We are builiding a 2000sq foot house and thinking of getting underfloor heating throughout. what is the esb cost per year? for the underfloor and hot water? Is there anyone who had it for over a year? all the threads have read are from people building not from people who have lived with the geothermal for a while, thanks
Geothermal ESB costs for a year
- Thread starter poppy1
- Start date
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Guest107
Guest
Fag packet jobbie for that house about €2000-2200 a year . A friend who has geo for 3 years (not as good as the recent stuff) stated that his 3000 sq ft house with 2 adults and one child was €3000 a year total bill including lighting .
Good insulation assumed, drylining on outside walls , porches and other sun/draught traps.
One 1100 tank of OiL is €800 nowadays, in a 2000 sq ft house you will use 2 tanks a year minimum , probably 2.5, and your ESB (assume dryer used in winter) will be €1200 a year . Thats with everyone out working 5 days a week too.
Good insulation assumed, drylining on outside walls , porches and other sun/draught traps.
One 1100 tank of OiL is €800 nowadays, in a 2000 sq ft house you will use 2 tanks a year minimum , probably 2.5, and your ESB (assume dryer used in winter) will be €1200 a year . Thats with everyone out working 5 days a week too.
hi, I know someone with the Geothermal underfloor system and in the first year in their house their ESB bill was€1500 for the year and that included all electrics. Iin the second year this is presumed to come down about €300 havent actually asked what it was in the second year. Mind you they do turn it off around May and back on in Sept/Oct but the house is not cold guess they have good insulation!
Here's one for you to consider: a Friend of mine has underfloor heating which was put in a few years ago, it cost him a fortune because there was very few doing it then but he claims its the sorriest thing he ever did as its not suitable to Irish climate He claims it takes over 2 days for rooms to reach the temperature he wants and takes twice as long to get the temp down, this is grand in the winter when you need heat all the time but like this week with a few cold nights he cant give the boiler a blast to throw in a bit of heat as tomorrow he would die with the heat when rooms are only starting to get warm so he has electric rads on stand by for the odd chilly night, Just something for you to consider! "O I wont go into my beliefs on timber frame houses in Ireland"
D
DQuinn
Guest
HiPoppy,
I think I have exactly what you are looking for.
We have Geothermal in since last December. When researching it I could find no detailed cost of running only estimates. So I got my electrician to put a meter on it so I could calculate the daily running costs to prove to myself I had made a good decision, and so I could pass these on to other people considering putting it in (and prove many doubters wrong). I have the daily breakdown if you would be interested in seeing them.
In short here are the average daily running costs per month since I started recording the meter.
February€4.53
March€4.02
April€4.10
May€2.67
June€1.23
July€1.01
August€1.38
Total Daily Average€2.71
This does not include nightsaver, which roughly means taking off a 1/4 of the price, so at the moment it's costing 2.03 / day = €741 a year, for constant heat and hot water in a 3500 sq foot house. However I expect October, November, December and January costs to be high say €4-5/day still only = €850/year.
Thats for 24/7 heat and hotwater. People have argued that a fill or 2 of oil sees them through a year, but not without occasional use of the imersion heater, and certainly not without occassionally finding the house freezing when they get up in the middle of the night, or get home late etc etc.
I think I have exactly what you are looking for.
We have Geothermal in since last December. When researching it I could find no detailed cost of running only estimates. So I got my electrician to put a meter on it so I could calculate the daily running costs to prove to myself I had made a good decision, and so I could pass these on to other people considering putting it in (and prove many doubters wrong). I have the daily breakdown if you would be interested in seeing them.
In short here are the average daily running costs per month since I started recording the meter.
February€4.53
March€4.02
April€4.10
May€2.67
June€1.23
July€1.01
August€1.38
Total Daily Average€2.71
This does not include nightsaver, which roughly means taking off a 1/4 of the price, so at the moment it's costing 2.03 / day = €741 a year, for constant heat and hot water in a 3500 sq foot house. However I expect October, November, December and January costs to be high say €4-5/day still only = €850/year.
Thats for 24/7 heat and hotwater. People have argued that a fill or 2 of oil sees them through a year, but not without occasional use of the imersion heater, and certainly not without occassionally finding the house freezing when they get up in the middle of the night, or get home late etc etc.
D
DQuinn
Guest
Haven't really noticed that problem much. Maybe occassionally we have commented that the house feels a little cold, but nothing to make you think of turning up the heat. We have an outdoor sensor, that accurately tells the outside temp, and adjusts the running temp accordingly. So if there is a sudden drop in temp, the geothermal pump ups the heating temp to allow for this. If the stats are set in each room, that room should stay at that temp.
The install cost was almost €26000, that was for a seperate High Pressure 200/300 l Cylinder, and 2 towel rads. We don't adjust it at all, if it's very warm out, it doesn't need to come on to heat the rooms, only to heat the water. When we went away for two weeks on holiday we turned it down slightly, with the thought that if we turned it off, it would cost alot more to reheat the house and the tank of hot water after two weeks, than to keep it ticking over when we were away. It cost €9 for the two weeks to keep it running.
Hope this is of help.
If, like DQuinn above, you keep your system on all the time you will avoid the long heat up / cool down period. This can be practical in a continuously inhabited house, but not obviously in a holiday home. Make sure you have a thermostat in each room, correctly located, and you shouldn't have many problems with long heat up times.
I'm very interested on this too. Our site is hilly (not sure if that makes a difference), but i've heard you need to dig up about twice the footprint of your house.
