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No need to do any of this ⬆️ if you have a meter already inplace then everything your side is yours you just look up the correct spec and get it put in to that spec, as said previously double check valve on the new pipework into the house. tbh the builders pipe he put in should have one installed as well to stop any site contamination getting back into the main.

Why not phone up the water utility company and ask them. If a new water pipe is going to be connected to their water meter I'd have thought they would want to be informed. We were not building a new house, but we did replace the lead pipe connection down our drive with a new MDPE pipe. The connection at the pavement was done by the water utility company and effectively connected the new MDPE pipe we had put in by a private contractor to the mains supply and removed the old lead pipe connection. We were increasing the bore of our mains connection, but: The Utility Company had stated requirements for the install of the new pipe. They had an inspector that was required to approve things before the connection/move to the new pipe. Either coming in person while trenches were open, or looking to see photographs showing pipe was at the necessary depth etc. This is also something building regs should be insterested in - for example at least knowing that the utility company inspected your pipe. Now it might be tempting to play dumb, not talk to anyone, and just connect a new pipe. But down the line when someone is buying the house and the connection was not notified, or approved, or passed, you might live to regret it. Also regs and requirements are there for reasons that help to protect you as building occupier and owner. Your builder may be very good, or may not be. Do you want to wait until move in to find the mains freezes in winter, or leaks etc. If builder does everything A1 then a utility inspector will pass it in a flash, if not then you would want to know wouldn't you. Show your builder that you want a straight bat, that you are asking the right people the right questions - good ones will expect that. Also when our new pipe was connected the water utility accidentally broke the connector - had to turn the water off to the whole street to fix it. What is your builder going to do if that happens ? scarper ? Honestly in the context of the costs of building something, then any charge involved in going by the book is worth accepting and paying.

Start a new thread, include model and size. Mine has moved to hot tub heating duty and I replaced with a smaller heat pump. Do you have the full version of the controller manual? Both R290 and R32 are available online.

I don't have UFH, only radiators. That means most rooms aren't cooled, only one where I've jury-rigged a fan coil in place of a radiator. So dehumidification doesn't help elsewhere, and it certainly doesn't help the unconditioned spaces where pipe sweat is a problem. (this is a traditional 1960s build) So the question is really whether dehumidifiers are useful in cooling humans in the absence of other cooling. From this video it seems not - the latent heat of condensation will be released which is roughly like the COP working against you - eg 300W of electrical energy in releasing 1200W of latent heat. Yes the RH will go down, but the temperature will go up much more. I'm not clear how humans feel humidity but sweating is the same evaporation cycle, so if everything is perfectly efficient then I suppose the air is 1200W hotter but the humans' sweat causes 900W of cooling, meaning the net 'felt' heating effect is 'only' 300W, but it's still a positive 300W hotter. The latent heat release is beneficial when you're dehumidifying a damp property in the winter, but here it's unhelpful. The pipes are insulated, but the pipe clamps aren't (the pipes were installed and then insulation put around them; I have upgraded the insulation but not re-clamped them. Some of the clamps are now inaccessible). For heating that's a relatively small heat loss but it's a problem where any amount of sweat is too much. The other thing I'm concerned about is moisture soaking into the (nitrile) insulation, so pondering replacing with rockwool or polyethylene foam. I will likely have to move some portions to a different location to get access, which will mean quite major changes. I was planning those changes anyway so I can run at low temps, but it sounds like they're going to be needed either way.

Thanks, its certainly worth a look. Some areas are showing 30% dampness which is pretty bad. They normally say up to 15% is a level for concern. We'll be taking an area out undr a seat to give ourselves a better idea what is actually happening.

we are thinking of having alook at an area under the bench seat to see what is actually happening in the wall and if its something we can sort out ourselves. But I can certainly start removing and resealing areas before that - it will just have to wait till its a little cooler!

It is a setup issue and I’ve had some input from Maxa technical and am seeking more. We have a Maxa heat pump, single zone, UFH only at present, no volumisers or any other unnecessary gubbins. We won’t be getting into the realms of damp floors. But what does “latch on” mean?

I’m running everything, rads and UFH, at 18 today and most of the rads are sweating buckets. Where it’s an issue there’s a towel on the floor under the rad. Irritatingly I have a 10kW FCU to put in the loft but it’s sitting in the spare bedroom on my ‘to-do’ list. We’re night purging hard, then sealing up and running as above for these couple of days.

Its definitely damp. We had seen a little bobbling in the 'wallpaper' of the lounge area, and had noticed it was spreading a bit. But then, after seeing a very nice new MH at a dealership, the salesman offered to take a look at ours to give us a part exchnage price. we agreed, just to give ourselves an idea of the value of our van, as we are not planning to change it anytime soon. We were horrified when he pointed out several areas of softness/sponginess in the walls and said it was damp within the structure. When we got home, we borrowed a damp meter and confirmed his findings. But when the experts at our local repair shop took a good look, it was actually worse than we thought. And to get to the damp within the walls, they do have to remove all the units. We assume they would need to remove the actual internal wall and replace with new insulation and wall. Such a shame 😩. Sandwich bonding is the current construction technique used by most caravan manufacturers and coachbuilt motorhome converters in an effort to reduce weight and cost. This doubles as insulation, the ‘filling’ being either expanded polystyrene (white) or Styrofoam (blue) insulation. The amount of insulation varies, with 22-25mm thickness on average, usually more in the ‘winterised’ vehicles and in the floor area. The exterior joints of most of the wall panels are sealed with sealant and its clear most of it has degraded, dried out and cracked, letting in rain. I had said for a while that we ought to renew the sealant but hubby didnt think it needed doing. He's regreting that now, though it obviously had damp already in the walls when we bought it. We've had it 6years and its been great. I feel quite sad for the 'old lady'.

