Double or single glaze door?

[Benchwayze]

Hi Rorschach

Mine is powder-coated white, as it came from the manufacturer.For heat, I can't say I notice much difference between it, and the original door which was always painted Navy blue or Brown (Spice was the official title!) If I had a few more years I would fit a roller shutter though.

My timber storage rafters (4x2s) are starting to sag, so I must rotate them in their hangers, or the door will be clouting them when opening! Turning them over is going to be fun, wot I am not looking forward to! I'll use props and wedges to lift up the load! :mrgreen:

John

 

[sawdust1]

Jacob, your biomass boiler is it pellet or log, we are looking into going down this road.
Had a quote from a renewable Co £25,000 so no thanks! Luckily just picked up a log boiler, only up the road for £50 as the bloke was fed up with feeding it logs all day and changed it for a pellet boiler.
It will feed an underfloor system once all the rest has been installed. No brainer as i have 23 acres of
woodland on my doorstep.
Our fuel bill this year is going to be ZERO, although we have a combi oil boiler, after we had our lecy
meter fitted the missus is on a big lecy saving drive and decided that our 2 woodburners would
just take to chill of the air enough and extra jumpers would be cheaper!
I was interested in this thread as we have single glazing on all our windows but as many now need remaking, i will be using DG units not just for heat saving but to save the missus from having to every morning use the window vac mopping up all the condensation.

 

[Jacob]

Jacob, your biomass boiler is it pellet or log, we are looking into going down this road.
Had a quote from a renewable Co £25,000 so no thanks! Luckily just picked up a log boiler, only up the road for £50 as the bloke was fed up with feeding it logs all day and changed it for a pellet boiler.

No we didn't bother in the end. Spent a vast amount of money on insulation instead - 4" Kingspan around all the walls and 12" or so in the roof, plus more in partitions between rooms so parts of the building can be warm whilst room next door is out of use etc.
Cost of double glazing not worth it and would spoil some very nice old windows. All single glazed using the old glass. Anticipated condensation so put in collection channels in the old fashioned way but in the event they are hardly needed: have "Passivent" passive ventilation in two bathrooms which works for the whole building amazingly well, condensation not an issue
Have gas CH, electric induction hob (no extraction needed) and large "Dowling Sumo" woodburner which will do sawdust and all scrap wood - heats the whole place very quickly if necessary, but not water.
Total energy bill about £1000 p.a. but this is a big building (3000 sq ft) and it is warm. Half of that is gas heating and hot water so little scope for big economy - DG would save perhaps £100 p.a. so not cost effective on 16 very large chapel windows and bio-mass even less cost effective.
Insulation and careful ventilation is the big issue.

 

[RogerS]

Jacob, your biomass boiler is it pellet or log, we are looking into going down this road.
Had a quote from a renewable Co £25,000 so no thanks! Luckily just picked up a log boiler, only up the road for £50 as the bloke was fed up with feeding it logs all day and changed it for a pellet boiler.

He saw you coming Get rid of it sharpish. When we bought our place a couple of years ago, it came with this Vigas wood boiler



I spent over £500 in one month in very dry logs and never managed to get it going properly despite help (admittedly minimal) from Dunster's who installed it. Every morning, I'd wake up and ask myself...is the b****rd thing going to still be alight or do I have to fight it all over again to get it relit.

.... No brainer as i have 23 acres of woodland on my doorstep.

I've got even more woodland than that that I own but, as I soon found out, it takes a LONG time for the wood to dry properly...think two years. And the amount of time spent logging, cutting, chopping, splitting. It all sounded very romantic when we bought the place. In the cold light of reality, it is a right old PITA.

If you do go down that route then it only really works if you have a massive heat store to take the surplus heat. Like one of these monsters.



Wood boilers are NOT as controllable without one as a pellet boiler.

Did I mention that wood boilers are a PITA ?

 

[Jacob]

....
Did I mention that wood boilers are a PITA ?

