The early morning sky crisscrossed with vapour trails. Seems that the ports are so blocked up that importers are chartering passenger planes to bring in goods from China. Booking an empty Airbus would have run $400k for a return trip to Shanghai this time last year. Now the airlines can charge $2m for the same trip. They fill the belly of the aircraft with cargo and then stack boxes on the passenger seats and fill the overhead bins. Toy retailers are especially keen on this solution to 'Christmas' demand. It goes without saying the airlines are only too delighted to help out.
Supply chain disruption and inflation are subjects that Sophie has absolutely zero interest in discussing. She's up , out and along the lane at break neck speed. There are village C-A-T-S to be chased.
Two moments spice up our start of day tour of the village. We meet the retired professor from Toulouse who weekends in the Old School House. Despite having had two jabs earlier in the year he has had Covid, felt 'drained' for ten days, and is now fully recovered. ' M'Ongoose , You cannot begin to understand how tired I felt '. He self isolated and his wife remains Covid free. They have made the decision to stay in the village and avoid the centre of Toulouse until after Christmas.
Our second morning moment was the passage, at high speed, of a combine harvester along the lane. The farmer at the far end of the valley is only now getting round to cutting his sunflower fields. This is a sure sign that the countryside is being put to bed and that winter is just round the corner.We are thinking of installing a heat pump but had some concerns over the noise. This video answers all my questions. The intro is wonderful. It is the sort of video that is 'priceless' on so many levels . Jason is out of central casting in terms of accent, clothes and delivery . He could be every builder we've ever used in England it also seems that heat pumps aren't at all noisy :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKDF5a47eJkNo fuss shopping :https://www.objectsofuse.com/
8 comments:
Love the "beautiful beast of a heat pump" line. My question would be whether the ROF is sufficiently well insulated? Some friends in Belsize Park are looking into buying an air source heat pump as their gas boiler has just packed up. Their main concern is theft. I'll be interested to learn what you decide.
Have an excellent Sundsy.
Cheers, Gail.
Last year we had two Mitsubishi HVAC split air/heat pump systems installed. One for each level (ie: two zones). Best decision we ever made. We'd put it off for years due to the upfront cost...lets just say they're not cheap. But NO noise involved inside or out. Frankly, the outdoor compressor unit featured in the video was making far more noise than ours does. Inside, no sound whatsoever. Our heating oil fuel bill for the past 13 months has dropped to practically nil and our electric bill went up only about 20%. So, big savings. Bonus, the units can be be remotely adjusted and controlled by your smart phone from...wherever.
Hubby says the efficiency of heat pumps drops off dramatically after 5degrees c it's called the cop , so that when you most need the heat it isn't available . He said we would need underfloor heating or different radiators , much too problematic for us .
Hello Angus! Despite my "break" I've been keeping up with your news during my lunchtime. You are right about our news in the gubernatorial contest. It's a nail-biter, and yesterday, they pulled out the "big guns" and Barack Obama attended a rally with Terry McAuliffe at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond -Tim Kaine was also in attendance and spoke. But as you know, it's all going to come down to voter turnout, and in my corner of northern VA, we are as always, energized, many of us voting early, and hope that our central and southeast-Virginia counterparts will be too, especially with rally's like the one yesterday.
Hari OM
The couple of My Home Farm tubular channel have a whole series on the reality of ASHpumps... and this episode highlights issues with good discussion. YAM xx
Were there any C-A-T-S to chase this morning? Inca is slowly becoming resigned to the increasing temerity of the three that have taken over our garden as their own. They are getting ever nearer to the house, and one is definitely going to invite herself in soon.
Poor Sophie, overshadowed by the discussion on the merits of heat pumps!
Interesting to watch the videos as I, too, have considered installing one. Weighing up the the pros and cons I've decided against it, my main concern being that it would involve too much upheaval. Having spoken to my electrician who would do the work, it seems that it's not the straightforward job I naively thought it would be. Although it can be cold on occasions, our winters are mainly mild and short. We rarely get frosts or snow, with the average winter temps usually mid-teens and we've frequently had sunny January days when the outdoor thermometer has registered mid 20ยบ's. I think I'll just go ahead and have a new oil storage tank, service the central heating, and keep the air con/heat units I already have.
Been somewhat dismayed by the negativity of others who have second-hand but not actual experience with heat pumps. We live in VERY icy cold New England. There were approximately 30 days of the entire past 13 months that we turned off the splits due to extreme low temps and relied on our original oil based heating system. Its a matter of common sense. I'll say it again...there was an overall HUGE saving. Should it be relied upon entirely as the ONLY heating system in anything but an otherwise temperate climate? No. But as an adjunct to an already existing system? YES.
We have had heat pumps in Southern California for several years. I think your climate there is a little colder than ours, but not too much. Anyway, we are very happy with ours. Our temps can get down into the 30's and they work great. The a/c is not great above 95F but it's not bad. To answer your question - very quiet. We have two different pumps for different parts of the house, one large and one small, and in retrospect, we should have gone for two large, but they have not impacted our electric bill significantly. We have LG.
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