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Three months after moving into this house in 2020, we changed the heating system over from an oil-fueled furnace to heat the water that pumps through the wall-mounted radiators, to an [air-water heat exchanger.](https://www.viessmann.co.uk/en/products/heat-pump/air-source-heat-pumps.html) We wanted to get a [geo-thermal heating system,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_heating) but it was either get that, or make the compromise and get new windows in the house to replace the leaky ones from the 1960s.

The unit we have is large enough to heat the entire house of 200 m² (2150ft²), plus the 100 m2 (1070ft²) basement. The basement isn't heated, but the plan is to one day renovate it also, however that requires digging out the concrete as there is no insulation underneath. It is far, far, far out of our price range at the moment.  

![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/tarazkp/23zbXxLFYLLMEquy1sfHWYKdxWoTbMqzLbZdiRJp96yh67LNA2SDy3Fz9Gp5fhxhfhSQW.png)

The heating system however was "guaranteed" to be powerful enough for the house, which I confirmed and the salesperson promised, after I said that I don't want to here my wife complaining about the cold. But in the last three years, we have struggled with it. This is Finland and it gets very cold in the winter, so maintaining the temperature is important. However, even when it was "only" -15° (5°F), our loungeroom was sitting at 14°C (57°F) - which is "a bit" cold for inside temperatures. 

> The nagging is incessant. 
<sub>Add the complianing about being cold on top, and it is unbearable</sub>

The radiators were also hardly warm, and even though I had pushed the temperature up on the machine a full 2°C to 23°C (73°F), they didn't change. My wife was working from home, freezing her butt off, and making calls to the heating company to try and fix the problem. Every winter we have had them out two to three times, but nothing really has changed. Because the room temperature was so low, they put it in an "emergency" bucket and sent another installer last night.

> Just that morning...

The installer couldn't find anything wrong with what we had done, or the machine itself, but the water was far too cool in the system. But *just that morning,* a message had hit their intranet for installers to check that a switch is on *inside* the machine, as it can flick off during transit, so he had a look and *lo and behold,* it was off. He flicked it and in a couple minutes, the water temperature had increased 50% and the radiator batteries were starting to heat.

We didn't adjust the temperature down from 23, as the house was so cold and we wanted to see what the difference would be now that it is working correctly. When we first moved in and there was the oil furnace, it was very warm and it has never been close since. This morning when I woke up, my wife said "perhaps we should turn it down again".

>It is so warm, I am getting a tan. 

Now, all of these callout over the years have been performed for free (except one) due to the "guarantee it will work" clause. However, the way the system works (I don't know all the technical details) is that because it has been unable to heat the water hot enough, it pushes more power to heat it, meaning that it has been sucking far more electricity than it should be, to almost no effect. This means that we have been drawing far more from the grid than we should be, which has a high cost to it, especially over the last two years. Therefore, we have been paying more, and still being cold. 

>This cost is likely in many hundreds of euros.

I am working from home and this morning had to go straight into a meeting before I could turn it down. It is about 25°C (77°F) inside at the moment and I am literally sweating. After the meeting, I went and turned it back down two degrees, but now the water is so hot, it is going to take time to adjust again. I sent a message to tell my wife that it is so warm, I am *dehydrated.*

It is now going to be interesting to see what kinds of changes this is going to make on our winter energy consumption, because earlier it was very high, even for a house of this size. I assumed it was because being so old, it leaks a lot of energy, but it could have been just the heating system not performing well. We changed it to *save energy.* Which is also why we changed the windows also, which at the moment I feel like I need to open to get some cool air inside.

> But I won't. 

By evening, the water in the radiators should have cooled a bit and we will get a better idea of what is going on, as we need to "relearn" how we heat the home, so that it is more regulated and steady. Hopefully though, it isn't going to be another winter of rugging-up inside and still having cold toes despite woolen socks. Most importantly though, I might be able to escape some of the complaining of the cold.

*Just a little switch, and life changes.*


Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]



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