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Old 06-01-15, 12:22 PM   #1745
Marc_NL
Lurking Renovator
 
Join Date: May 2015
Location: NL
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Thanks for the welcoming and the positive and constructive feedback guys, well appreciated.

Quote:
Originally Posted by AC_Hacker View Post
The various conditions of the soil in your location will have a major impact on which technique you choose.
One of the first things on the agenda for the house build is a soil survey. This needs to be done to provide information to the construction engineer about the ground build-up and the load it can carry. I'm not too sure how deep they will go, but expect at least some 20m. This will give a first indication of soil conditions for the heat exchanger as well.

Quote:
Originally Posted by AC_Hacker View Post
There is another aspect to this... If your house is extremely well insulated, it will not be as severely affected by short-duration ambient changes. This can influence your approach.

If you are designing your house yourself, the Passive House Planning Package (PHPP) should have a data base which contains historical data from your own area, which should help your decisions. You should definitely seek this tool out.
Up till now I have used the PHVP tool, which is a skinned down version of the PHPP. We'll need to see whether the architect or myself will do the PHPP. It is a great tool as it gives the heat loss and the heat gain separately. From what I can see now the variation in outside temperature has less of an effect as the heat gain (passive solar gain). As you've also mentioned in this thread floor heating is particularly effective because of the large area involved. This means that a relatively low temperature is needed (a few degrees above required indoor temperature). One of the biggest benefits I see here is that as soon as the indoor temperature rises a few degrees (due to solar gain) the floor (and ceiling) stops giving heat and starts absorbing it. I'll need to work on it some more, but this feeling seems to be backed up by comments from people with houses using active concrete (very few actually in use though).

Quote:
Originally Posted by AC_Hacker View Post
If you are an engineer with the proper equipment and experience to analyze the logic of the signals that issue from an inverter heat pump, you stand a chance of success.
I'm not too sure what has been done in this field already so I might just be overly optimistic about this. My idea for the moment is that these units must come with temperature and pressure sensors for the controls to work well. Therefore they should already be able to give the right information to any other control signal which would need to be build (I can't imagine the original controls would work well if half the parts are cut off etc). I'm an electronics engineer and feel comfortable enough to make the hardware and write a little program to run it. However I would surely need support on coming up with a good control strategy / algorithm.

Quote:
Originally Posted by NiHaoMike View Post
Looking the other way, maybe you could consider a CHP setup and going off grid? That might make sense if there's a significant service charge for electricity.
Thanks, I did consider it sometime ago, getting an aircraft APU or ground unit and make it supply my house. However we are required to be connected to the grid overhere, so I'll have to pay for this anyway. Also when using PV panels the grid is an excellent buffer. For CHP I would need my own batteries or some form of storage.

So practically running no gas but electricity only seems the best way forward.
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