Electric Cookers

[GHA]

Good grade A cells are not cheap.

I got £453 Catl 300Ah delivered, without BMS of course but good cells can be had. Quick look online, 2 x T105's (225Ah) would be about €400. Not really a fair comparison as the bms etc would all add up but good cells are out there & not too expensive.

 

[gregcope]

I'm curious to see how you arrive at the £3k figure.
As I've said before my costs were £407 for my DIY lithium battery vs £690 quoted for four Trojans. Approximately the same useable capacity.
Obviously I had other costs as well but these would have been the same regardless of battery type.
I do not have alternator charging for the lithium system, some would say that is a major compromise. I just revert to gas cooking rather than engine charging.

Something with quoting as I did not write that someone else did.

 

[Boathook]

When running the heating, heat pump flow temps will be 35C in order to run efficiently and be comparable to Gas boilers (even with the Gas/Electric KWh cost delta). Most installers favour underfloor heating as this can run at lower flow temps. A decent installer will do room heat calcs and then the required rad size at the lower Delta-T / flow temps.

At 35C flow temps most radiators are at around 30% of their rated output (at Boiler flow temps). We are looking at replacing some Rads. Same size, just going to doubles. From Screwfix these are not too expensive (£90 ea) and should be a simple swap. We are fortunate that our house has lots of single rads that can be replaced with doubles. So allot depends on your existing rad design.

Oh... Domestic House Batteries are LifePO4.

If you replace single radiators with doubles will the existing pipework be able to supply anough warm water ? I just had a new wet heating installed with combi boiler and oversized radiators for a possible heat pump in the future. A third of the pipework was run in a larger size to allow for the increased flow that would be required. As the property is an early 60's build, heatpumps will struggle with heating in the winter so I found out / was told.

 

[sailaboutvic]

If you replace single radiators with doubles will the existing pipework be able to supply anough warm water ? I just had a new wet heating installed with combi boiler and oversized radiators for a possible heat pump in the future. A third of the pipework was run in a larger size to allow for the increased flow that would be required. As the property is an early 60's build, heatpumps will struggle with heating in the winter so I found out / was told.

Most pipe are run 22 mm and then T off to 15mm to rads .
Pipe to hot water cylinder normally run 1" especially if your running on gravity.
But they too can be 22mm
It wouldn't matter if all the rads where single, double as long as the system are balance.
Heat pump I have no experience but at a guess I wouldn't think you pipe them up in a bigger size pipe .
Most system now are mico bole

 

[geem]

Most pipe are run 22 mm and then T off to 15mm to rads .
Pipe to hot water cylinder normally run 1" especially if your running on gravity.
It wouldn't matter if all the rads where single, double as long as the system are balance.
Heat pump I have no experience but at a guess I wouldn't think you pipe them up in a bigger size pipe .
Most system now are mico bole

If you have a microbore system you would need to strip it out and start again if going the heatpump route. Heatpumps work most efficiently with underfloor heating as you can get the water temperature down to about 35degC. Radiators need to be at about 45degC. Normal gas fired boiler rads were sized traditionally on a mean water temperature of 75degC.

 

[geem]

Mine was around the 3k tho I didn't use the alumni cells, I use calbs plastic cells which are much more expensive plus because where was base at the time I couldn't get them from china so had to buy them from Germany, so I did have to pay a bit more.
I also used the 123 smart BMS again a bit more expensive then what some people have used .
The 3k including everything , breakers, cables ,B2B , copper to make new bars and so on .

The sad part is when I sold the boat in march the guy said his insurance wanted the set up check by an expert as the surveyor had no experience on lithium,
So he paid for the lituim expert to check them over and the first thing the guy said was ( his words ) this is the future
After give the set up his full approval, not long after buying the boat , the lithium where remove for AGM as I understand there where worried about fire , which is a real shame , and disappointing after the money I spend .
The only good thing that came out of it was the batteries was sold to friends to add to their bank who I help with their lithium a year earlier,
I lay money Geem sooner or later you join the club .?

I may be joining the club but mine will be liquid cooled. We may just be installing a free prototype in my boat from the project I am working on?

 

[sailaboutvic]

If you have a microbore system you would need to strip it out and start again if going the heatpump route. Heatpumps work most efficiently with underfloor heating as you can get the water temperature down to about 35degC. Radiators need to be at about 45degC. Normal gas fired boiler rads were sized traditionally on a mean water temperature of 75degC.

