Indeed. Ours had 10 power settings for each hob and they were totally linear. They gave near instant change in heat with setting 1 mild enough to not scorch a cat’s whiskers (or milk in a saucepan).
I once had a non IH electric hob that had the problem @Pete_the_painter described though. It was totally all or nothing.
I find witch gas, turning heat up or down also changes the heat area. Turn it down to lowest setting and you still git this hit little ring in the centre and the outside edge of the pan is cold. Turn it up high and you get a big hot ring around the outer edge and a cool spot in the middle. With IH, the heat is even across most of the surface at all settings.
Miele cooktop here. Totally linear and also very easy to control. We’ve opted for induction hobs for over 12 years and far prefer them for efficiency, safety and ease of cleaning.
Our house is electric only, reasonably large (3500sq foot or so) and has very large original single pain windows. We use about 25,000 kWh electricity per year.
Despite putting in 2 ASHP instead of electric radiators, an 8kW solar array and 13.5kW, usage in November was about £750. December will be higher I suspect. Doesn’t help that my inverter has gone offline, so the batteries have been “off” for a few weeks (I have them set to charge up overnight at 22p kWh, then discharge during the day to replace the 35p kWh rate). New inverter being fitted today, fingers crossed.
I’m using £5-6 per day with the gas central heating during this cold spell. That’s with it on 24/7, living and dining at 21C, rest of house a few degrees cooler
Three bed semi with 9 rads (TRV’d), 18mm double-glazing, a bit of extra loft insulation including the hatch.
As part of my recent move, I changed from a gas hob to an induction hob. It was a bit of a learning curve to adjust to it but once I did I am really pleased I did and wouldn’t go back now. I bought a fairly expensive John Lewis cooker that has a boost function on the rings which I really like and is great for boiling water for pasta and veg, it is also good for stir-frying. Whilst I had some pans that were induction ready I did need to replace several.
As for the cost of heating, I seem to be likely to be spending double what I spent last year but this is hard to judge as I am in a new home, so do not have the historical data to go by, just the estimate of what my usage will be from the gas and electricity supplier.
Given all the advice over many years, at least in UK, about making homes more thermally efficient, with repeated availability of government grants to assist, I’ve been surprised at quoted figures showing the number of homes with negligible or none, not even a basic level of loft insulation.
Some friends and family didn’t understand why when I moved into this house 12 yeas ago We had triple glazing fitted throughout and lined the walls with 50-75mm of PIR/Phenolic insulation board, 100mm PIR under floor as well as having cavity wall insulation, and put 450 mm fibreglass in the loft. They called it the Kingspan house.
When this time last year we started working out how to do much the same to my son’s old Victorian house he’d just bought, though with solid walls we planned an air gap and 75-125 PIR for walls, and not changing the double glazed windows, my wife and I were called the Kingspan King & Queen!
My answer to all the gentle mocking was that one additional thing that is certain in life as well as death and taxes is that energy costs will always rise. Little did I know how fast and sharp that could be. I never considered payback time, just long term financial stability and comfort. Payback time at prices even a year ago would have been decades - but if energy prices remain at levels they are reaching now that would be reduced by a large factor. I can only commend to anyone insulate, insulate, insulate (it will reduce heat gain in hot countries, too). Interesting the UK government’s recent commitment, given the pressure group demanding that just a few months earlier, that was being put down a few months ago and demands ignored.
Triple glazing is wonderful, too, for comfort as well as energy efficiency, but is a lot more expensive than double. Most particularly for anyone with single glazing, if too expensive to change for at least double, or limited scope for practical reasons, then surely advice has to be to add secondary glazing to make double. Even 50 years ago you could buy simple DIY DG kits to fit clear acrylic sheets over windows, removable when not needed.
It is bad over here as well, with costs per Kwh probably even higher than in the UK. But it really pays off to have proper insulation. We live in a passive house of some 190sqm (or 2050sqft) and pay little over €1,000 for energy - per year. This will rise to €1,600 in 2023, but still OK. Of the 4,200Kwh we use in total some 60% go into the heat pump, the bulk of the rest goes into cooking and hifi.
We are upgrading insulation in our 26 meters of eves cupboards (chalet design) because when built in 1989 only 100mm of fibreglass was used between the rafters. The loft was upgraded under a Government scheme. The company doing the eves said that many people reject their quotes not wanting to pay the £100 contribution required under the scheme! No doubt many were eligible for free loft and cavity wall insulation.
Hand in hand with heating costs is air conditioning. Not as vital in the UK but that can change pretty fast.
To that end, insulation to keep heat in and reflective cladding to keep heat out. Much harder in areas with brick or stone aesthetic I admit. Our climate swings pretty far between winter and summer so the energy bill only gies down in soring and autumn. I had to toss up between “tasteful” and “sod it. go all out on lowering energy” and went the latter. Silver reflective cladding. Probably about as undesirable as you might imagine but the cost to saving ratio couldn’t be ignored.
