Well, we are drifting into the territory we covered in another thread last week.
Firstly, ventilation. I specify a whole house ventilation system with heat recovery (MHRV) in every new house I design, and have installed them in every house I have built. They are marvellous.......providing a constant supply of fresh, but pre-warmed air at a controlled rate, reducing condensation to virtually nil, and preventing the build up of stale or polluted air. (They can even be filtered to prevent, say, pollen, getting into the air of the house of someone who suffers from hay fever). Roy, they are relatively cheap, and extremely simple...........the heat exchanger is simply a layered plastic grill. Baxi do a good one.
Block up the chimney and install a MHRV unit and your fuel bills will plummet!
Secondly, insulation and low energy houses. I have built 5 of the most energy efficient houses ever built in this country. Two are still in the top 5 (most energy efficient above-ground houses) last time I looked. They do not rely on the inter-seasonal storage that Chritian describes, but instead trap passive solar gain, "waste" heat from normal household appliances (particularly the fridge, lights, hot water, TV's and computers, and the kilowatt or so that human bodies give off).
So Jenx, come to visit my house, which costs £40 per year.....yes.....per year........to heat, and then tell me that
Warmer climate maybe ! Not here, ... thats a nonsense
.
I can then take you up the road to a friend of mine who has gone further, and built a house that has no central heating, and only one tiny woodburner, (which he doesn't light before December usually).
There are houses half way up the Rockies in Canada with no heating requirement whatsoever.........this stuff is not nonsense!!!
This is all done with insulation and thermal mass. I have 200mm of insulation in my walls, and 500mm in my loft...........plus triple glazing. Given that I didn't need any heating upstairs, and have a boiler that would normally do a one bedroom flat, my capital (building costs) were within about 2% of what a "normal" house would have cost (except for the thatched roof and conservatory).
The point about the houses tending to the external temperature would be correct if there were no heat imputs.............but there are. The sun shines occasionally, and I grab the heat from the conservatory. The fridge runs constantly etc etc. We went away for 5 weeks last autumn, and when we got back the house was at 17 degrees, with the heating turned off. It also, incidentally, didn't smell stale because of the ventilation system.
I understand your incredulity, Jenx..............I see it every time I a visitor who says how warm my house is in mid-January that the heating last came on before Christmas. I see it every time I tell someone that their new house could be the warmest in the country yet have no central heating.
But, actually...............I'm right. I am right because I live it.........as I say, come and visit.
Mike
