All Activity

38C is fine with radiators as long as they're sized correctly. My system with all rads ran at 36C at -6 with the whole house nice and toasty. There are really two issues you need to consider and measure. First is the temperatures of all your upstairs radiators and compare this to your ASHP and UFH flow temps. If it's significantly lower, you then know it's a flow issue to the rad circuit and you can tackle this in several ways. If all your rads are about the same temp as your ASHP flow temp, then you know it's more likely an issue with radiator sizing. No need to spend any money right now, just do some simple investigations first.

I hope this thread is in the correct section. Hi The company that is doing our house as built SAPs as asked me to sign and return Part L1A 2013 Specification to sign off the dwelling, see attached. My concern is we didn't use as much insulation as stated on the form for walls (stated 100mm but used 50mm PIR) and floor (stated 150mm but used 100mm PIR for UFH). Therefore, the house won't achieve the stated u-values. Any suggestions as to what to do? We are ready to move in. Should I be concerned? Oh boy this feels bad but I must ask, should I sign it as stated should I amended it then sign it? What are the consequences? Thanks

Thanks for the suggestions guys

The electrician swapped the two room wiring around at in the wiring centre on top of the manifold. All seems to be working as it should now.

You have a Vaillant heat pump, I would just install an ESBE electronic mixer (VRG valve and actuator) at the UFH manifold (you won't need an additional pump). Set the controller to do 2x zones, each with its own WC curve. The zone for the UFH, the Vaillant controller will control the ESBE mixer as needed to follow your defined curve. What will happen is if the radiators call for heat heat pump runs at higher temp and controls mixer to UFH. If radiators aren't calling for heat the heat pump will reduce flow temp to satisfy UFH demand only mixer will be fully opened. I wouldn't add any zone valves, leave the radiator alway open and when they don't need additional heat they run just like they are now and it keeps the water volume engaged and full circulation path for flow rate. IVOR mixers are great, but you then need to run the UFH off thermostats, as it will receive a fixed flow temp and you always need operate the heat pump at radiator temps.

There is a brief and clear explanation of Venezuelan 'oil' reserves and value on 'More or Less' BBC Radio 4 . If I recall : there is lots. it is tar not liquid. Has to be mined not drilled and is expensive to extract and to process. reserves means viable commercially, so that varies with the price of oil.

Plumbing wise nothing looks obvious. UFH manifold flow meters, do you have those fully open? Fully open allows the heat pump to vary the circulation pump flow to better manage modulation. Your circulation pump doing DHW is most likely running full speed, so 20+L/min. If you have the flow meters screwed down to 1.4L/min you flow will be hitting a brick wall with a small hole in it. This could be the reason for the thump on change over also.

Rockwool is very good at sound attenuation, so no surprise there. You may well find that once the EWI and cladding are completed and everything is properly sealed, the issue will be resolved.

I know you can prove anything with facts but I'm sure that fan-coils run better on lower temperatures than rads. So before doing a radiator reshuffle may I suggest a simple 'DIY fan-coil heater' project. Just Google it. It's the green one, first on images.

This. Was no issue if i didnt do the cavity, but U value not as good, obviously. Regardless of what i do, there will probably be an additional rainscreen of Hardie plank or similar outside

Can you post a pic of the internal piece that you need to connect to please? I’ve seen a few variations of these so want to advise according to what you have there.

Interesting. What was your proposed IWI build up?

But how would one monitor the effects if the dew point did actually move into the wall build up?

What indeed. Having an 1980 built cavity wall extension and needing to do same as you. Down at base level ive done some build ups in ubakus. Which clearly isnt has clever as WUFI, but even grossly exagerating humidity levels inside and out doesnt suggest a problem. Perversely, ubakus say i should be having a problem now with as built, and clearly i dont! So, question for me is, would anyone actually commit to using that model in the real world? WUFI would be better but comes at considerable expense, i assume, as actual iinformation on what that really costs seems to be non existent, so guessing its not , maybe, as widely used as i think?

interested in the body dryer. Any good?