Not suggestion you use mico bole , what I'm saying is for some years now mico bole have been used for heating system.
As said I have no experience with heat pump , some thing I need to look into one day .

 

[sailaboutvic]

Lithium been going for some years now ,
to hear some people talk you would think they are new,
What is new is there are more affordable now.
Once we used truck batteries to power our equipment,
My god would we pay the extra for Mat/AGM.

As Kelpie did you can fit litium without breaking the bank and I'm sure with a small family on board he set up is safe, well I hope it is anyway.
You can also have a very complicated system as some friends and cruisers we know spending 15/18k where basically you could turn everything on at the same time ,
washingmachine/oven/hob/kettle/dryer/winches/and throw in a load of other stuff without the BMS switching everything off.( Cooking on an electric oven is nothing if you see what some people are using )
I don't think what I spend was over the top and consideration over the winter months we use to spend around €250/300 on marina electric and that not much to what some people are paying.
and last winter €25 for the winter ,
it can soon pay for it self.
By the way at time we used an electric oil rad off our batteries when it got very cold,
Not all evening long but it go on for 10 mins to get hot and then turn off till it got cool then back on.
There a big difference between say the holiday weekend sailor and us liveaboard, we need some luxury.

 

[Boathook]

Not suggestion you use mico bole , what I'm saying is for some years now mico bole have been used for heating system.
As said I have no experience with heat pump , some thing I need to look into one day .

Not aware of microbore being used for years in the UK. Caused to many problems. I didn't even discuss it with my plumbers due to what I had heard over the years. Would have made my new heating easier to install !
Heat pumps, especially ground source are the way ahead but not really practicable on an older property due to heat loss, etc. Things may change in a few years as technology improves. Boat heating via a wet system and 12 volt heat pump. Way solar panels and batteries are going maybe sooner rather than later ?

 

[sailaboutvic]

I may be joining the club but mine will be liquid cooled. We may just be installing a free prototype in my boat from the project I am working on?

I'm a bit lost here I think I know what your saying but to be sure , how do you mean liquid cool?

 

[geem]

I'm a bit lost here I think I know what your saying but to be sure , how do you mean liquid cool?

Cells immersed in a coolant with refrigerant cooling.

 

[sailaboutvic]

Cells immersed in a coolant with refrigerant cooling.

My god all that work , just buy a bigger fridge and put them in there

 

[ashtead]

I was curious about heat pumps and was speaking to heat star engineer the other day who only supply for swimming pools (hence conversation) and his view was for your average bungalow even on the warmer climate on a tropical IoW was a non starter due to the lack of integrated insulation etc . Clearly in summer months makes a lot of sense heating a pool but using that for winter heating seemed a non starter. Slight thread drift but any heat pump house heater users have views?

 

[Kelpie]

Vic quoted £3k for his set up. I don't know your set up but I priced up everything I believe I need to make the system safe and reliable. Good grade A cells are not cheap. A b2b charger alone is £250. Class T fuses, good BMS. My boat is 24v so I need 8 cells and the BMS to run it. I would probably use Winston cells as they are easier to liquid cool. The would add a whole load of extra money on top of the £3k. The rig we are building at the moment uses Winstone cells

Yes it depends whether you view certain decisions as short cuts or not.
I chose my cells after reading as many real life reviews and experiences as I could on the various forums and FB groups. I decided that cheap cells from Alibaba would be fine. And so far, touch wood, they have been. £350 delivered to the Highlands, inclusive of all costs (it's possible I was supposed to pay some sort of extra vat etc but I was never asked for anything). Came with bus bars.
BMS was £67, delivered. It's the same physical hardware as the much vaunted Overkill Solar, but those were out of stock so I went directly to source.
As this was a brand new system installed from scratch, obviously I had other costs- two MPPTs, the panels. I would have needed those anyway. I needed a good big isolator- £40 eBay find for a 600A BlueSea.
Cables are obviously big, I used 70mm2 but can't remember what that cost. About £20, and same again for the giant hydraulic crimper. Another £10 approx for the crimps

No B2B charger. I only charge from solar.

There is only one area where I feel that I cut a bit of a corner. I was unable to source a Class T fuse. Cactus Nav kept pushing back delivery dates and I had to get across Biscay. So I'm using a Victron ANL fuse instead, for now.

