Sunday 20 January 2013

Cold weather and hot water

I have to report another milestone in our housebuilding project, and that is the installation of permanent hot water. Since arriving we have been heating water using a very small 15 litre hot water tank; the kind you use in a caravan. It has been adequate and we have managed to heat up enough water for a quick shower or a bowl of washing up, but it was inconvenient. With the arrival of our permanent electricity supply we were able to think about our permanent supply. After much debate we decided to opt for something Ian tells me is called a 'thermo-dynamic water heater'.

Basically it is a small heat pump that extracts excess heat from the house and used it to heat up a 150 litre water tank. Ian saw a bargain on 'Le Bon Coin' and it arrived before Christmas. However there were a few glitches with the installation and it was not properly installed until this week. After a few days to 'run in' we are now enjoying the luxury of warm water from all the hot taps, showers where you don't have to turn off the water half way through to ensure you don't run out, and not having to wait 40 minutes for the water to warm up before we can take a shower. As you can see from the picture, it's a big thing!

It seems to have arrived just in time as the cold weather has arrived. It isn't as bad as in England at the moment but we did have some snow overnight and lots and lots of heavy rain. The bottom field, where we walk the dog, was flooded this morning and the river was completely full and had burst it's banks in places. Normally it is a small trickle at the bottom but when full it is between 1.5-2 metres deep.



1 comment:

tony said...

Fairly recently I bought a wee place in Italy...I must pick your brain sometime!

Be more dog

I'm always grateful that we have our dogs. We had never been dog owners up until our move but it had been something that we both wanted ...