The app also gives the temperature for the nearest town, Larne, and it was 1c. We actually live on an isthmus and with water on three sides tend to be a bit milder than where I grew up about 25 miles to the west and inland.
I was alternating between joinery in the utility room and Teams calls in the office. Quite happy sitting at my desk at 12.5c if it’s only for a half hour. Longer than that and I would likely hit the boost.
In the evening the log burner does the heavy lifting in the living room. Also the brickwork around it acts as a giant storage radiator and keeps it a bit warmer into the afternoon.
tend to fail more. - why? With far fewer experience of people having I have no knowledge, but DG units seem to very prone to failure - though I guess there are different degrees of manufacturing quality - and TG. I have only had mine a bit over 11 years, and I’m a one-off, so can’t comment from experience.
less light transmission - undoubtedly, though not that I’ve noticed, including upon closing windows tgat have been open.
not noticeabley quieter - well, it is hard to compare directly, but I can barely hear birds in the garden, which has never been the case with DG houses I’ve lived in.
more expensive to buy and replace - yes: but that is where the value judgement cones in, in respect ipof which I refer you to my earlier response
and much heavier (meaning profile, hinge and fittings need to be designed specifically with some aesthetic/cost issues). - indeed, which in part os why they’re more expensive, and they are a pain (pun intended) to lift when installing (I know from direct experience helping my builders carry in when delivered, and a couple of weeks ago helping a roofer install a large TG velux window in my son’s roof.
My info comes not from sales brochures but by reading and research over several years before committing, and reinforced by personal experience having made the expensive decision to have TG in my entire house. It sounds as if Feeling_Zen likewise. Do you know many people with TG, and if so what proportion are dissatisfied?
If you read beyond my post you’d see I was corrected on recycling of PVC in some places at least (not where I live yet). And thank you for answering my question about PVC life. 35 years isn’t bad, though looked after timber can last an awful lot longer - and with aluminium cladding as F_Z and I opted for, the otherwise essential regular external maintenance is a thing of the past.
I didn’t mention, but I also dislike aluminium frames.
However you didn’t venture a view about fibreglass frames, which my post mentioning PVC was about. What is your view of them? Yes hard to get and expensive, at least in UK, but to my mind the material has distinct advantages, or are you of the view that tgey are also not worth it?
Hi @Alley_Cat
The resovoir will take about 1.7l at a time but can be topped up if it cools for about half an hour. There is a simple sliding restrictor so we tend to start with the heater on ‘full’ and half close it after 30 mins or so. It then runs for 5-6 hours. We are both home all day but generally only put it on late afternoon. We pay less than £3 for each litre bottle of fuel.
My wife found this heater and I was sceptical about how well it would work. We visited a shop that had a working model and I was quickly convinced. Some don’t realise it is a convector heater and expect to warm their hands in front of it! We have an open plan layout and it makes a difference throughout the house. If it were in a closed room, you would need to close it down as it would become warm very quickly. Nice problem to have!
Why on earth should I stop, when in effect you keep saying that whatever I have said was wrong?!
I take it that means you don’t have a view on fibreglass frames. It will be interesting to see whether they eventually catch on in UK - I suspect cost alone means it will take some time, with the inevitably slow market of early or specialist adopters not encouraging manufacturing investment in the technology.
Incidentally, it is interesting that now Velux offer three different TG options in their roof lights (with cost increasing as performance increases), and one DG, at the bottom end.
What’s your problem? I thought there was a reasonable exchange of views, albeit quite opposite, based on different knowledge and experiences. But if that how you feel fair enough bow out.
Several posts on here re solar panels. We are considering them, currently awaiting surveys/quotes (which is taking a long time!). For anyone in north west England or in the north of the Island of Ireland (similar latitude and possibly cloud cover), do you know what sort of average energy output you get in middle of winter as proportion of summer high? (Yes I know it depends on orientation, but just trying to get a more realistic estimate of likely range rather than the sort of things stated by suppliers.)
