My first post

[Martin]

not very!
The only time I'd advise a heat pump is on a new build where you are putting in underfloor heating, AND you are generating all your own electricity - heat pumps output "low grade" energy - relatively low temperature water, really only useable with underfloor heating. Also it is ludicrously expensive (both to install as a "retro-fit and to run) - the heat pump salesmen rattle on about the 3 "free" units, and omit to mention that the energy you have to put in to get them is the most expensive sort.........
What I'd do in your shoes is to get a good woodburner/backboiler -possibly with a wood-fired range in the kitchen (as well/instead of the woodburner), properly sized solar hot water system, all feeding into a decent sized thermal store which also contains an immersion heater (for emergency use only)........
The beauty of such a system is that it is affordable relative to the other technologies, it is low tech and reliable too!

[fizzycist]

Thanks again. I have given myself 12 months to do up the house, allowing for extensions,planning permissions etc. You have confirmed what i was thinking. i just hope I can ecourage my kids to get involved with all the log collecting etc.

[Martin]

I thought you'd probably have a pretty fair idea with a physics background - I am still eternally grateful to my old physics master for bringing out my interest in such things - all of renewable energy is just applied physics and common sense! - best of luck with the project, sounds fun!

[fizzycist]

I wish we could encourage more engineering at School. Where I am we have just introduced an engineering course made up of sections from Electrical, Electronic and mechanical Higher engineering courses. We are lucky to have enthusiastic staff to do it. We need to start manufacturing stuff again in this country.

[Martin]

bring back metal Meccano!

[Millymollymandy]

I hated physics - it was miles more boring than chemistry where at least you could do interesting things with bunsen burners and chemicals, all on an asbestos pad of course!

Anyway hello and welcome to the site! Good luck with the house.

[ina]

I hated physics - it was miles more boring than chemistry where at least you could do interesting things with bunsen burners and chemicals, all on an asbestos pad of course!

And I preferred physics - much more logical, and you didn't have to learn so much by heart!

[snapdragon]

I wish we could encourage more engineering at School. Where I am we have just introduced an engineering course made up of sections from Electrical, Electronic and mechanical Higher engineering courses. We are lucky to have enthusiastic staff to do it. We need to start manufacturing stuff again in this country.

welcome in fizzy - how brilliant that your school/college is teaching engineering - we need engineers - how I wish I'd had that chance as a teenager. I would have swapped RE, Music, HEc and Art for it

[fizzycist]

Thanks for the endorsement. This is our first year and we have 11 pupils taking it, starting in June. It will be taught by 3 teachers, 2 of which were Engineers in a previous life, and me who is really a frustrated Physicist who was badly advised at school. Not that I don't enjoy Physics, I really do, but I like getting my hands dirty, but lack skills like welding. My other projects involve doing up a Moggie convertible and converting my Passat to run on Veggie oil. I can't wait to move them to my new house with its outbuilding! No more scrounging space of friends, Yippee.

[Thurston Garden]

Ahoy Fizzycist!

(If it moves its Biology, if it smells it's Chemistry and if it don't work it's Physics)