How not to ruin heating?

[dirk pitt]

you are surely right.

[oiseautempete]

If this house is located in Avignon, it is worth investing in solar thermal energy rather than changing the boiler or putting in insulation, given the small number of cold days and the amount of sun in winter.

For the sun, no doubt, but sometimes there is an icy wind which can last for a week and we have also noticed in recent years that there is more snow in these corners, and it is almost as cold in winter than in Alsace: climate change?

[bernardd]

For the sun, no doubt, but sometimes there is an icy wind that can last 1 week

Absolutely, like Mistral, which follows the Rhone and comes from Switzerland where it is called la bise...

But when these winds blow, there is sunshine, and this is the big advantage of vacuum thermal collectors, which continue to heat up even in cold weather.

And in addition, a wind turbine can produce efficiently because the wind is then regular.

[sspid14]

For me, the best is to insulate first the places where it is easy to insulate or at least not too expensive.

Then, without investment, you have to dress warmer and limit the number of heated living rooms. At home in winter, we use the small bathroom and no longer the large one, the bedrooms are only heated the minutes before going to sleep (but sometimes a little cold in the morning), the doors are closed everywhere in the house (the laundry room , the entrance hall and the kitchen remain colder). So only the living room and the dining room, which are not separated by a door, remain heated during the day (but the temperature is still reduced at night and during prolonged absence).

Installing a pellet stove can allow you to heat your living rooms. Aren't there "green loans" to help you invest and spread out your payments when your heating savings arrive?

Thermal solar heating can also be good if it allows you to insulate the roof at the same time.

A CAP is to be avoided in your home, I think.

[dedeleco]

To avoid unnecessary and expensive expenses, it is necessary to clearly identify the very significant and low-cost savings from those much weaker and sometimes very expensive.
Give priority to clear and inexpensive common sense solutions.
Avignon is not cold, but with horrible mistral, but with sun often!!
The very old houses with thick walls were not cold, at the average annual earth temperature, 13°C., so we could live in winter at 13°C, without heating, nor too much of a problem!!
So heating should be inexpensive, half the price in northern France, otherwise big basic mistake, inexpensive to fix!!

So, first remove the drafts by caulking the windows with seals, and detecting the residual drafts with a thermometer or a thin sheet of paper!!
Changing windows is less essential, and more aesthetic, so you can make a big financial saving in investment.
If there is a fireplace in a room, consider put a hatch that seals this chimney well, because the amount of air that leaves through a chimney, with or without wind, is appalling!!!
check for air and water leaks in the roof and attic. Wet insulation is worse than no insulation!!

Without leaks, in Avignon, in Avignon, you must not go below 13 to 10°C, without heating!

Afterwards, the cheapest is to improve the existing heating:
before the operating time (very depending on the operating mode), the efficiency of the boiler is linked to the temperature of the gases going into the chimney!!
The lower the T possible, the better the efficiency, so measure this temperature carefully, in the different operating phases of the boiler.
Too hot fumes must not be sent outside through the chimney, 110 to 150°C, max.

What is the power of the boiler, the burner, is there adaptation between the two??
It is necessary to reduce the power of the burner if excessive, instead of changing it, see its instructions, on the internet or elsewhere, measure the heating time of the boiler, between min and max, measure the temperature of the water to the radiators, which must be adapted to the outside temperature. !!
Are the hot water pipes insulated?
Is the boiler insulated, if not surround it with glass wool. measure its outside temperature.
Is there a thermostat that regulates the temperature of the water going out to the radiators, crucial?
If nothing, put such a thermostat, at 15€!
The savings can be enormous, because otherwise the overheated boiler sends all the hot gases up the chimney, completely wasted!!!
Should we be able to adjust this temperature, depending on the needs?
I have seen modern boilers without this possibility, a common nonsense, even if the yield on paper is good, but not in reality.
Does the boiler have an overheat protection?
important!!

