Village hall heating.

Redcar Bear · Aug 9, 2022

We have a large, high ceiling village hall with oil boiler and rad heating. The hall is very old with solid stone walls 600mm thick. It is impossible to heat and stop condensation on the cold walls.
I had the idea of solar panels permanently running electric skirting rads which would in time allow the walls to be warmed much as a storage rad. After initial costs the power is free. Has this been done before or is it just a crazy idea?

Murdoch · Aug 9, 2022

I think your biggest problem will be the lack of sun and solar production over the winter months

Redcar Bear · Aug 9, 2022

Thanks Murdoch I did think of that but if the panels were running nothing else? Its an idea that would have to be tested but maybe not by me; I could finish up in the village stocks!!

binky · Aug 9, 2022

I have done something similar, but that was in a bungalow. Your biggest issue is high ceilings, and no doubt vents at the ridge line. What may work for you is destratification fans, ie big fans high up designed to blow heat backdown to where it's actually wanted.

Redcar Bear · Aug 9, 2022

Thanks Binky. 90%+ of the time the building is shut down and any warm moist air (I would think) would be vented above the suspended ceiling around 5 metres high hopefully keeping the walls slightly warm when we do get a little winter sun. It is not to heat the building just to give the oil boiler a head start when the building is in use the oil boiler doesn't stand a chance with all the solid masonry sucking up heat like blotting paper.
Maybe back to the drawing board on this one.

binky · Aug 9, 2022

Redcar Bear said:
Thanks Binky. 90%+ of the time the building is shut down and any warm moist air (I would think) would be vented above the suspended ceiling around 5 metres high hopefully keeping the walls slightly warm when we do get a little winter sun. It is not to heat the building just to give the oil boiler a head start when the building is in use the oil boiler doesn't stand a chance with all the solid masonry sucking up heat like blotting paper.
Maybe back to the drawing board on this one.

Any space for a wind turbine? Solar will do something for you even in winter, you can use a Solic 200, or similar device to divert spare energy to heating, so leccy could be used for other things at other times of year. What isn't really possible is to put a reliable figure on how much of a benefit it will be. Have a look at the SMA portal, it has lots of public systems you can view the outputs from over the year. See if you can find a system with similar roof pitch to the hall as close to where you are as possible. That will give you some real world figures for kWh generated.