Recoveringbuilder

Good that you are in.  Always seems a bit of a rush at the end.

Congrats on moving in, even if it’s not quite at the stage of completion that you hoped for. 

 

I don’t know much about pellet stoves other than we did consider installing one here but decided against. One of the big considerations is storing the pellets in the dry and not allowing them to take in moisture as that makes them inefficient I believe. Not sure whether that could be a factor with yours? 

 

When you say you turned it down to 60 is that the temperature of the water tank? Assume you have a UVC or similar? My thermal store is at 65 at the top for DHW and 40 at the bottom for UFH. I’m surprised that you couldn’t get enough hot water for a bath if the UVC was at 60. 

 

Is your UFH constantly calling for heat

causing the boiler to run constantly? 

 

How are you programming it??  As in how do you set what time it comes on and off or is it set to come on when your tank drops to  a setpoint. 

I set my  up  yesterday to come on at  6 burn for 3 hrs then off it goes.  In them 3 hrs it will burn a max of  10kg of pellets.  During them first 2 hrs I use the room stats to call for heat and charge the slab up plus my rads come on upstairs for  45mins. The 3rd hr tops the tank up for hot water for the rest of the day.  

If  every zone called for heat and my stove burnt flat out for the 3 hrs I would have sent through 140kg in  a fortnight. This would be the worst case ever and I doubt it would be much more than 90kg.

What model is it you have???

How big a tank is it heating??? 

 

Hi @Declan52 it’s just on all the time so whenever the temperature drops at the stove it ramps up again, it very rarely goes off altogether, it’s an 18kw insert stove heating a 500l bio Quattro thermal store, we’re really quite lost on what to do with it and very disappointed in the installer who after a great start seemed to just come in that day and do what he had to do without fully explaining it to us, the thing he has left us to get installed is an LK controller and he hasn’t put any temperature gauges on the tank, so this tank has all these pipes and what not coming from it and we don’t really know what they’re all for, tried looking for information online about the tank and all it says is your installer should leave you with a full understanding of the system, he’s a couple of hundred miles away the only person we could get who was registered with the energy saving trust and although  he is quite accessible on the phone it’s not easy to grasp over a phone what’s what! I think we need to get the controller wired up ASAP but again thought with the amount we were charged for his sevices he would have done this!

@newhome no the pellets are fine and the ufh is not continually calling for heat it just seems to be the temperature at the stove, set to 70 it heats up , goes into slow mode then as the temperature at the stove drops it ramps up again and this is more or less continuous, can I ask how you know what temperature your different parts of the tank are at?

It doesn't need to be on all the time though. You wouldn't have an oil boiler,  gas boiler or an ashp running all the time.  Sounds like it's just set up wrong.  In the manual is there a section on how you can set it to come on at certain times.  There should be a set amount of  preprogrammed options where you can select what one suits you best. On the display on the front you should be able to access a menu. 

I can't find a manual online what's the full name model number or even a link to it if you can find it. 

You need to get him back ASAP to give you a better understanding of what's going on.  

Can't see how you pay for a stove and get it installed but then you need to pay extra to be able to control it.  That's just silly. 

 

22 minutes ago, Christine Walker said:

@newhome no the pellets are fine and the ufh is not continually calling for heat it just seems to be the temperature at the stove, set to 70 it heats up , goes into slow mode then as the temperature at the stove drops it ramps up again and this is more or less continuous, can I ask how you know what temperature your different parts of the tank are at?

 

My thermal store has cylinder stats on it so that the boiler knows to switch off when it reaches the set temperature. If it's heating for hot water that is governed by the top stat that is set to 65, and if the UFH is calling for heat the boiler switches on until the stat at the bottom of the tank gets to 40. If I left mine to run 24 x 7 the boiler would be coming on and off keeping the TS to those set temperatures all day. With electric that would be too expensive so a bit like @Declan52's system I set the stats so that it only comes on for a set period. I set the UFH stats to call for heat at 5pm in the evening (living space set to 20 and the bedroom 17), the boiler switches on and then once the TS is at 40 degrees it switches off again. Depending on the temperature of the tank at the start that's generally after 60 - 90 minutes. I tend to shower in the evening so my hot water needs are all provided during that period too. At 9pm the UFH temperature is set back to 18 (living) and 15 (bedroom) and I leave it set back until 5pm the following day when the whole thing repeats again. The UFH seems to lose about 1.5 degrees during that 20 hour period and that's fine because I'm out of the house or doing stuff during the day so I don't need it at 20 all the time. If I need additional hot water I can just use the hot water boost but mostly I find that I have enough for just me here anyway. If you wanted hotter water say in the morning you could set the boiler to come on for a set period to provide that. 

 

It sounds like your boiler is on all the time currently so you urgently need to work out how to set the timer on it to coincide with when your UFH is calling for heat and you want to use the hot water. You certainly don't need the tank set at 70 degrees 24 x 7. 

 

Is your DHW on 24 x 7 currently causing the boiler to continually fire? 

 

I also have these little stats in various places on the tank. @Nickfromwales and @PeterW put them there and I find them quite useful so have left them there. 

 

 

 

 

In this photo the creamy box with the dial is the cylinder stat. 

 

Do you have the Klover Belvedere 18? 