AFAIK the concern is mainly structural damage caused by damp. But also a concern that a damp area might be make a good home for mould. Short term none. Long term, maybe there's more condensation that you don't see that will cause damage given enough time.

Sadly ours will be on the front but, I have to say, your setup looks much more dicrete than many. Have you had to take any anti-bird/nesting measures?

You can easily add them, I just read the flow and return temps of the heat pump and or performance monitoring.

That is just a set up issue, are you running a fixed flow rate? Hydraulically separated etc. what heat pump? That is generally ok short term, but if your heat pumps decides to latch on and over long period can lead to condensation on floor surfaces and lead to slips and falls.

Our manifolds have no gauges. Which is a bit disappointing as I would be rather interested to see flow and return temps at the manifold. I can't see any reason not to have temperature guages at the manifolds, am I missing something here? In short, is it a good thing to install some guages at the manifold? I would have thought it would be useful for commissioning, if nothing else.

So yes the dehumidifier would increase heat by its power consumption: ~200w. So counter-productive. Quite possibly the decrease in internal RH would allow the floor temp to drop lower and the increase in system performance overall. Looking at Messana who still hydronic systems to rich Californians, the dehumidification is a well advertised component.

I think it’s my turn to ask a dumb question. (When one has a talent one should use it!). What’s is the issue with condensation? I get that condensation on a tiled floor would not be good. I’m not trying to cool the floor that much. I also get that condensation on a concealed pipe would not be good, rotting the timber nearby. We are seeing condensation on our manifold when I run the ASHP at too cool a flow temp. (OK there’s another question there but our heat pump is doing odd stuff, appearing unwilling to ‘get out of bed’ for flow temps above f cold, so cooling needs to be in ‘hard’ bursts, but that’s another question). So we run our heat pump, have a nice coolish slab, get condensation on the manifold, so what? It’s all stainless and brass and plastic, I can put a towel under it to catch the drips, so where’s the harm short term? One day, I’ll have fitted a fan coil upstairs (having major issues finding a ceiling mounted one), and the heat pump control will be sorted so it does moderate cooling so we’ll avoid condensation that way and I can box in the manifold safe in the knowledge that it’s not dripping. But for now I need to burst cool the slab as that’s what the heat pump wants to do, so is it ok to accept condensation on an exposed manifold during a heatwave?

Accusations from chat that I changed the code! Accumulative wetness at very little gpu cost; I like my wetness . This of course is leading to accumulated snow effect

It's maybe not the most efficient way to organise things, but only really needed for extended heatwaves. Reducing the humidity will definitely affect how it feels, but also lower the dew point that would allow you to drop the water temp running through the floor without worrying about condensation, so you could get more cooling from that system. Time to insulate those pipes! Waste of money heating/cooling the loft.

Something I couldn't work out... in the absence of external cooling, would a standard dehumidifier help here? If the room is a closed system isn't it just putting more heat into it? Or is it that the reduced humidity will reduce the 'feels like' temperature more than the extra heat? I have my fan coil swapped for a radiator set up. It's ok but not brilliant, room temps about 23 when it's 32 outside, some of which is just from the masonry rather than the fan coil. One thing I hadn't realised is that the pipes run through the loft which is a lot hotter than the house, so my 15C flow is causing sweating at the uninsulated pipe clamps and that's dripping onto the ceiling below... I shall have to repaint, but it's probably still worth it for the cooling.

This has been quite commonly done by people on this forum building highly insulated homes. Idea being you design the home to be a stable temperature and the slow response can be used to your advantage by loading in the heat when it's cheapest and letting the floor buffer the output over the day. Putting coils anywhere in a 150mm+ slab is not going to lead to a fast response anyway (need a insulated screed for that) so burying the pipes lower also minimises the chance of damage later and debatably is easier to install. I can't remember all the arguments for this method made by others off-hand, but do know that after reading thoroughly here I'd been persuaded that I'd likely go that way if/when I come do this. (dependent on installation sequencing).

A dehumidifier could do the same job and they are pretty cheap. Wouldn't the ERV help even in these conditions, slowing the rise of humidity caused by outside air vs a HRV which would just dump all that humidity straight inside?

Don't worry Gus - I am just window shopping at the moment - any decisions on things like this will be taken after getting your advice of course, but - when we discuss it now I will have a better idea what you mean and something to compare it to. Every day's a school day.

I guess it also makes sense to run minimal MVHR flow to bring in the least humidity possible?

Sometimes - with care - a heat gun (hot air, not a flame thrower) will loosen things up a bit