Underfloor Cooling

Hot, ain't it? 

Being almost totally open plan, our main problem in this weather is the heat build-up upstairs, for which the only real solution is the installation of a Velux window in the vaulted ceiling to let heat escape, but we keep putting it off. Our upstairs windows are very low in the walls and hence don't really do much in clearing the heat.

Our bedroom occasionally becomes unbearably hot, forcing us to either sleep downstairs or in the motorhome, which cools down pretty fast after dusk. Downstairs isn't that much of a problem, as we have no south facing windows and the place can be kept relatively cool by closing all the doors and curtains at either end of the house during the day and opening them at night, but what heat does build up rises upstairs and remains trapped there in the open roof space, which is vast.

I've had an idea though.

We have underfloor heating. The heat exchanger takes warmth from the air outside via the air-source heat pump, backed up by the solar PV, and pumps it through pipes under our floors to heat the house.

Using the system as it is, but not heating the water at all and putting the thermostat to high could actually take heat away from the floor and dump it in the 500 litre tank in the engine room. It wouldn't be very efficient, as the heat would slowly build up in the 500 litre tank with nowhere to go, so eventually the system would stabilise at the outside air temperature. 

Theoretically, it should be possible, with a chiller inserted somewhere into the system, to work it in reverse, so as to give us cool floors that take the heat away from the house and chuck it outside.

That said, another idea, which I have yet to discuss with Hay, would be to roll the car into the living room, put a hose on the tailpipe leading outside for the carbon monoxide and run the aircon at full belt with the car doors open. I'm almost certain she'd me amenable to such an innovative idea. One small problem, however, would be the heat from the engine and that a car aircon is designed to cool only a small area. Minor obstacles.

Just a quick look at our electricity generation, using the initial feed-in tariff, since we moved into the house.

Click on the image to enlarge it. You can plainly see how the sunlight (yellow area) has been increasing, albeit slowly, year-on-year. The usage too has increased, but that's been subject to having two sons living at home - however, they've both left now and hence usage should reduce dramatically over winter.

Mind you, if climate change produces more weather like we're currently experiencing, then we may have to install a genuine aircon unit, using the renewable generated electricity to run it.