 

There are some videos on Youtube that show a Klover. Not the same model as yours but might be useful to have a look at the set up. 

 

 

 

 

Good to hear that the "caravan days" are behind you albeit not in the manner you had hoped I'm sure. Hopefully the pellet stove business will be sorted sooner than later and you can then concentrate on moving forward - even if it is just one day or one job at a time. You will get there, just be patient.

Have you had any joy with getting the pellet guzzler to go on a diet @Christine Walker? 

We’ve still not got this system sorted out @newhome, can’t really get to grips with it at all sometimes when it’s been on for a couple of hours the water is roasting but at other times it’s not even hot enough for the ufh, I emailed the installer on Friday and told him we were having problems and his answer was give me a call but hubby is getting so angry now he doesn’t even feel like speaking to him, so I await his temper to calm down and make that call!

I think that's half the issue with these RHI installers. They come from miles away and then when there is an issue they don't want to return to sort things out. It's one of the big concerns for me in relation to fitting an ASHP. The folk from the Energy Savings Trust and Be Green Dunbar just say to try people in Fife or even further away as I've had no joy within an hour of here but what happens when I have an issue and no one will come out? 

 

@Declan52our stove is the PFP18

The only detail I can find is this. 

https://www.klover.it/en/products/inserts/pellet/pelletfireplace18

It says there is a weekly programme so have a look through your  manual and see how you set it to come on at the times it suits you.  

Once you have a weekly programme sorted then you need to set your stats to suit that. So have your stove fire up at  6am and at the same time your morning setting on your stats is set to 20/21 (what ever you want the room temp to be). Let it draw heat and charge up the floor for 1/2hrs and then have your stat turn off and stop calling for heat.  For example in the morning your kitchen will sitting at  19. At 6am your stove fires up,  and your kitchen stat changes to 20. It will draw heat for  90 mins until it gets to 20 and then turn off.  The rest of the day you set the  stat to not call for heat by setting the temp to not call for heat unless it falls below 18.  Over the rest of the day unless it's really cold outside the heat you put into the  floor should be enough to keep the room warm at a steady 18/19.  Then the process just repeats each day. 

@Declan52 that's exactly how I run my UFH from the electric boiler. It would cost an arm and a leg if I had the UFH calling for heat all the time so the UFH is set so that the boiler just comes on once a day (in my case at 5pm). 

 

Couldn't afford to run mine all day either.  It will take a while trying to find a program that works but @Christine Walkerwill get there. 

Get that installer back asap and get him to show you the full instructions on how you work it.  

 

Tonight we have no hot water despite the stove being on most of the day, the house is warm around 19 but there is no hot water coming from the taps, also as soon as we put the radiators on upstairs the temperature to the ufh dropped 10 degrees, beginning to feel we’ve wasted a lot of money!

11 minutes ago, Christine Walker said:

Tonight we have no hot water despite the stove being on most of the day, the house is warm around 19 but there is no hot water coming from the taps, also as soon as we put the radiators on upstairs the temperature to the ufh dropped 10 degrees, beginning to feel we’ve wasted a lot of money!

On your blending valve where your ufh manifolds are what temp is it set to?? 

Blending valve is at 45 @Declan52

Think you might need to put up a few photos of the tank and all the bits coming out from it too see if some of the plumbers here can spot something.  You shouldn't be emptying a 500l tank that quick.  Sounds like it's losing heat and the tank is cooling down and keeping the stove on most of the day. 

What do you mean by when you turn the rads on the ufh temp dropped by 10 degrees. 

There is nothing wrong with the stove I hope.  It will just be  heating the water up to your setpoint like it would if you where using oil or gas. Something is  draining your hot water from the tank. 

The flow dial on the manifold dropped by 10 degrees when the radiators came on , we have ended up turning the whole thing off tonight as this is going to cause a divorce in this house!

tomorrow I am going to call the installer and demand he comes back and sorts this out as I am absolutely fed up of my hubby obsessing about it all the time 

Yeah take no shit from him.  It's not working as it's meant to so get him back. 

I had issues with my tank loosing heat due to the pipework not being lagged. It really did make a difference when I done them. 

@Declan52 mine used to empty a 475l tank constantly before @Nickfromwales and @PeterW came up and sorted it out. It clearly wasn't set up properly (I'm not entirely sure what was wrong with it but it works now). The manifolds called for heat when all of the zones were switched off and the hot water just seemed to disappear. It's probably not the same issue for @Christine Walker but clearly something needs to be sorted. Yes Christine get the bugger back out to sort it! They charge enough for these MCS installs!! 

 

 

15 minutes ago, newhome said:

@Declan52 mine used to empty a 475l tank constantly before @Nickfromwales and @PeterW came up and sorted it out. It clearly wasn't set up properly (I'm not entirely sure what was wrong with it but it works now). The manifolds called for heat when all of the zones were switched off and the hot water just seemed to disappear. It's probably not the same issue for @Christine Walker but clearly something needs to be sorted. Yes Christine get the bugger back out to sort it! They charge enough for these MCS installs!! 

 

 

Nothing wrong with the  technology just the way it had been setup.  Suspect it will be the same for  @Christine Walker. Just depends on the plumber, can be spot what is wrong.  That's why I was looking some pics so the  collective could have a gander and give her  some ammo to  hit him with.