And expensive to buy and maintain. Basically a semi industrial process suitable for a big establishment with own supply of dry wood and a full time employee to keep it going.
Direct wood stove completely the opposite, technically very simple, near instant heat from any old rubbish as long as it is dry, and fires up like blast furnace. I burn sawdust, cardboard and some paper (not glossy mags - too much ash), scrap wood, skip finds, old pallets, garden trimmings, mdf, chipboard. Not plastic - too hot and smelly, and try to avoid painted wood - just a bit at a time. Burns best with nice dry hardwood logs but they aren't cheap.
Re: Insulation and careful ventilation is the big issue. plus roller blinds at windows, heavy curtains at external doors, door closer mechs to retain heat in rooms, all attractive, very cheap and cost effective compared to DG etc.
PS had to fit fire doors throughout but these also have relatively high insulation value which is another plus.

 

[Benchwayze]

All I know is that if I leave my heating on all the time my house is always warm and the winter bill is manageable.
If I employ the timer there are times when I shiver. I think the climate is always changing, has always changed and will always change. Co2 is a naturally occurring gas and the planet needs it; and is going through a drought of Co2. Time for more googling methinks!

John

 

[RogerS]

....
Did I mention that wood boilers are a PITA ?

And expensive to buy and maintain. Basically a semi industrial process suitable for a big establishment with own supply of dry wood and a full time employee to keep it going......

Absolute rubbish. There is virtually nothing to maintain.

 

[RogerS]

..... cost effective compared to DG etc.
....

Like a lot of things, Jacob, it depends on a number of factors.

If you already have a set of perfectly serviceable single glazed windows then I agree. It makes no sense to replace them with DG. But if you are having to replace them then the incremental cost of putting in DG as opposed to SG is relatively minimal compared to the overall cost of having them made and installed. Then the cost-benefit analysis is much much more favourable. Unless ....

Unless it depends on the style of the windows. If they are for a relatively modern house with large single panes then it makes sense. But if it is for, say, a more period property then IMO aesthetics come into play because the windows start to look ugly with thick glazing bars to hide the spacers around each DG unit. You also have to factor in the relatively higher cost for small paned DG units as there is usually a minimum charge. So a multi-paned window with small DG units in does not become very cost-effective.

For some, the way round this is to have one large DG unit with 'Georgian bars' stuck in the middle between the two panes. Personally I loathe them but other views may differ. It will certainly be cheaper than a window made from a lot of smaller DG units and so once more DG does become cost-effective.

 

[Trevanion]

For some, the way round this is to have one large DG unit with 'Georgian bars' stuck in the middle between the two panes. Personally I loathe them but other views may differ. It will certainly be cheaper than a window made from a lot of smaller DG units and so once more DG does become cost-effective.

There's barely anything in it price wise as you're paying for square meterage anyway(Or at least I am), where you make the money back is not having to mortice loads of bars in the sash but instead just sticking bars onto the pane itself.

If the current double glazing wasn't a failing technology and the units would last longer than anywhere from 5 - 10 years (Sometimes I have to replace units after a year or two or even months due to bad manufacturing), It would make total sense to replace panes or whole windows with double glazed ones or even triple glazed ones as you would benefit from the savings eventually. But if you're having to replace the units every 10 years pretty much all savings made on the heating bill is nil because as Jacob says, it's such a small percentage of the whole building. You're not really going to save anything at all if the rest of the building isn't up to scratch first.

It does work well however if you don't like condensation and noise pollution, that can make it all worthwhile for some

 

[Rorschach]

From personal experience we are just having to replace units that are 25ish years old, that's not too bad really. No idea how long the replacements will last of course.

 

[RogerS]

For some, the way round this is to have one large DG unit with 'Georgian bars' stuck in the middle between the two panes. Personally I loathe them but other views may differ. It will certainly be cheaper than a window made from a lot of smaller DG units and so once more DG does become cost-effective.

There's barely anything in it price wise as you're paying for square meterage anyway(Or at least I am), where you make the money back is not having to mortice loads of bars in the sash but instead just sticking bars onto the pane itself....

You're lucky as I always had to pay a minimum price.

With regards to failure, bad installation in my experience and/or bad workmanship when they were made by the DG company

 

[Doug71]

There's barely anything in it price wise as you're paying for square meterage anyway(Or at least I am)

My supplier has a minimum charge per unit of 0.3 square metre so small panes can soon add up.

I personally don't mind the stuck on bar look but dreading the day a unit breaks down and needs replacing.

