave the MVHR as a traditional system) however normally people either shower in the morning (before they go out to work), or in the evening (before they go out to socialise) or at end of night (when you want to let the temperature fall in the house). At these points (when the bathroom is over heated) the MVHR then kicks more heat back into the house when one would naturally be comfortable with it not recovering the heat to recycle to space heating, but there is a demand for water heating. So whilst either use (space or water) for the outgoing heat is an efficient use of that heat it can be argued that the water heating (with very low heat loss) is a slightly more efficient use of that heat! It is energy efficiency at the extremes, ie being efficient in the most efficient manner possible!
A great article on Energie Solar Thermodynamic Hot Water – Comparing Running Costs.
Also look at this post about how they see the systems working, being installed etc.
– http://www.cernunnos-homes.co.uk/products/energie-solar-thermal/
Looking at the The Energie ECO 200is:
on a really good day (sunny and warm) it will supply at most 4.55 kW of energy and will consume 595W. On a bad day (cold night) it will supply 2.8 kW and consume 890 W – so the coefficient of performance would vary from 3.14 to 7.64 – so for every unit (kWh) of electricity you consume you would return between 3.14 and 7.64 kWh of heat for hot water.
As of February 2012 average gas prices were 4.1p per kWh and electricity averaged 13.7p per kWh. Gas (and oil) boilers have a small level of inefficiency (at best they are 90% efficient over the year) and thus the cost per kWh of “heat to the water” would be 4.56p. With the Energie system the cost would average at 2.54p (13.7p divided by 5.39).
Annual running cost per kWh:
– Energie 200is, £0.28
– Gas boiler, £0.51
– Oil boiler, £0.77