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Blogs

ASHP, MVHR, PV and EV combo

ASHP system tweaking

@Iceverge  recently pointed to@TerryE 's blog "Heating the Slab- an overview" which made me think.   TerryE has a concrete floor that he is using as a giant heat sump, heating up overnight with the warmth slowly emitting from the floor during the day. Such a simple design when the maths is right!    @SteamyTea pointed to a report about boilers and ASHP's which had various recommendations.   Having installed an electric meter for the ASHP the effect of changes can be
  • Marvin
ASHP, MVHR, PV and EV combo

MVHR Installation 3

Well the ducting is all buried under a foot of insulation in the loft.   The coil boxes have also been covered more since the photo.   Noted the temperatures of the incoming air at the inlets in the ceilings against the outside temperature. Inside 20C ish, outside 7.8C, incoming air 20C ish.  By my calculations this seemed to good to be true and I realised, eventually, that the air was being warmed up as it passed along the ducts inside the thermal envelope of the
  • Marvin
South East Cornwall Low Energy build

Ground floor Nudura buildup and pour

We left you with a poured slab and we were chomping at the bit to get the ground floor Nudura walls up before the end of the year. Well, I am glad to report we got there - almost ?    After getting the slab done, I figured I'd get ahead a bit and it would be a good idea to talk to someone about the waterproofing we would have to put on the outside the walls before we started backfilling. To cut a long story short using waterproof concrete in walls such as these is a complete no
ASHP, MVHR, PV and EV combo

Heating a building using an ASHP

We don't have a big information system on our ASHP.  I decided just to add electric meters as a way of seeing what is going on. Our home is just about 100m2 floor plan bungalow.    Decided to run the water coils in the MVHR ducts just to draw out any air.  Left them on by mistake until we realised we were too hot but all the radiators were off!  After this I fiddled with the ASHP heating temperature. Decided to set the ASHP heating water temp to 31C last evening for the hell of it. Las
ASHP, MVHR, PV and EV combo

ASHP on a flat roof

Not really having much information to go on when installing an ASHP on my flat roof, we decided to go ahead anyway.    Questions that arose were about things like will it blow over, can the warm roof take the weight, can the warm roof take all the vibration,  will it wear away the EDPM, is the condensation OK to go into the soakaway, is there much maintenance required, how heavy is the ASHP,  can we get it up there, can we get the power up there, will the control cables reach where we
Little Stud Barn

Well that's a poke in the eye with a pointed stick

I haven't posted to my blog for a couple of months, mainly because we haven't been able to progress until we got the Structural Engineers report. This was promised in 2 weeks and ended up taking 10.   I now suspect that this was because they didn't want to tell us the news.   Our build is a barn conversion so we've had to jump through lots of hoops. ,making lots of money for other people.   But, particularly for the SE, first it was the report where they said t
  • LSB
ASHP, MVHR, PV and EV combo

Water coil installation into MVHR

This is posted during the design and installation phase during the winter 2021/2022.  The cooling side results are not expected to be known until Summer 2022.   As the air passes through the water coil it changes temperature depending on the coil water temperature. If the coil is going to be used for heating only it can be used without a condensate trap. However as this is going to be used for cooling as well I have constructed a drain in the bottom.   Coil with lid off. Air
  • Marvin
West Sussex Forever Home

A rather rapid (timber frame) erection

Greetings! Apologies for the crass title but I am still a kid at heart. ?   After a brief delay due to Covid-19 the carpenters were able to attend site and erect our timber frame. Thanks to the accuracy I insisted on and ensured for the coursing blocks the sole plates were a doddle and were done in no time at all although we did have a bit of rain and I had to get the puddle pump out!       We used Flight Timber for our timber frame and they have their o
ASHP, MVHR, PV and EV combo

Loft insulation

The existing loft insulation irritated the .... out of me. Mainly because I needed to change a lot of pipes in the loft and the roof is only 22.5 degrees and the fluffy was very thick.  What with the 150mm insulated MVHR pipes (190mm thick) 2 high and a roof at 1300 ish it was too cramped. Anyone looking at the ducting photos will see the loft was bare. Before insulating, the bungalow was loosing 87% of the heat through the roof because the rest is so well insulated. Gonna have to tur
  • Marvin
ASHP, MVHR, PV and EV combo

