A bit unpredictable here in Ireland
Ireland's a bit like living on a ship in the North Atlantic, you can get all four seasons in one afternoon.
The heating went in a bit late this year, about 2 weeks ago, but it wouldn't be unusual to need heating on in September or April.
It rarely gets extreme cold weather but it's still fairly cool. You will definitely get the odd touch of frost in winter but nothing too much beyond crispy grass that thaws by 10am.
Jan and Feb: averages between 4 and 7 °C (39.2 and 44.6 °F)
July and August averages 14 to 16 °C (57.2 to 60.8 °F), Sumner maximum : 17 to 18 °C (62.6 to 64.4 °F) near the coast, to 19 to 20 °C (66.2 to 68.0 °F) inland.
The length of day changes enormously compared to most of the continental US.
In summer you're looking at dusky bright skies at 11pm while in mid winter it'd dark by 4pm.
We are as far north as Edmonton in Canada but it's a lot milder due to the Atlantic.
Basically it's mild, cool, temperate oceanic climate and you get huge amounts of variation and unpredictability.
It rains a lot, especially on the western side of Ireland, up to 225 days (west) vs about 151 days on the east coast, but it doesn't tend to rain constantly. Sunshine, showers and spectacular rainbows tends to be the usual pattern which is why it's the emerald isle. However, it can also turn into cool, misty, drizzly rain for extended periods too which isn't the most pleasant but still fairly tolerable.
Grass grows very late in the year, especially in the southern coastal areas like Cork. So you're mowing grass right up into November most years and as a result Irish milk and beef is basically 100% grass fed too.
The big challenge in Ireland with heating is responsiveness and flexibility. We've had a lot of fads with underfloor heating, which is very popular in continental Europe but in general isn't that pleasant here as you get huge variations in solar gain at random and you can end up with a heating system that doesn't respond quickly enough.
In general hydronic systems with radiators are the norm here. Forced air never really took off. It was popular for a while in the 60s and 70s but it's usually ripped out and replaced with a more normal hydronic systems.
The most common heat sources are natural gas (in urban / small town areas where available) and typically oil (close to kerosine) burnt in pressure jet boilers. There's a growth of wood pellet systems and also some use of propane in rural areas, although mostly for cooking, as it tends to be bad value as a source of heat compared to oil and natural gas.
Electricity (usually storage heating that heats large convection heaters full of thermal bricks using off peak power at night and releasing the heat over the day) is used sometimes. It's popular with landlords and cheap apartment developers, as they don't care about the running costs and the maintenance and installation costs are low, but it's rarely used in houses these days as electricity isn't good value for heat here, even using off peak (typically half price) power.
The mix may change as electricity generation gets greener and people are inventivised to use heat pumps, but for now natural gas condensing boilers and very efficient oil boilers seem to be king.
Your typical Irish household central heating system is usually an pressurised, water filled hydronic system with radiators. The system designs very a bit but usually the radiators are flat panels or double panels and there are tons of designer options. They're more convectors than radiators in reality.
Thermostat control is usually a combination of zones controlled by pumps and actuated valves and also TRVs (thermostatic radiator valves) on each radiator.
Hot water is usually heated indirectly using a heat exchange loop in the hot water tank. This is controlled by a thermostat and valves and pumps. In my system the boiler can send different temperature water to the hot water heating loop, much hotter than the radiators, so it heats faster.
Radiators get water at about 60° to 70°C. I keep mine below 60° due to visiting toddlers.
Hot water cylinder gets fed with 90°C and maintains the tank at 60°C. That feeds the taps via a thermostatic mixer that drops it in my system settings to about 48°C for safety reasons - so no risk of anyone opening a hot tap fully and getting scalded.
The showers use normal thermostatic valves so you can obviously adjust the from cold to 48°C
I also use solar heating for hot water.
These days, solar would also be quite common; using a second loop in the tank circulating hot fluid from the solar collectors.
You just use a control system to ensure the solar panels are used first and the gas / oil / wood chip source is used second to boost the temp where necessary.
Hot water systems here (including mine) also have an electric element (referred to as an immersion heater) that can be switched on too, on its own or in combination with the other sources. I rarely have had any reason to use it as it's stupidly expensive relative to gas and solar
Also old Irish (and British) water heating tanks rend to have abysmally and to almost non existent insulation. The very oldest time were a bare copper cylinder. They used to heat rapidly which is why a lot of people were terrified of "leaving the immersion on" as you were basically just running a 3kW heater 24/7 in a tank that might as well have been a radiator.
Modern systems are vastly more energy efficient and don't have any of those issues, but the myths and mentality that it's ludicrous to leave water heating systems on still persist.
Other than that, we've a mandatory building energy rating which you have to display if you're selling or renting a property. Like appliances, houses are rated A to G with A being passive and G being wind whistling through the living room.
There's also a big drive towards A rating efficiency in new build. So you'd have triple glazing, solar panels, very high levels of insulation, heat recovery ventilation etc etc
You've also got on going use of traditional, open fireplaces, mostly for decorative and nostalgia reasons but they're still used.
Modern closed wood burning stoves are also popular, again mostly as decorative items rather than primary modes of heating. Use is smokey solid fuels like normal coal is illegal. Historically coal was a mainstream fuel used in fireplaces throughout Ireland and Britain. It was responsible for the pea soup smog in London in the mid 20th C and there was give resistance to change, largely due to stubborn nostalgic notions of a certain bygone generation.[this post was last edited: 11/9/2017-04:01]