 

[Jacob]

........
It does work well however if you don't like condensation and noise pollution, that can make it all worthwhile for some

Condensation no prob in our place. The two bathrooms have Passivent passive ventilation (humidity sensitive) which works brilliantly and effectively draws air from the rest of the building. There has been an occasional morning cold enough for a bit of condensation but not at a problem level. We've got roller or roman blinds at every window so that helps - better than DG.
I went to a lot of trouble to make and fit condensation channels but once the building had dried out and we'd been living in it for a bit condensation stopped almost entirely.
PS we replaced 1874 windows with replicas, using all the old glass. Normal maintenance and trad linseed oil paint should make them last another 145 years, by which time the glass will be 290 years old i.e. about ten to twenty times the life of a typical DG unit.

 

[doctor Bob]

It's really quite simple, some buildings are best kept as single glaze, some are better with DG.
OK.

 

[RogerS]

.....We've got roller or roman blinds at every window so that helps - better than DG.
....

Sorry, Jacob. Wrong again. #-o

Taken from this real-world study

 

[Jacob]

.....We've got roller or roman blinds at every window so that helps - better than DG.
....

Sorry, Jacob. Wrong again. #-o



Taken from this real-world study

Not wrong in terms of cost effectiveness. Blinds/curtains cost very little compared to the alternatives. Am planning on well fitting shutters on the basement/workshop part of the building and they score highest; won't be cheap but not obsolescent like DG. Will last as long as anybody maintains them (low cost), plus 50 years or so.

 

[sawdust1]

Roger s, Vigas thats the one , same as yours. It would be attached to a tank, i thought you could not run the system with out one. I sell logs so not a problem on this side.
Will put our oil combi in the system as back up.

 

[RogerS]

.....We've got roller or roman blinds at every window so that helps - better than DG.
....

Sorry, Jacob. Wrong again. #-o



Taken from this real-world study

Not wrong in terms of cost effectiveness.

Shifting the goalposts again. That is not what you wrote or meant. You clearly made one of your usual 'definitive pronouncements'.

Blinds/curtains cost very little compared to the alternatives.

Maybe you get your blinds from a charity shop as they are a damn sight more expensive than the negligible incremental cost of adding an extra pane of glass.



I thought I was on Ignore. Please put me back.

 

[RogerS]

Roger s, Vigas thats the one , same as yours. It would be attached to a tank, i thought you could not run the system with out one. I sell logs so not a problem on this side.
Will put our oil combi in the system as back up.

Good luck then in that case! What size tank are you getting ? I had to put in £300 worth of inhibitor when mine was redone. You do know that they are very inefficient and leak heat. If you can site it in your hall then that would be a plus !

Make sure that if you put the combi as backup that it does NOT heat up the tank because ......

Potted history.

Inherited the damn Vigas and tank. Gave up on it, as you know, and sold it for £500. Decided to replace with an oil combi and my plumber mentioned a guy who had used a combi in conjunction with a tank because

(a) condensing boilers are a 'con' and are only condensing around 50 degrees or below. Most people run theirs much higher ie not as efficient as the manufacturers blurb would have you believe.

(b) oil boilers have a pre and post purge that wastes fuel

(c) so the on/off/on cycle that most people drive their oil boiler is inefficient.

(d) so put in a large thermal store, give the oil boiler one long blast of heat until the tank is up to temperature and then draw off the hot water for an underfloor heating system from the tank. When the tank drops below a certain temperature, repeat the cycle.

So, as I already had the tank, I decided to try it out. I don't have UFH so that defeated (a). I also discovered that come early spring and I thought...Ha...I can switch off the CH...the tank gradually ran down its heat. Then the weather changed and it got cold, just needed a little top up of heat in the house to take the chill off. Trouble was before I could do that I had to heat up 2500 litres of cold water.

So, disconnected the tank from my oil combi completely. It is still there...kind of 'future-proof' if oil goes TU.

 

[Jacob]

.....

Sorry, Jacob. Wrong again. #-o



Taken from this real-world study

Not wrong in terms of cost effectiveness.

Shifting the goalposts again. That is not what you wrote or meant. You clearly made one of your usual 'definitive pronouncements'.

Blinds/curtains cost very little compared to the alternatives.

Maybe you get your blinds from a charity shop as they are a damn sight more expensive than the negligible incremental cost of adding an extra pane of glass.



I thought I was on Ignore. Please put me back.

Yes put you back on ignore. You don't seem to be able to understand some quite simple things and it sets you off into your childish little fits of bad temper.