Several people have mentioned batteries with solar. Does anyone here have a PV system without, and if so can you expand on reason why you didn’t go for one?
I notice in the pics the UK seems to still mostly use copper pipes.
About 15 years ago when I had a plumber in and saw where I was used hose. I asked why. He said there were a few reasons hose was far superior to copper:
Reduces burst pipes in the home as a result of earthquakes and freezing (both major issues where I am).
It’s a poor conductor of heat so heat loss is much less enroute to radiators. With copper you’re wasting energy heating the pipe too.
Much faster to work with. No welding or soldering. Big problems can be fixed very fast.
Obviously, the second of those points is the pertinent one to this thread.
Yes, I think, ultimately for most people, the need for Double Glazing units or Triple Glazing units will be dictated by the Building Regulation requirements, Part L for U-Values for windows. I see that in the UK it is now 1.2 W/m2k, here in Norway it is now 0.8 W/m2k.
I think it is very unlikely that a DG unit will achieve Norway standards. Then of course there is the sound insulation requirements to factor in. I suspect that as Velux is a global supplier, providing customers in the UK a TG option is because of the demand for TG units elsewhere, Central and Northern Europe, for example. They produce them for other markets so why not offer them anyway. In addition, eventually DG units will be fazed out as demand dwindles and U-Values get better.
Another point on Velux TG, the sound insulation requirements are specific around busy airport terminals and because Velux are installed in roofs, they are subject to greater noise pollution from aircraft, you can factor in 100,000’s of homes across London as an example. The windows need to meet those requirements or be part of the equation that determines conformity for loft conversions for dB levels.
You could also make an argument that, depending on the circumstance, if the seal between the glass sheets failed in a DG unit the outcome is more fatal than it would be in a TG unit (if only one seal fails). As in the TG unit would still be providing better insulation and be usable.
I would also suggest that any ‘experienced’ manufacturer of TG units are probably not based in the UK and/or have been making them for quite some time, so any manufacturing issues are probably resolved as much as they are for DG units because of manufacturing longevity.
I remember in the ‘old days’ when DG units first came out, seal failure rates were quite high in the early stages after installation, almost certainly due to manufacture and quality control immaturity.
Referring to my earlier post nr. 63, DG units would not achieve the 0.7 - 0.5 U-Values that I get with the TG units, but we are all very acutely aware that the glazing system, like HiFi " is only as good as the weakest link".
If the pipework is in an area where heat loss may be significant then the pipes should be lagged. My mate’s home has a suspended floor downstairs and air flows through this area as part of the design of the pre-war house so all the pipes have thick Armacell lagging.
Copper is strong and largely self-supporting, these days plastic is often combined with copper to make installation easier. There’s only four solder joints in mine where the low profile of copper joints is advantageous in a tight area.
Thanks @JOF - that fits with my understanding. For my son it just made sense while maxing out the insulation in the (large) room-in-roof and doubling the size of one of the roof lights to go the whole hog and get triple glazed.
As for dictated by Building Regs, unless someone wants to go better than the current standard!
Incidentally, are fibreglass frames used in Norway? Maybe for larger openings like patio doors?
We had ours installed when the house was built / converted from a farm building 15 years ago. I think it’s the best thing we did (house always smells fresh, efficient heating and no condensation), my bro in law next door hates it because it sucks in fumes from his wood burner so he has it turned off
We can get uPVC windows but I am not sure about fibreglass.
On the whole there is still some snobbery here about window materials, here most people will specify wooden windows with outside aluminium flashing. The reason for that is that they are manufactured in Scandinavia from high quality (very slow growing) timber, in addition, you can now get wooden windows with an insulated thermal break sandwiched in.
This one from Nordan.
Here’s one example from Germany.
I dont specify uPVC windows because I don’t like they way they look and they tend to fade under UV light over time making them look really ugly in the long term.
