"Green" policies are destroying this country

olestoepoke

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118022173#Comment_118022173

Can you change radiator valves without draining the system?If you are changing a couple of valves on a few radiators, it is probably best to drain the whole heating system down. https://www.bestheating.com/info/how-to-change-a-radiator-valve-without-draining-the-system/

Taken from a popular plumbing and heating forum, this is what the experts say. Draining down your system is not a straight forward job and if not done correctly can cause all sorts of problems.https://www.emergencyplumber.uk.com/plumbing/draining-central-heating-system/

So again, the vast majority of people would not feel comfortable properly installing TRVs throughout their homes and will need to call a plumber, which in the current climate are extortionate so claiming it can be done cheaply is right up there with suggesting we all grow lettuce on our back garden cills when it comes to silly statements.

dudley72

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118022189#Comment_118022189

You posted a link about a valve, that’s when I said you need a plumber

If you have the correct valve it is a screw on/off job. I have done myself first the TRV and then more recently with smart ones. You never touch the water in system

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkN700ijZ5Q

magicbastarder

we have a honeywell system using smart TRVs (got it for free too!) and it's great.

I’d definitely be an advocate of Thermosatic Rad Valves as it’s nice to have a constant ambient temperature in a room rather than boiling hot or bloody freezing. They’ll open and close themselves as necessary.

Smart TRVs though - not a fan. Each one requires 2no AA batteries which need replacing every 12 months (maybe more often) depending on how much interaction you have with them. All those interactions go through those naughty data centres we’re meant to be giving out about. You tell them to come on as you’ll be home in 30 minutes and you want a toasty house to walk in to.

That’s a lot of waste. What’s wrong with coming in the door, going “brrrrrr” and flicking the heating on? Has to be a better saving than using fuel for 30 mins when you’re not even in!

Are you really saving with all this smart tech? Or, have you just diverted your energy expenditure elsewhere?

magicbastarder

You tell them to come on as you’ll be home in 30 minutes and you want a toasty house to walk in to.

That’s a lot of waste. What’s wrong with coming in the door, going “brrrrrr” and flicking the heating on? Has to be a better saving than using fuel for 30 mins when you’re not even in!

or else you don't do this? it's not mandatory. we also have the ability to select different modes, e.g. economy mode which is what i'd use when at home on my own (i.e. it just deducts 3 degrees from the threshold temperature set on all rads). you are correct about the datacentre end of things though, the ability to control it from outside the house is not 100% necessary, but there are still useful functions that smart ones offer over 'dumb' ones which wouldn't need a datacentre connection.

since we're working from home one of the benefits is that if we're just using one or two rooms, you have the manual override. e.g. in my office i can use the manual override to just bring the rad on in this room and my wife can do the same in her office and we just heat the two rooms we're using.

we have a small wood burning stove and it's very handy the way the central heating automatically balances itself against this.

dudley72

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118022670#Comment_118022670

Rechargable batteries I use, yes they don't last as long as a standard AA battery but the app warns when you need to swap so just pop in & out.

The thing is most people dont walk in an go brrrr.....they have preset heating on which comes on if they are coming home or not. The heating doesn't come on if it is needed, it comes on because it is set to come on. It will also heat any radiator on and TRV are good but not as precise. I can set different temps to different rooms very easily. Also you set the house to the temp you want, it flicks on & off when you are in the house to keep at that tmep. Loads of people have heating coming on at night, it will turn on and burn but does it really need to be? you set the house to the temp you need and it only comes on when it is required

Going on hols in winter, cant risk the house freezing over. Set it that once a house hits a temp it flicks on off....I also have open window on my system so if someone leaves the window open it wont heat that room.

Loads of reasons, just a few above

magicbastarder

Going on hols in winter, cant risk the house freezing over. Set it that once a house hits a temp it flicks on off.

ours has a hard coded 5 degree threshold; it'll automatically kick in at that point, for the reason above.

dudley72

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118022931#Comment_118022931

Once you set mine to "away mode" I think it does the same.

magicbastarder

on our system, 'away' sets all rooms to 15C; we never use it.

dudley72

I could talk tech all day :-)

Anyway back to the original point, small upgrade at low to lowish cost can have a massive impact on your CO2 footprint. If everyone in Ireland done small changes to houses it could result in a huge drop in CO2 but also could save you money on fuel.

SupplyandDemandZone

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118015695#Comment_118015695

Ireland is a tiny country, it's quicker to drive almost anywhere than get a train outside of the usual rush hour commutes.

The winter temp thing does sound handy rather than a regular timer coming on for an hour twice a night while you’re away.

The other stuff - it’s more about the convenience of sitting beside a control panel as opposed to getting up and physically turning dials down. Nice? Yeah. Necessary? No.