The operating time of the boiler is not that of the burner, which operates intermittently, just the time to maintain the temperature of the hot water in the boiler, but that of the hot water circulating in the boiler.
The thermostat in the house that regulates must have the amplitude between the maximum stopping temperature and the minimum starting temperature adjustable so as to avoid starting too often, a complete heating of the boiler after its complete cooling when stopped.
This repetitive cycle of wasteful full reheating of the boiler is nonsense.
Conversely, constantly circulating hot water in the radiators is also absurd, especially when it is not cold.
Many advices to use complex thermostats correspond to modern boilers which do not respect these possibilities, which can be obtained with a simple but adjustable thermostat.

I forgot: you're talking about putting wood in the boiler. On the said boiler, I have the burner at the bottom of the heating body, and 50 cm above a sort of hatch which opens onto the inside of the heating body. Does this mean that I can put the wood directly through this hatch. How to dispose of the ashes?

With wood this boiler had a door instead of the burner with a grid at the bottom and an ashtray to receive the ashes.
The hatch on the heating body is not for putting wood, but rather for cleaning it.
With the wood you have to remove the burner and put back what was originally there, maybe the one who had the burner installed has kept the adapter for the wood, grid door and ashtray.
Otherwise try to find it, for example on a similar scrapped boiler??

Finally, town gas, fuel oil and pellets are fairly similar in price.
Solar is possible but the investment is not negligible and like heat pumps, the risk of scam is to be feared, and it is therefore necessary to know the technique well to avoid errors.

We often have the boiler changed to gain a maximum of 20% in efficiency and if more basic errors are not corrected, we sometimes do not gain much!!

The performance of a big old boiler can become good if you take care that its exchanger is not overloaded (low power) and therefore the temperature of the outlet gases towards the low chimney and that you do not spend your time at the heating and cooling unnecessarily, non-stop!!

[bernardd]

You're right, avoiding air leaks is the basis for comfort.

But as the number of days without sun in a row must be very low (5 days in a row without sun in Avignon, does that happen?), the boiler will work very little anyway.

The priority for me would therefore be solar thermal, with a reserve of hot water of the order of 3 or 4 days would be sufficient.

3m2 of sensors for less than 400€, I don't think it's very expensive. And feeding via PEX tubes is inexpensive, easy to do yourself, if necessary. With 12m2 of sensors of this type (1600€), we must already eliminate any expenditure on hot water apart from a harsh winter and a good part of the heating.

And with the same thing the following year, no more heating at all?

[dirk pitt]

The operating time of the boiler is not that of the burner, which operates intermittently, just the time to maintain the temperature of the hot water in the boiler, but that of the hot water circulating in the boiler.

the boiler operating time is that of the burner, it is the time during which fuel is burned.

The thermostat in the house that regulates must have the amplitude between the maximum stopping temperature and the minimum starting temperature adjustable so as to avoid starting too often, a complete heating of the boiler after its complete cooling when stopped.
This repetitive cycle of wasteful full reheating of the boiler is nonsense.
Conversely, constantly circulating hot water in the radiators is also absurd, especially when it is not cold.
Many advices to use complex thermostats correspond to modern boilers which do not respect these possibilities, which can be obtained with a simple but adjustable thermostat.

all-or-nothing regulation by room thermostat, that's what we did 20 years ago.
the regulation of the circuit water temperature by external sensor has since shown its superiority and it incorporates a stoppage of the circulator when the heating is no longer useful.
a proportional regulator by three-way valve and external sensor is not specifically intended for modern boilers but can be mounted on any heat production.
a distinction must be made between the production of heat (boiler) and the regulation of the radiators.

[bernardd]

And if it is necessary to increase the hot water storage, there is enough:
http://www.arsilac.com/fr/arsilac-liste ... dFam=CUVES

to last 3 days for example...

