How Much Wood do you Burn in a Week of cold Weather?

[Billhook]

17 minutes ago, Big J said:

 

 

 

I wish your wife a speedy recovery

Thanks for that  Big J,

She was under anaesthetic for over an hour and it seems to be lingering in her brain leaving her feeling too dizzy to drive, even though the op was some time ago.  Anyone else know someone who has been affected in a similar way?

[Billhook]

8 hours ago, Big J said:

 

Nice. You've hit the nail on the head I think. The heat source is secondary in importance to the insulation. The UK has never had the incentive to insulate properly because of the relatively mild climate and ample supply of North Sea gas. Times change though.

 

Here, highly effective insulation is none-optional. Your typical Wimpy home wouldn't last a single winter here, and we're in the mild part of Sweden!

 

I wish your wife a speedy recovery

We live on top of a hill in a very exposed position.  When I built the house in 1983, I was very aware of this and doubled the amount of fibreglass in the loft.  The first floor is a dormer roof and the regulations said that I had to have soffit vents all round.  The force of the winds actually forced cold air through the soffit vents and under the fibreglass insulation, freezing the ceiling panels and the secondary double glazing was moving away from the seals due to the air pressure difference on either side of the house.  Marriage does concentrate the mind and I had my orders!

I filled a 12 ton trailer with all the fibreglass , a lot of which had turned black with mould and having done much research into foam, went for the icynene. open cell.  The closed cell foams are the ones the insurance companies and mortgage people become exited about.  But my goodness what a difference that made.  The whole house was just like it had been wrapped in an eider down!  Further down the line put some Scandinavian quality double glazing in.

But the main lesson here was that insulation is no good unless you control the draughts.  You need a tiny amount,of air movement, hence the icynene as the wood in the roof needs to breathe,

 

[Billhook]

Slightly more explanation here

 

 

[sandspider]

8 hours ago, Billhook said:

Thanks for that  Big J,

She was under anaesthetic for over an hour and it seems to be lingering in her brain leaving her feeling too dizzy to drive, even though the op was some time ago.  Anyone else know someone who has been affected in a similar way?

 

Our elderly neighbour had some form of brain incident that required brain surgery. She had lingering dizziness, and was unable to drive for about 6 months, but can again now. Not sure how much of the dizziness was due to the incident or to the anaesthetic/ surgery, but the anaesthetic was a factor I remember.

[Billhook]

4 minutes ago, sandspider said:

 

Our elderly neighbour had some form of brain incident that required brain surgery. She had lingering dizziness, and was unable to drive for about 6 months, but can again now. Not sure how much of the dizziness was due to the incident or to the anaesthetic/ surgery, but the anaesthetic was a factor I remember.

Thanks for that, good to know that it happens elsewhere

[Big J]

32 minutes ago, Billhook said:

We live on top of a hill in a very exposed position.  When I built the house in 1983, I was very aware of this and doubled the amount of fibreglass in the loft.  The first floor is a dormer roof and the regulations said that I had to have soffit vents all round.  The force of the winds actually forced cold air through the soffit vents and under the fibreglass insulation, freezing the ceiling panels and the secondary double glazing was moving away from the seals due to the air pressure difference on either side of the house.  Marriage does concentrate the mind and I had my orders!

I filled a 12 ton trailer with all the fibreglass , a lot of which had turned black with mould and having done much research into foam, went for the icynene. open cell.  The closed cell foams are the ones the insurance companies and mortgage people become exited about.  But my goodness what a difference that made.  The whole house was just like it had been wrapped in an eider down!  Further down the line put some Scandinavian quality double glazing in.

But the main lesson here was that insulation is no good unless you control the draughts.  You need a tiny amount,of air movement, hence the icynene as the wood in the roof needs to breathe,

 

 

Very interesting! 

 

If only the mass house builders took your approach of energy conservation. I've tried challenging them on occasion through Facebook, but their media teams are always incredibly vague about any environmental standards and just say they adhere to regulations etc etc.

 

The UK climate, whilst mild, is actually quite difficult at times for maintaining a warm home. We always found (in the succession of shitty old farmhouses we lived in) that a few degrees above freezing with wind driven rain stripped the heat so quickly. And that is pretty much the typical weather of a British winter. 

 

It's been a bit damp and grey here this month, and we had a chunk of snow, but it's nearly always close to being perfectly still. Lack of wind also helps with lack of drafts too. We have a few windows open all the time, but it doesn't have much bearing on the warmth of the house.

 

The geothermal heating system has a curious thermostat system on it too - it's external. It's preprogrammed to provide a certain amount of heat at certain temperatures, meaning if we use our secondary heating, it doesn't affect the heat output of the geothermal. So we set the geothermal to 17c and use the heat pump and fire a bit. Living areas are kept at 20c, bedrooms 18c and basement about 15c, though all windows are open a bit in the basement for drying clothes. 

[Billhook]

I think that people underestimate the Winter conditions in the UK.  By saying that we do not know what cold is all about by comparing us to conditions in Norway/Sweden/Canada.  In those countries Winter is usually predictable, it sets in , people prepare, roads vehicles and heating are all in order.  

Here in the UK hovering around the freezing mark, conditions are highly changeable, together with occasional high winds.  Months of moderate temperatures mean a change to Winter tyres is unnecessary, so when a cold snap comes chaos follows.  But the cold snap is never usually long enough to warrant taking Scandinavian precautions, so we are where we are...

[difflock]

At present we burn 1 carefully filled and heaped full banana box per day.

Which heats the 750 ft sq of the house we live in.

Underfloor under 500 sq ft of this area has been running for 1 hour early am this past few days, but only on a low setting to take the chill off the floor and drive the bedroom/bathroom  radiators. This would use about 1,000 litres of kero per year.

Easy to get it too hot if the Sun is about mid afternoon. But if windy, much harder to get the heat up, though the fire does burn more vigorously. A variable feast. 

[Big J]

49 minutes ago, Billhook said:

I think that people underestimate the Winter conditions in the UK.  By saying that we do not know what cold is all about by comparing us to conditions in Norway/Sweden/Canada.  In those countries Winter is usually predictable, it sets in , people prepare, roads vehicles and heating are all in order.  

Here in the UK hovering around the freezing mark, conditions are highly changeable, together with occasional high winds.  Months of moderate temperatures mean a change to Winter tyres is unnecessary, so when a cold snap comes chaos follows.  But the cold snap is never usually long enough to warrant taking Scandinavian precautions, so we are where we are...

 

I guess it still shouldn't preclude the idea of building properly insulated homes. 

 

We had friends who were in Devon (now Cumbria), one of whom was Swedish, from Mora (the start of the Northern Wilderness, close to the Norwegian border). She said that her parents visited in winter in Devon, they hated it and complained about the cold. Keep in mind Mora is a good 10c colder. Combination of the damp, the wind and the crappy houses.

 

I was looking at the UK government data for new builds and energy usage. 2017 figures are 125kwh/square metre per year. That's a little over 4 times what our 65 year old house uses.

 

How can the developers be allowed to build such atrocious houses in the 21st century? 

 

And to hark back to an old bugbear of mine, I think all season tyres are the best choice for the UK. You're not stuck up shit creek without a paddle in winter conditions.

[Justme]

We use 15-20 IBC in an average year.

 

All our heat is from the wood fired rayburn.

Hot water via solar for the summer & rayburn in winter

Cooking mostly on rayburn if its on, the rest on lpg cooker that will use about 2 or 3 x 47kg a year.