And I think you’ll find that people who are living month to month or week to week do watch their heating usage. They can’t afford not to

magicbastarder

The other stuff - it’s more about the convenience of sitting beside a control panel as opposed to getting up and physically turning dials down. Nice? Yeah. Necessary? No.

yes, of course i could go around and turn all rads off in the house except the one i want, and then go back around and turn them all back on when i want to heat the house, or go around and turn them all down by 3 degrees and turn them all back up when we've more people in the house. but i suspect for the vast majority of people, laziness in not doing this would result in CO2 footprints which would vastly outweigh the CO2 footprint of a somewhat smart system. someone mentioned batteries; we typically get two years or so out of a pair in each valve. so maybe a dozen a year; probably the same amount a few kids would get through on christmas morning with their new presents.

and that's the point - if you can reduce your fuel consumption by say 15%, this will vastly outweigh the carbon cost of having a smart system which probably pulls maybe a few watts. worrying about that aspect seems a little penny wise.

dudley72

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118023020#Comment_118023020

In reality how many of the 5 million people in Ireland are living month to month/week to week. We can fire out all the hyperbole we want but Ireland in the majority Irish people have a good living and a good life. Yes we have issues and we should resolve them but it is not an excuse for the people that can help reduce CO2 not to.

If you read this thread you would think we have a country with a huge percentage of people with zero disposable income, which is untrue. Look at how crazy Ireland went after the pubs opened, the amount of money per person spent in pubs that week would cover how many upgrades to houses?

I am not denying some people do watch fuel but it is in the minority

magicbastarder

just for my own entertainment, i did a calculation that if (and i stress the if, i pulled the 5W figure out of the air) our smart heating system pulls a constant 5W, that's 44kWh in a year, or the equivalent of 4l of home heating oil, in terms of energy.

given that the average irish house uses probably between 1,000l and 2000l of oil a year, if the smart system reduced oil usage by just half of one percent, it'd more than break even.

dudley72

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118023266#Comment_118023266

Exactly, go on hols for two weeks and the system will probably pay for itself in that period alone

Potatoeman

This green conference coming up, why is it not a video chat? We are being lectured to by those that won’t make these simple changes themselves?

They may as well say that it’s an end to cheap flights and private jets too, if they really want to make a difference. Making driving more expensive is a non runner for people living in the country and fuel hikes are equally a bad idea.

Anything else is just lip service.

olestoepoke

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118022241#Comment_118022241

Ok you win fella, you know better than the plumbing experts.

whisky_galore

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118013621#Comment_118013621

Oh f**k me for deciding to be born there?

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118023411#Comment_118023411

is that cop26 you re talking about? some generalization going on there, many advocates of green polices truly do walk the walk

it looks like the aviation industry may not have any choice but to move to hydrogen, so it ll be interesting to see what happens in regards pricing. there certainly is a major short sightedness occurring though, our modern political and economic approaches to major changes wont work though, i.e. ramping up prices etc, we have to truly enact our public ability of financing such changes, in order for us to succeed, but we re not ready for such a change just yet.

yup we ve just been providing lip service to our environmental problems, we re quickly running out of time now

Potatoeman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118023519#Comment_118023519

The problem with price increases is that you have old and vulnerable people freezing in their homes during winter. There is already a supply crisis going on which is going to push up prices.

Air travel is the low hanging fruit and one of the worst polluters.

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118023547#Comment_118023547

yup, again, modern political and economic ideologies arent able to deal with reality at all, their defaults are unable to provide whats actually required, we urgently need to go back to the drawing board, or......

air travel certainly is highly problematic, but out whole global economic systems are almost largely depended on it

dudley72

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118023482#Comment_118023482

Never said I knew better than the plumbing experts. So no idea what that post is about?

dudley72

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118023411#Comment_118023411

Mass movement of people across distance is better in a plane

Private jets again? how many private jets are in Ireland?

Potatoeman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118023567#Comment_118023567

Cruise ships too, but they should be gone after Covid anyway. Most deliveries go by boat only some by air so it would be possible to significantly reduce it but with many job losses. It would require government funded redundancy.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118014616#Comment_118014616

You could cram the entire population of Ireland into apartments in Dublin Hong Kong style.

People like you would still not be happy and would be seeking out other ways to make us all miserable for your so called 'green' agenda

Thelonious Monk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118023604#Comment_118023604

Yes exactly, dense housing that takes up way less space, thus being able to share infrastructure and give land back to nature, instead of the country being a giant sprawling housing estate like it is now

dudley72

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118023604#Comment_118023604

If you go to the likes of Berlin, it is a very compact city but they have excellent layout, you can walk around and every few sections you have a large play area etc for kids. Same with areas for adults with parks etc. All of these of course are not car traffic.

You dont need a big 3000 sq ft house in the middle of the field out in the back end of nowhere to still have space and place for kids etc to grow up in. Of course you are fully entitled to do that if you want, but proper planning and building in cities also works perfect

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118023594#Comment_118023594

its important to realise the complexity of our global supply chains, both sea and air travel are critical components of them, i suspect if either was significantly reduced, our supply chains would probably collapse. yes a significant amount is indeed done by sea, but an astonishing amount of goods are still transported by air, including partly produced goods, and yes, the only way to alter this is by increasing state supports, but we re still not ready for that to occur yet, and a quick way to see that is our deep fear of public supports such as welfare payments, deficits etc etc etc. we re ultimately not ready to do what actually needs to be done just yet

RandomViewer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118023498#Comment_118023498

Get the notion he didn't get the farm and is sore about it since