Heating Solutions and Advice

First topic message reminder :

One of the most important questions, that seem to appear on most forums in Italy, are the type of winter heating, costs, for different living styles. As we are coming up to that time of year, then this is a dedicated thread for questions and answers.

For new readers, then perhaps we can help and advise on solutions. Sagraiasolar, knows so much about woodburners, heat stores, and more, My knowledge is in heat pumps. I am sure there are many more who can also contribute to the thread and hope that they do in the near future.

I do hope that we do not confuse Ghiro and Flip too much, so their wine consumption will stay low   

Geotherm, my heat pump is a Mitsubishi Electric external unit PUHZ-SHW112YHA and internal unit EHST20C-VM6SB hydrotank 200litres (internal booster element not connected).

Bartholomew wrote:Geotherm, my heat pump is a Mitsubishi Electric external unit PUHZ-SHW112YHA and internal unit EHST20C-VM6SB hydrotank 200litres (internal booster element not connected).

Bartholomew.
Have looked up the details on your Hydrotank, and it appears you can set reduced temperatures via that unit with a timer, and not use the room thermostat to alter them.
It is in section 4, page 10 on how to time them, up to 4 times a day.
Still looking for temperature compensation, in the service manual, installation manual and user guide. Will get back to you if I find anything positive.
Don't know if you are on it, but would suggest you look into the Enel BTA3 electricity supply for heat pumps, you could save money on running costs.

One of my favourite subjects - heating! A friend here was saying they just filled their gas tank and were pleasantly surprised at a drop in cost from over €1 to 87c per litre. We don't use gas apart from the small bottles for the gas hob, but I was curious as to whether or not this was a seasonal price change, especially with what is going on with Russia/Ukraine....?

Heat pump running costs are due to be reduced.
 
There is to be a new D1 tariff. This is expected to be around the 21c per KWH  flat rate and applying to all electricity used, it is being introduced from 1 July. Unlike the BTA3 tariff it will not need a separate supply meter just for the heat pump as the rate will apply to all electricity used. Details are still being finalised but it should make heat pumps (either ground or air source) even more economical.
 
Current proposals are that it will be available to anyone whose main source of heating is a heat pump and it looks like it could include aircon units where there is no other main source. It is being introduced on a voluntary basis and appears to be for residents only, ie not including holiday home or second homes (may change once the details are finalised).

Once the final details are known I plan to revise the different fuel sources cost comparative spreadsheet I developed last year.

Thanks Panner.
Have you a link to the information?

Latest info is from an interview see:

http://www.agoravox.it/Pompa-di-calore-con-la-tariffa-D1.html

Well spotted Panner.  Looks like very good news.  I've provisionally updated my model and it looks like a typical heat pump user could save around €1,000. I come across some scary bills while doing electricity audits and one wonders if getting a heat pump is going to be one way to reduce them by a third... 
  It will be interesting to see the final decision on what constitutes a backup heat source - presumably not power related as a gas boiler will be twice as powerful as the average heat pump.

Well call me suspicious, but friends of ours discovered a leak in their gas supply at the bomba tank end. This was only spotted when the buried tank hole was flooded and copious air bubbles were coming up! At €600  a shot it was a rather expensive leak, but just a shrug from the guy that fixed it. However gas is very expensive here and it may well be you need to adjust your usage by other means. I'm sure a couple of the guys on here can give you some very good advice on how to do so...  A very warm welcome by the way      

Thanks Steve.  The 'leak' is now sorted, as mentioned in my previous post, and the last time we discussed the gas with the agent we were told that its currently at 30% full. So when we go out in July the conversation re the gas (and were its up to now) will have been well and truly had by then.  Its the retrospective position that i'm keen to rectify. I just can't believe that we used €2200 of gas. Of course the reality is that we probably did'nt use €2200 of gas.

Of course, you did not use that amount in 6 weeks! That would be a full year supply. Something is definitely wrong!

Yes, Gala is right, likely twice as much ... even with the price of gas in Italy....

I suppose the past gas bills might be fair and correct. I say 'might' because I know of one chap who used €1,000 of gas over a Christmas visit and another case where a 3 day render drying session cost some €600. These were both instances of continuous use and one with an old boiler.
To toy with some sums. I use a yardstick that €1,000 of lpg buys you 7,500kW.hrs (at the most) - so with a 30kW gas boiler running you'd get 250 hours of heating and 6 weeks could conceivably work through those hours.
Might be time to check the alternatives!

