Freezing

The bitterly cold weather of the last few days has been a good test of the heating system. Designed for a worst case outside temperature of -4C, as is standard practice for the Bristol area, the system seems to be coping. This is despite a power cut on Friday night when a local high voltage cable failed plunging us into a 'brown out' when we all we had was enough voltage to keep some of the lights in the house glowing, but nothing else worked. The fact it was -6C outside at the time didn't help either. Makes you realise how much we rely on electricity - even the toilets won't flush if we lose power!

The combined effect of underfloor heating and a pellet boiler mean that the heating isn't as fast to respond as a conventional gas fired boiler with radiators, but once you get used to setting the boiler to start earlier to cope for the longer warm-up time it's not a problem. Ideally we would also be using the 5kW woodburner to supplement the 20kW provided by the boiler, but it was out of action last night as we were oiling the living room floor, giving the oak it's first of two coats of Osmo Polyx oil to seal and protect it.

The extreme cold (by UK standards) hasn't caused any problems yet, although I am keeping an eye on the harvested rainwater as the pipe from the tank to the house isn't yet buried below ground so is at risk of freezing. This hasn't happened yet despite several days of freezing weather.