[dedeleco]

First, for solar hot water heating and house heating with practical realization not too expensive, read carefully:
https://www.econologie.com/forums/post174987.html#174987
example tigger not too expensive.
If this boiler operates in the summer for a hot water tank, the very frequent starting and stopping of this large boiler with unknown efficiency, just to heat the tank, (if thermostat with low difference in T between high and low not adjustable on more often) is very expensive, much more expensive than an electric balloon, and a simple solar heater in Avignon is a great saving!!!

The same when it is not very cold, the boiler should not be left with very hot water circulating constantly, because if not insulated (boiler and piping) it loses a lot of heat for almost nothing, and therefore it is necessary do not operate it for long, to take advantage of the thermal capacity of the thick walls of the house which can store the heat probably one day.
The other opposite solution is to circulate barely hot water without stopping just enough to heat, with the least possible losses thanks to this low temperature.
The best solution is not obvious and depends above all on the mode of operation of the boiler and its possibilities of operating at low power and the losses according to this power.
So an old big wood boiler converted with an oil burner has high power, and little ability to run at low power, so it heats the boiler water too much unnecessarily if the burner is running all the time and the gases come out in the chimney too hot throwing out in the chimney most of the energy of the fuel oil. large heating bill result.
The same boiler with a burner which heats (less strong as much as possible) intermittently regulated by a thermostat which maintains the temperature of the water at the necessary value, will send much less hot gases lost in the chimney and the performance will be s strongly improve.

So measure the temperature of the gases leaving in the chimney in the different cycles of the boiler: fundamental it must never exceed 150°C.!!
Regulating the temperature of the circulating water is essential.
Check that the boiler provides this regulation, which is not certain with a simple wood-fired boiler (without regulation of this temperature) or the wood is replaced by an oil burner, regulated by the thermostat in the house, which is absurd and gives enormous losses and very low efficiency, by overheating without controlling the temperature of the water in the boiler, which boils more or less,
These old wood-burning boilers without regulation had water that would start boiling if too much wood was put in to burn, but their high mass allowed them to resist.
So check if the burner has a thermostat based on the temperature of the water and not on the temperature in the house!!!
Otherwise, the water has time to boil for hours before the house is hot.
Check that there is a circulator, that it stops if the heating is stopped by the house thermostat, etc.
Boiler heat up time is when the water is heated and circulated and this is separate from the burner run time which overheats horribly and loses heat up the chimney outside if it heats up as long as the boiler heats up its water!!

Modern microprocessor-based boilers control this without us worrying about it, but if the house or installation has very different thermal characteristics from a typical house (or if the plumber does not have a good grasp of it), we can have aberrant operations without realizing it, since the settings are not accessible or understandable!
In addition, proportional regulation is much more complex, especially with an external sensor responsible for anticipating sudden temperature changes!!

The boiler operation time is that of the burner, it is the time during which fuel is burned.

This sentence shows the incomprehension of the operation of a boiler and the different times: that to heat the water in the boiler, then that to heat the house by circulation of this hot water, much longer!
If you heat with the burner running non-stop until the house is hot, the water will start boiling in the boiler long before the house is hot with a big waste!!
I saw in my family a heater less than 10 years old causing problems to the point that my in-laws abandoned the good modern regulation, to prefer the absence of regulation with a fixed power operating mode, like an old wood boiler. !!! Totally absurd!!

[dedeleco]

respond to :

I do not understand this part of your message: "We can gain a factor of 2, if no luck at the start, on a powerful boiler, but with undersized heat exchanger, case of old boilers. !!!"

A boiler has a burner which supplies hot gases which then go to an exchanger to heat the water for the central heating.
If the boiler is powerful with an undersized exchanger (too small, easy with thick cast iron) the gases do not cool enough on this cast iron (yet very heavy and thick) and come out very hot wasting the energy of the fuel oil in the chimney in pure loss, if the temperature of these gases is too high (more than 150°C, better close to 110°C).
It is enough to reduce the heating power, either directly on the burner, or by intermittent operation of this burner to prevent the gases from coming out of the exchanger too hot, they are given just enough time to heat this exchanger of the necessary by thermostat, which stops if the exchanger is too hot!.