floor heating - the gas section part 1

This is a continuation of the posts on my floor heating project to heat our home for the least amount of money in the winter.

The Solar component is intended to stop the house feeling like a fridge all through the day (as it tends to do) and bring up the temperature for the duration of the day. This means that we have a higher starting point for the evening cool down. Back when I wrote this previous post I was already wanting to add in gas to heat the water when the sun goes down. Because in my view gas provides the most effective way to store and purchase energy for heating. I can then take advantage of the same water pipes to transfer the energy (from gas instead of solar) into the heating of the floor.

I expected that this would at the very least slow down the losses of the temperature in the house, and hoped that it may actually heat the house. So with my first couple of days of this system going here is my data findings.

The graph at left here shows the ambient outside temperature plot and the inside temperature plot this evening as my gas water heater keeps the water warm that's circulating through the same water pipes which the daytime solar collectors use.

Essentially the losses boil down to a 1 degree loss over 4 hours, however the losses may change more as the outside temperature has dropped from 20°C to 10°C which will probably increase the thermal pressure (meaning the rate of loss will likely increase).

Either way this is a good result for the house as now the floor is comfortable in light sox and there is no feeling of needing to put on a jumper or sit under a blanket while in the house (after all, 20°C isn't really cold)

The system is still under development and needs a number of stages completing. At the moment what I need to do is:

• construct the electrical controller for the pumps
• construct a better junction box
• organize a better location for the water junction box (that'll be under the house and out of the way)
• work out the optimal timing for the gas heating for economy vs comfort

more as it comes to hand.