Thank you Gala, Steve, and Sagraisolar.  I think the starting point would be to get the 3 bills and find out exactly what sort of boiler we have.  Then I can calculate its efficiency and what we might expect to burn in a 6 week period.  If it still looks way to high (and I suspect it will) then i'll need a meeting with the housekeeper and the gas supplier.  
The house was fully renovated in 2002-5 by the previous owners.It has 4 bedrooms, 10 radiators, and is in the hills above Bagni.  Of course, because so many of the houses are individual I suppose there is no 'standard' useage, but i'm sure if I dig deeper I should be able to get to the bottom of whats gone on.

Chris, check all possibilities and alternatives. The first thing that we did, when we bought our property, was to change the boiler and to swith from those awful and expensive gas bottles to mains gas. It made a huge difference. Also check your insulation. And think at all heating alternatives. Choosing the right one for your house will save you a lot.

Thank you Gala.  We are indeed looking at alternatives.
What we are considering is converting the cantina and at the same time as the living area expands we are considering alternatives for heating the house. Quite a few members on this forum and other forums have opted for pellet burning.  Whether this would be the best choice for us can only be determined when we've gone through some sort of energy review. As far as I am aware nobody in our village is on mains gas ...if only!  One thing I do intend to pursue is a lower price for the gas.  If there's competition in the gas supply market it may be possible to get our current supplier to price match, or alternatively we may need to change supplier if the current supplier will not move on the price.

In any case, Chris, as you are expanding your house, you will have to think at all the options. Our neighbour, who uses one of her cantinas as a sewing room is adding a pellet burning heater in that area as it gets very cold in winter. I advised her to replace her existing curtains by thermal ones, at least during the winter months. Every little bit counts. Good luck with your projects!

It is always difficult to say on LPG consumption, but we may need a few more details.
House size?
Temperature setting?
24Hr operating?

Very easy to use E600 of lpg in a week, especially with rads and mid winter.

Chris,  I think we have enough facts to go on..
1/. 10 year old gas boiler will be intrinsically inefficient. 90% probability it's not condensing either so an upgrade could save you as much as 30%.... HOWEVER
2/ The new combined metering for heat pumps and domestic electricity is serious stuff which we are all very excited about. It is very likely to promote heat pumps to the same ball park as wood but without the lugging.
3/. Pellets are a non starter in most situations ... horrible things and not top of the tree economically.
4/. Think WOOD, HEAT PUMP and SOLAR and you'll be on the right track.

Sagraiasolar wrote:Chris,  I think we have enough facts to go on..1/. 10 year old gas boiler will be intrinsically inefficient. 90% probability it's not condensing either so an upgrade could save you as much as 30%.... HOWEVER2/ The new combined metering for heat pumps and domestic electricity is serious stuff which we are all very excited about. It is very likely to promote heat pumps to the same ball park as wood but without the lugging.3/. Pellets are a non starter in most situations ... horrible things and not top of the tree economically.4/. Think WOOD, HEAT PUMP and SOLAR and you'll be on the right track.

... sounds very good advice to me...

And to me!  

Thanks Geotherm, Sagraisolar and Gala.
We've got a fantastic wood burner in the main living room, and the hearth/chimney in the kitchen had been prepared for a burner too, so here's one going in there next.  Solar sounds good, but I must admit I had thought there were some restrictions at commune level?  There's enough of you on this forum who are clearly knowledgeable on heating issues and keen on the advent of heat pumps to convince me to look into this option too.

This is a new one, in the typical Italian way of trying to get more money for engineers. Ok, the certificate has to be completed every 2 to 4 years depending on the size of the unit and of course registered with the commune, who probably have no idea of what a heat pump is or how it works,as I have found out many times. That is apart from the fact that they need either very little or no maintenance at all.
But this is Italy, there again!!!
Fines are going to be quite high as normal for non compliance.

  http://www.geotherm.it/blog/2014/07/controllo-efficienza-energetica-anche-per-le-pompe-di-calore-geotermiche/

http://www.cti2000.it/index.php?controller=news&action=show&newsid=35144#

Ah so they have caught up with them....    Totally agree with you, seems like Italy is catching up with the UK in ways of making money our of you... Hardly a pay for car park when we first arrived here, now they are all over.... Mind you still a fraction of the cost in the UK..

Right, who knows anything about these WIKI LINK magic boxes. There was a post on Abruzzolutely that mentioned them and I found the above wiki link and thought someone here may know all about them.