Pump helps homes meet eco target
June 13th 2008 The first houses in the country to be designed and built to the Sustainable Code Level 4 recently established by the Government as an eco-target for new homes have been completed in Illingworth, West Yorkshire.
A number of different systems including solar panels, 300mm fully filled cavity walls, and improved U values on glazing, doors and loft space were installed to help meet the target. Crucially two NIBE Heat Pumps designed to convert air that would otherwise be expelled in the normal ventilation process into energy for domestic hot water and central heating wee installed.
The NIBE Fighter 360P units take air at ceiling level that has been warmed by the heating system, appliances within the home and residents’ body heat, extracts the energy via a heat exchanger located in the heat pump circuit and expels it into the outside atmosphere at very close to zero degrees Centigrade. The recovered heat is passed by way of an indirect heating surface to a hot water tank, double-jacketed so that hot water and radiators can be heated at the same time. If the system sounds complicated, the result is not. Ventilation is a necessity for both health and comfort but by definition it normally released a great deal of carefully generated heat. Using an exhaust air heat pump virtually all that heat is recovered and reused.
In the two houses in Windmill View the heat pumps are used in parallel with solar generated heat and, linked with superior insulation methods, they promise to provide an exceedingly effective, energy efficient heating system.
More articles from NIBE Energy Systems Ltd: | 