So many modern new homes are built without eaves too which, from an energy saving perspective, seems nuts. They really have a dramatic impact on energy consumption.
I obviously don’t know the size or build of your house, but that is a huge amount of energy you’re using. Lets say all your appliances are within 10 years old, they’re not going to be adding up to a huge amount of drain.
Double glazing greatly solves the window loss. Triple glazing doesn’t add much extra, if anything.
Detached single story houses lose the most heat. The walls and ceilings conduct the most heat from your home. My house has poorly insulated walls and it takes hours to heat up and loses temp overnight. There’s a difference between a modern insulated home and a well built modern insulated home. I was at Sarah Beeny’s new house (excuse me, I’ll just pick that up) and I leant against her walls before plastering. They felt warm! An extra layer of of internal insulation to the one in between the bricks. Brilliantly built.
Any drafts and/or gaps around doors is a big heat loss.
I’ve been surprised how many window suppliers (many who don’t do triple) say that. They appear to be comparing best DG (low emissivity coatings, argon or even krypton gas) with basic triple. Triple with same coatings and gas fill is another matter. Of course it also depends on the frames and pane size, with D&TG the frames commonly being significantly less insulating than the glass, poor frames with small glass panes making the whole window U value difference between D&TG a lot smaller. The bigger the glass to frame ratio the greater benefit triple has. And quieter (both directions, note for music rooms!). And the only condensation ever is on the outside - because the outside pane is not warmed, so is just like, say, a car windscreen.
Indeed. I went and tested different glazing in a -23c room. With the high end tripple glazing compared to high end double, you feel almost no difference touching the glass with that cold room behind it. The best double glazing was still cold to the touch.
I work with producers and suppliers of dg/tg and the subject is complex when you take into account the frame design to accommodate tg and other issues. To sum up, tg is not worth it.
“Worth it” is a value judgement and that is one that has to be made by the householder. Certainly I consider my triple glazing to have been well worth it – but as I said, before, I have not in any way considered payback cost, as when doing it, I expected to be in the house for very many years, and with the awareness that energy costs always go up. (My windows have large glass to frame ratios, so as I mentioned triple is more beneficial in relative terms than with smaller windows.) And the comfort aspect, especially quietness (inside plus less of my music outside when playing loud) is something I appreciate. “Worth it” here is much the same as people apply to hifi purchases.
Indeed, awful things, though, of course, they were an attempt to provide a minimal level of ventilation when People sealed up the gaps around their windows etc. infinitely better is whole house ventilation with heat recovery.
The system I’ve just installed in my son’s house is the third I’ve done, the first back in the early 1990s using a basic system from Wickes, which was surprisingly easy to fit in a 1920s semi, and made a noticeable difference to the quality of air in the house. In my own house, 12 years ago, I fitted a far more advanced system, my son’s now similar to mine but a bit less sophisticated. However, if you ask if it is worth the cost, to many people the answer may be no, especially of course as there is no payback cost as such. Hiwever it is certainly worth it to me as I value the benefits it brings in terms of no house smells as well as no condensation/damp problems - I would never want to have a house without it. (At least not in this part of the world).
My TG is by Internorm of Austria. It is wooden frames with powercoated aluminium externally. Nearly tens years on it looks like new. The effective U value was silly small 0.64 w/m2/C with 28mm units and argon. Best of all don’t have to paint 23 units inside or out.
We looked into replacing our windows a few years ago.
For a “cheap” double glazed alternative, we were quoted ca. £70k. Whereas like for like Crittall windows (but double glazed) would be at least double that.
As much as it annoys me to pay so much for heating, that’s a massive capital outlay that I’ll never get close to getting back. and it’s only really an issue 3 months of the year.
Cons of tg; tend to fail more, less light transmission, not noticeabley quieter, more expensive to buy and replace, and much heavier (meaning profile, hinge and fittings need to be designed specifically with some aesthetic/cost issues).
The frame and excluder is where a lot of the noise comes from and the spacer bar is where a lot of the heat goes. You want to see some of the technical excluders I photograph, which I don’t see installed very often.
Frame design/construction, the installation and the quality of the glass units are far more important than the statement “I have tg, I find it cost effective and better”. You’ll be replacing the whole windows anyway, as nothings lasts.
The statement that on a very large pane area, tg is better thermally insulated than dg for similar quality, is correct, but it pretty much meaningless in real life situations.
P.S. All my knowledge comes from the manufacturers and suppliers I work with (their MDs and product design dept) and not sales literature (which I do the work for).
Avg 28 KWh electricity
Avg 1m3 gas
Estimate 10 kg wood
Half of the electricity is used by our refugee who has an electric heater and apparently needs to have it 23 deg Celsius in her room which causes fungus since ventilating the room is too cold.
The fungus (black mold) is now in control since I’ve wheeled in an dehumidifier.
I’ve ordered an Aeg heater/airco which is much more efficient and will save us 10 kWh per day.
Our house is 100 yrs old, detached and medium insulation.
The fire place is magic. That’s what keeps us warm.