Loft insulation

The existing loft insulation irritated the .... out of me. Mainly because I needed to change a lot of pipes in the loft and the roof is only 22.5 degrees and the fluffy was very thick.  What with the 150mm insulated MVHR pipes (190mm thick) 2 high and a roof at 1300 ish it was too cramped. Anyone looking at the ducting photos will see the loft was bare. Before insulating, the bungalow was loosing 87% of the heat through the roof because the rest is so well insulated. Gonna have to tur
  • Marvin
ASHP, MVHR, PV and EV combo

MVHR Installation 2

More of the same...   When insulating the ducts I noticed that the top of the MVHR was not insulated so I have installed flexi conduit on the cables ready to throw fluffy over the top.       This is the inlet pipe running under the ridge. 150 diameter with insulation held on with cable ties     An installed air damper in red. More about these later....     Water coil with thermal lid. Lid made from PIR.    
  • Marvin
ASHP, MVHR, PV and EV combo

ASHP installation info

The viewpoint used to decide items is a balance between the outlay cost and the running costs. This system will not be the cheapest way to produce heating and hot water nor the most expensive installation system but a balance related to the existing equipment and personal requirements.   BEST ADVICE: Read the manual of the product you are proposing to use BEFORE you buy, especially regarding the installation and check that it will work for you.   Choosing the ASHP: The s
ASHP, MVHR, PV and EV combo

Heating and cooling assumptions.

An Excel spread sheet has been used to calculate the heating and cooling.   One thing also calculated is that at peak energy the bungalow requires as much for the heating in the winter as for the cooling in the summer! So the hottest part of the hottest day and the coldest part of the coldest night need about the same amount of power! This is mainly because of the solar gain through the windows.   The calculations were compared with what has been used for heating and it is re
ASHP, MVHR, PV and EV combo

Assessing heating/hot water energy prior to Combo

Following  1 I try to detail the info so people can check...   The bungalow ran on LPG bottled gas for 3 years heating and hot water so I know what was used: I have used the worst 2 years:   I am using the conversion rate of  one kg of LPG gas giving about 14.091kW hours   In 2 years we used about 13277kW of LPG energy for heating and hot water. ( about 10 bottles of 47kg ) If we deduct a modest 2kW for ho
ASHP, MVHR, PV and EV combo

List of equipment being installed

The holistic set I am installing is:   ASHP main parts: : Air to water Cool Energy inverTech Air Source Heat Pump CE-iVT9 4.3kW-9.5kW Cool Energy 60L Stainless Buffer Tank CE-B60   MVHR main parts:  Domus HRX2-D Heat recovery System with "summer bypass" 125mm and 150mm rigid circular ducting and Domus duct insulation.     Electricity Generation main parts: PV Sofar Solar Grid Tied Inverter 6KTLM-G2 16 Longi  320W Mono Solar Panels
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Assessing heating/hot water energy prior to Combo

I try to detail the info so people can check...   The bungalow ran on LPG bottled gas for 3 years heating and hot water so I know what was used: I have used the worst 2 years:   I am using the conversion rate of  one kg of LPG gas giving about 14.091kW hours   In 2 years we used about 13277kW of LPG energy for heating and hot water. ( about 10 bottles of 47kg ) If we deduct a modest 2kW for hot water each day ( total 1460kW) that leaves about 11,817 for the 2 years.
ASHP, MVHR, PV and EV combo

Bungalow history

The bungalow was built in the 1970's and extensively renovated in the last 4 years.   It has external block walls and timber suspended floor, timber frame including all internal walls and concrete tiled roof running east/west at a rise of 23 degrees.   Having never heard of, or gained knowledge from, buildhub I renovated and extended the bungalow as best as I knew. The garage was converted and has a flat roof. Fortunately the work included insulation, air tightness and a MVHR

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