121–130 of 243 posts
Where I live we need a way to store and distribute cold as needed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7J52mDjZzto
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zrx-b2sLUs
Unless you live in a cold climate, they are worth it for a discounted energy bill =3
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I don't know how you cook your lasagna, but cooking for longer at a lower temperature usually results in more even heating than cooking for less long at a higher temperature. (This is one of the reasons microwaves are so terrible at heating evenly.) If you're not already, that may help. (I also imagine using the circulation in a convection oven might help as well. Also, preheating your oven! Even if it's a toaster ov…
Microwave tip: Use the power button to select a lower power level, and cook the food for longer.
It uses phase change (solid to liquid) to store heat at about 200 kJ/kg. Compare this to heating water in a boiler from 10c to 60c - stores 209 kJ/kg. So we already have an effective way to store heat which can work for decades without servicing and is also cheap to produce (in terms of money and energy consumption).
I've been keeping an eye on heat pump water heaters for awhile, but right now they mostly make sense in warm climates. The big problem is they're still specialty products and marked up like crazy, but also they tend to use cheap components which makes them loud and prone to failure. If you run A/C for the majority of the year then they pay themselves back reasonably quick, barring early failure, but in colder climate…
As an aside, HP dryers are really elegant tech, and it's a shame they're not more common. They use the heat pump not just to heat the air in the dryer, but also to condense the moisture back out of it, so just the water can be drained away instead of needing to exhaust the air outside. So you need much less energy overall, and you don't need a dryer vent. The only downside is they're a bit slower, but ours has a resistive backup option for when you need clothes dry asap, so really it's just price.
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Afaik heat-pumps in the EU can provide unlimited hot water–what am I missing?
Geothermal (and airbased) pumps theoretically do not have unlimited heating capacity. For example my pump (Daikin Altherma Geo 3) has a 180 litre water tank so it can ”only” supply 180 litres hot water at 65 degrees Celsius and takes about a minute to heat two additional lites. So if I want to quickly scald myself in a 400 litre pool at fifty degrees I can’t. But if I had a gas heater that would be possible!
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What did you heat with before?
Certainly not gas or oil, which are still cheaper to heat with than heat pumps.
I've been keeping an eye on heat pump water heaters for awhile, but right now they mostly make sense in warm climates. The big problem is they're still specialty products and marked up like crazy, but also they tend to use cheap components which makes them loud and prone to failure. If you run A/C for the majority of the year then they pay themselves back reasonably quick, barring early failure, but in colder climate…
We somewhat accidentally ended up with a good combo: we have a ventless heat pump dryer, and a heat pump water heater, also in the laundry room. So when doing laundry, the water heater cools the room while the dryer heats it, so they roughly cancel out. As an aside, HP dryers are really elegant tech, and it's a shame they're not more common. They use the heat pump not just to heat the air in the dryer, but also to co…
I've stopped needing to sort my clothes out as a result, I used to hate putting synthetics in a regular dryer because they get worn out so fast that way.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know how you cook your lasagna, but cooking for longer at a lower temperature usually results in more even heating than cooking for less long at a higher temperature. (This is one of the reasons microwaves are so terrible at heating evenly.) If you're not already, that may help. (I also imagine using the circulation in a convection oven might help as well. Also, preheating your oven! Even if it's a toaster ov…
Microwave tip: Use the power button to select a lower power level, and cook the food for longer.
It uses phase change (solid to liquid) to store heat at about 200 kJ/kg. Compare this to heating water in a boiler from 10c to 60c - stores 209 kJ/kg. So we already have an effective way to store heat which can work for decades without servicing and is also cheap to produce (in terms of money and energy consumption).