Home Energy Efficient Solutions
With the increased complexity of home heating systems and the introduction of new heating technology, it is not surprising that there are problems found after installation if historical installation principles are used.
Historically heating systems were a lot more forgiving if they were oversized or not installed and operated efficiently.
Without careful consideration when upgrading the current gas or oil heating system problems will very likely occur or the system may operate and supply sufficient heat and hot water but consume a lot of energy in the process.
Daviot Technical Solutions can provide support and solutions to resolve the issues and deliver documented evidence using live data of system performance to demonstrate gaps in optimal operation.
Below is some customer feedback. Futher feedback can be found on our Facebook page here
There is a lot of jargon that householders never needed to know anything about and here you can find some of that explained.
List of Solar, battery and modern heating system terminology click here.
Here you will find some case studies. These will get added to over time. click here.
How can we help?
Heating
We can provide a range of services around heating systems including:
- Resolving low system efficiency issues or not providing adequate heat.
- Complete system design package.
- Independent technical advice if considering system replacement.
- Installation defect reporting.
Solar PV & Battery storage
Services include:
- Fault find system operating issues.
- Thinking about system expansion? What are the options?
- Installation report for defects.
Thermal imaging to identify heat loss or gain
Identify areas in the building with high heat loss or heat gain in the summer and advise solutions to problem.
Software development
Provide software solutions to home automations or energy data gathering
We can provide advice and solutions to house controls for both automation and also home heating controls for most effective comfort levels.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a heat pump?
A heat pump transfers heat from one medium to another using a refrigeration cycle. At a high level this can be from air to air, ground to water, exhaust or air to water. The efficiency of this transfer of heat is over 100% and can be up to 700% meaning using 1 KWH of electricity can generate 7 KWH of heat or cooling. Click on image for more information.
What is difference between solar PV and solar thermal
Solar PV or photo voltaic generate DC electricity that needs converted to AC using an inverter for use in the home. A solar thermal system only generates hot water and is generally used for heating domestic hot water using a coil in the hot water cylinder or a heat store There are available in the UK now a PV-T solution that provides both solar thermal and PV in the one panel. They have a very specific application and generally do not work in a domestic environment as require a continuous thermal heat load. Click on image above for more information.
What is COP and SCOP of a heat pump?
COP (Coefficient of Performance) and SCOP (Seasonal coefficient of performance) are very important parameters to determine how a heat pump can perform and can be used to see how well a heat pump is performing. Unlike a boiler heat pumps (particularly air source) efficiency are influenced by outside air temperature and flow temperature. Click on image above for more information.
Is it more efficient to keep heating on all the time or switch on and off?
This is a very much talked about subject at the moment and the answer is it depends but is more than likely better to keep the it on if you have a heat pump. There are also other considerations. See more about this in this article by clicking on image above.
What is a storage system?
A battery storage system is the most common method of storing energy in the home. This can be used in parallel with a solar PV system or another micro generation system but can be used to offset high tariff costs if you have variable rate where you would charge the battery at low tariff costs generally at night. It would make more sense if there is excess solar PV generation and want to use that electricity onsite if electric export tariff is not very generous. There are of course thermal storage systems available but not so easy to store thermal energy in large amounts with same storage density as electric storage. Find out more by clicking on the image above.
Is an immersion heater more efficient heating up hot water than a heat pump?
The simple answer is no but there are situations where a heat pump can't heat water up to a high enough temperature and an immersion heater needs to be utilised to boost temperature for example to carry out a Legionella cycle on a hot water cylinder.