 

[Kelpie]

I was curious about heat pumps and was speaking to heat star engineer the other day who only supply for swimming pools (hence conversation) and his view was for your average bungalow even on the warmer climate on a tropical IoW was a non starter due to the lack of integrated insulation etc . Clearly in summer months makes a lot of sense heating a pool but using that for winter heating seemed a non starter. Slight thread drift but any heat pump house heater users have views?

It depends what you're comparing.
Mains gas, even at current prices, is really hard to beat.
ASHP works most efficiently when running at low temperatures, which in turn means you need either big rads or, even better, UFH. But even a non optimal ASHP system will be cheaper to run than direct electric heating.

 

[sailaboutvic]

Not aware of microbore being used for years in the UK. Caused to many problems. I didn't even discuss it with my plumbers due to what I had heard over the years. Would have made my new heating easier to install !
Heat pumps, especially ground source are the way ahead but not really practicable on an older property due to heat loss, etc. Things may change in a few years as technology improves. Boat heating via a wet system and 12 volt heat pump. Way solar panels and batteries are going maybe sooner rather than later ?

I been involved in a lot of building projects over the years and not heard anything that would put me off mico bole although personally I rather plumb using 15 and 22 mm copper.
When it come to heat pump I probably know as much as other from what I read and sometime what we read and what reality can be Miles apart .
I think you get the best veiw how well they work from someone who been using it for some time , you soon find out if its not suitable.
But I do know if your looking to get heat from the ground ( ground source heat pump ) you need quite a big garden for it to work well depending if your using a Horizontal or Vertical system, as I said I need to do a lot more research into it and talk to people who use to work for me and now are involved in heat pumps .

My plain for now is once back on land part time is fitting a big bank of lithium and solar a couple of inverters to run as much as I can off them and only use the grid power when there not enough

 

[sailaboutvic]

Yes it depends whether you view certain decisions as short cuts or not.
I chose my cells after reading as many real life reviews and experiences as I could on the various forums and FB groups. I decided that cheap cells from Alibaba would be fine. And so far, touch wood, they have been. £350 delivered to the Highlands, inclusive of all costs (it's possible I was supposed to pay some sort of extra vat etc but I was never asked for anything). Came with bus bars.
BMS was £67, delivered. It's the same physical hardware as the much vaunted Overkill Solar, but those were out of stock so I went directly to source.
As this was a brand new system installed from scratch, obviously I had other costs- two MPPTs, the panels. I would have needed those anyway. I needed a good big isolator- £40 eBay find for a 600A BlueSea.
Cables are obviously big, I used 70mm2 but can't remember what that cost. About £20, and same again for the giant hydraulic crimper. Another £10 approx for the crimps

No B2B charger. I only charge from solar.

There is only one area where I feel that I cut a bit of a corner. I was unable to source a Class T fuse. Cactus Nav kept pushing back delivery dates and I had to get across Biscay. So I'm using a Victron ANL fuse instead, for now.

Well done at builded it at that cost , I have to say my bms cost as much as your batteries.
How big is your bank?
I found the bus bars where unless and not capable to put the type of current I may at times be using so I make my own .
B2B we very rarely had turned on as we found our 780w panels was more then enough to keep the batteries charge , it was used a couple of times over winter when we has some weeks without clear sky's and as the panels where shades by other boat mast with the amount of power used we found the odd time we needed the shore charge, though the B2B .

 

[geem]

My god all that work , just buy a bigger fridge and put them in there

It's not much work and the intended market is super yachts. Direct cooling of the cells means you can charge super fast. Lots of large motor yachts want to run A/C off lithium over night so they can turn off the generator. The next day they want to charge up quickly. Liquid cooling allows this. EV cars are already going liquid cooled so the technology is already in use. The increase in life is a double in high ambient conditions so your €500k lithium bank on your mega yacht might just benefit ?

 

[geem]

I got £453 Catl 300Ah delivered, without BMS of course but good cells can be had. Quick look online, 2 x T105's (225Ah) would be about €400. Not really a fair comparison as the bms etc would all add up but good cells are out there & not too expensive.

But I need 8 cells for 24v

 

[sailaboutvic]

s so your €500k lithium bank on your mega yacht might just benefit ?

Ha ha mega yacht yea , we now down to a very small 36 foot ,
Our full time liveaboard is probably over and we only be living on board for 6 or 7 months now and on land for the over six months , but who know , we sold in March with no intention of buying another boat for two years ,
late April we was off cruising in this boat.
Probably finish with the Med now and cruising Denmark, Norway even Iceland could be on the cards,
My problem is I can't be without a boat , I feel lost without one.