What happens if the tree's you plant in your garden get in around the yards of piping underground? (seriously)
The option i'm interesting in is the alternative one whereby you drill down 2 parallel holes about 60 meters I think. Its more expensive, but does it give the same results?
Sorry for delay, change in username.
www.eil.ie in sligo
we have 600m of collector, so an area of about 75m x 8m of our garden was dug up I think, keeping the pipes about 1m apart.
We have a 1.7 acre site, so we placed the geothermal area where we knew we would want lawn. Shrubs plated above it should not be a problem, trees obviously would with roots, absorbing moisture from the soil etc.
Don't think a hilly site should be a major problem, especially if the rise is from your house, if it's away I'd imagine it will increase the work on your ground loop pump, check with an installer, becasue I'm no expert on that.
Hope this helps.
Q?
www.eil.ie in sligo
we have 600m of collector, so an area of about 75m x 8m of our garden was dug up I think, keeping the pipes about 1m apart.
We have a 1.7 acre site, so we placed the geothermal area where we knew we would want lawn. Shrubs plated above it should not be a problem, trees obviously would with roots, absorbing moisture from the soil etc.
Don't think a hilly site should be a major problem, especially if the rise is from your house, if it's away I'd imagine it will increase the work on your ground loop pump, check with an installer, becasue I'm no expert on that.
Hope this helps.
Q?
inchbyinch
Registered User
- Messages
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Dquinn\qwerty
fair play for going to such lengths to analyse the cost of your heating system. I was wondering what insulation you used on your house as the heating system seems to be very efficient!! also I have heard that using underfloor heating restricts the type of floor finish you use?? I would like to use tiles in my kitchen hallway and dining room but the rest I would prefer to finish in carpet, have you or anybody else had problems with this??
ta
fair play for going to such lengths to analyse the cost of your heating system. I was wondering what insulation you used on your house as the heating system seems to be very efficient!! also I have heard that using underfloor heating restricts the type of floor finish you use?? I would like to use tiles in my kitchen hallway and dining room but the rest I would prefer to finish in carpet, have you or anybody else had problems with this??
ta
InchByInch:
PMing you because I didn't want to derail your query sent to
DQuinn.
I think carpet is a waste of time with UFH based on all the info
I've been given.
It's got to be tiles/laminate/timber.
With timber its best to use engineered boards and not fully solid
and usually not much wider than 120mm.
I've also been advised that the best response is to use direct
contact glue which adds cost to the floor laying but it you will
get the best thermal efficiency.
I know Qwerty/D Quinn personally and he advised me on the
UFH/ground source heat pump. I'm going with a different supplier
but doing similar things to him.
He went with a floated floor and is happy with that. The specialists
seem to advice against the floated floor on account of air gaps
which will impede the heat transfer. I'm still trying to make a decision
as to whether to float the engineered boards or to have them
glued down.
but once again.. carpets... I'd be surprised if anyone will tell you
anything other than the fact that UFH & carpets is a non starter.
--Ian
PMing you because I didn't want to derail your query sent to
DQuinn.
I think carpet is a waste of time with UFH based on all the info
I've been given.
It's got to be tiles/laminate/timber.
With timber its best to use engineered boards and not fully solid
and usually not much wider than 120mm.
I've also been advised that the best response is to use direct
contact glue which adds cost to the floor laying but it you will
get the best thermal efficiency.
I know Qwerty/D Quinn personally and he advised me on the
UFH/ground source heat pump. I'm going with a different supplier
but doing similar things to him.
He went with a floated floor and is happy with that. The specialists
seem to advice against the floated floor on account of air gaps
which will impede the heat transfer. I'm still trying to make a decision
as to whether to float the engineered boards or to have them
glued down.
but once again.. carpets... I'd be surprised if anyone will tell you
anything other than the fact that UFH & carpets is a non starter.
--Ian
We used 100mm xtratherm on the ground floor, 25mm on firstfloor, 105mm Aeroboard platinum in the cavitys, 125mm (100mm between joists and 25mm beneath) on the sloping ceilings and 300mm fibreglass in the attic space.
On the flooring side we used engineered oak and natural stone tiles mostly, except the landing and the stairs which are about to be carpeted. We have had scraps of carpet thrown down on the landing for the last 9 months to try and keep the dust down until we got some stainless steel work done in the landing/stairs (which is nearly done - at last
), and haven't noticed any major problem with heat in the landing area ( but it's an open plan area downstairs, so the heat rises through the stairwell anyway).... that said I would be very hesitant to put carpet down in an enclosed room, it has to have some dampening/insulating down effect on the heat, but the carpet salesmen don't think so... well they would say that wouldn't they It's true most specialists advice on the glueing method, but both my UFH installer and the company I bought my flooring off were convinced that the floating method works - and it seems to be for us.
Hi Ian, glad you made a decision, I can remember how difficult it was for us to take the plunge.
D
Dougal
Guest
I am currently in planning stage of building and wondering can anyone help me with what companies are best to install Geothermal heating and what is the best style eg underground, water, closed loop, open loop. Also what area is needed to heat a 2500sq ft house. What sort of guarantees do you get with it. I have been talking to a company called Eurotech, which are based in Co Monaghan at the sustainable energy show a week or so back and thay seem good but has anyone had any dealing with them.
we are using Ashgrove Engineering and found them to be very good and very competitively priced. we starting our house next week and they have been great the last few months for advice and guidance
http://www.ashgrove.ie/
http://www.ashgrove.ie/
D
Dougal
Guest
Thanks tones, but thay a bit far away, I based in ulster/lenister area, any companies round there would be preferable.