That can be made to work, but I’d need more info and to understand the way it’s been plumbed / pumped / operated etc to see if hydraulic separation needs to be considered in this conversion. Assuming it’s just the OEM pump in the ASHP atm, and flow and return just tee off to UFH and rads? Day job for a decent plumber, one who doesn’t spend longer talking about how it ‘can’t be done’ than the job would actually take to do. This is a low temp pump and mixer set, one I’ve been fitting for nearly a decade. 1” BSP connections to match your manifold. Link This isn’t a typical, much cheaper, TMV, but instead a thermo couple type actuator which responds by temp / hydraulic in a far smoother and more refined way. These don’t whine or chatter at their lowest settings like a regular TMV’s often do, so with this type of unit you’ll get very accurate, low temp control for the UFH in the slab. Needs a bit of “tight space plumbing” skills, and prob to pack the manifold off the wall very slightly, but defo can be done in the room available. Done these in much tighter spaces tbf!

What that graph doesn't capture is the price of the oil extracted and the rate of extraction. The amount of oil you can extract *economically* changes with the price of oil. As oil prices rise, less attractive sources become viable. Canada has one of the world's largest reserves, but as tar sands which are very costly to extract. The clst per barrel is somewhere north of $60 a barrel, whilst Saudi Arabia is below $10. So if the world price is $100 Canada has huge reserves If it's below $50 it has very little. The UK has already picked the low hanging fruit. The remaining reserves are in more costly places to extract. I have looked and I cannot find a single reputable source who says that the UK can achive energy security through fossil fuels. Can anyone find one? (politicians don't count)

@Andehh Thanks for your advice, there's certainly a lot of variables there. It's a modular switch it has a dimmer which controls the led lights and a spare switch which used to control the fan. There is no light indicator and only 2 of them glow constantly, the first brighter than the second. I have been told by manrose that the fan isn't compatible with the humidity stat, so going to take picture later and see how simple it will be to remove the timer on it. I'm not sure yet if this will sort out the glowing leds yet. Regards James

I have some outside LED lights which are switched by an outside switch. When the light switch is in the off position, there is a small red neon light in it which comes on so you can find the switch in the dark. When the switch is in the off position, the outside lights do go off but continue to glow dimly. I'm not an electrician, but as far as I can work out, the reason is as follows. The circuit is wired with no neutral to the switch. The neutral is wired directly from the consumer unit to the lights. The live goes from the consumer unit to the switch and the neon light is wired in parallel with the switch. When the switch is off (open), the LED lights allow enough current through so that the neon illuminates, but this also causes the LEDs to glow. Obviously when the switch is closed, the current takes the easier route through that and the neon goes off. I suppose that it would have been possible to wire live and neutral to the switch box so that the neon could have its own neutral. That would stop the LEDs glowing but the neon would be on all the time, which I wouldn't mind. I wish the electrician had discussed this with me before he wired up the circuit. A general question to those who know ... I suppose wiring up lighting circuits with no neutral to the box is cheaper and that's why an electrician might do it. I'm sure it complies with the regs doing it that way, but are there other disadvantages apart from my glowing LEDs? Is it better to have a neutral in the switch box as well as a live? What about if e.g. you want smart lighting?

I’m not in radio 4 territory yet sorry.

Seriously though. Could some flat steel plate be sistered to the joists to add strength. Painted black noone would notice.

Paint the underside of ply with the underside of your favourite BBC radio4 personality . Far more of a talking point.

That would delete all the decorative beams?

Just pics and words unfortunately. Can you take a pic of the instruction manual and post it here? Just take the pic and save it to your photos. Then click add files below the text editor here and it’ll ask you to choose photo.

I think @Gus Potter mentioned before where he put ply above and below a floor to make a it stronger. Do you have enough head height to make this happen?