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Most people use more energy in winter because they are heating their house, and less in summer when they are not. Your electricity meter gives reading all the time of how much it has used. Most suppliers, like Octopus prefer you to pay the same amount each month. So in the summer months you are paying for more than actual use so your balance with the company builds up. In the winter you are probably using more than the £70 per month you are paying and your balance comes down. If you still have an account balance of £300 at near the end of winter then you are paying more than you need to. That makes your £70 per month even more astonishing. I can't get my summer monthly usage that low, I would have to stop using the washing machine and dishwasher and watch a lot less television to achieve that. So all it shows is just how little you are using on heating which is why your house is always cold. Octopus will change your monthly payments to actual usage each month if you prefer rather than the same average all year round. Or you can ask for surplus balance to be returned to you if you want to. In that respect they are a lot better and easier to deal with than most other suppliers.

@S2D2 Your £700 figure has polaxed me. I've no comprehension why you'd pick such a figure (unless you live in a castle?!). I know I pay £70 odd, each month. Now this is likely not an actual figure of useage in winter, because it's compromise/ average/ I forget the word, figure. When I call up Octopus to ask why my 'balance is £300 in credit' & what this means, I ask them to please speak very slowly, to explain, to please use simple analogies, to help me understand, what on god's name this figure means. Just this. They do so, but I cannot understand a word they say; I have to politely say thanks but I still haven't a clue what this figure even is at the end of the call. It's economics. My brain doesn't compute economics. So much so, that the very fundamental lesson 1/ page 1 example of 'supply & demand'... is 100% counterintuitive, to my brain. I do not understand economics. It seems you need to have a basic grasp of it, in order to pick the bones out of these super-complicated (to me) electricity bills. So I don't. I set up a direct debit, & £70 is taken each month. I often put in a meter reading, but still, it takes £70 each month (IE it seems my putting in meter reading, makes zero effect, on what is taken each month.. so I never know why on god's earth am I even being asked, to put in meter numbers at all?? A rhetorical question). I just pay £70. And enough already. Whether that is a correct figure, or wildly incorrect, I have no clue whatsoever. I dare not ask, or rather there's zero point me asking an Octopus person, because I won't understand a word of their reply. Thanks Zoot

Yes, I mean ON as in running and radiators hot ALL DAY AND NIGHT until the house reaches the temperature set by the thermostat. You need to get the installer to show you how to change the settings between off, on, controlled by a timer and on all the time. Only when you actually try it on all the time, will you really know if the house is capable of being heated by the heat pump. Try it for a week. It might annoy you with some noise at night, it might cost you more, but that is the only way to know if it is actually capable of heating your house and if so how much it might cost to do so (remember costs will go down after the initial heat up and dry out period) Get the installer to show you how to change the settings, take notes so you remember, and if you don't understand ask him to explain it again. As an aside, one thing I dislike about heat pumps is to the average user, they are so different to a gas boiler. Almost everyone is familiar with a normal central heating programmer on the wall from where you can set on off times or easily turn it on all the time. But every heat pump I have seen the timer functions are way more complicated but more important are nothing like operating the sort of programmer that everyone is used to. When I installed mine, I made it a non standard install by ignoring all the timer functions built into the controller that came with the heat pump, and instead connected a standard central heating programmer so anyone could understand how to change it from on all the time to on a timer etc.

Hi ProDave, as Ive said I just kinda left both systems for the installer to set, last thing. On Monday, I can certainly ask the engineer (come to fix HW issue) to set it a certain way. But I have no idea what to ask. When you say 'leave it on 24/7' I'm not quite understanding what you mean: you see I know that my system is working 24/7, what I mean is it's connected up to receive power, but obviously doesn't produce rad heat overnight. But it's still 'on' nevertheless. So this word "on" is hugely ambiguous. Are you suggesting I leave all the rads to be warm for 24/7 ? Surely not as I wouldn't be able to sleep, it seems massively wasteful, environmentally ridiculous, when just 1 person living here. So you might be suggesting some kind of setting -between- these two situations. If so, isn't that what I had it set ti before with my prior system with the rads dipping on-off all day?? I've tried that. The try failed. The cottage remained freezing. I'm also not understanding the thermostat suggestion thing. The suggestion to place it somewhere other than where the installer put it. Why, would the installer put it anywhere other than a sensible place? How can I override his decision, & ask him to place it some other room, when I can't even understand the system? Afaik, the thermostat needs to be close to the cylinder. Close to the other interface box too, which itself has to be close to the cylinder. Cylinders are typucally found in spae bedroom cupboards. I know this to be true, as Ive seen them with my own eyes, in almost all the houses Ive ever set foot in. An orange foam covered tank, warm, usually in a tiny cupboard often called 'airing cubboard' residing within an upstairs bedroom. Usually the smallest, least used bedroom. When I call up saying 'another fault' the Vaillant fix team person asks me to look at the screen on the interface, then go to the controller (I think this smallest box is also referred to as the thermostat). So I have to dart between them. I can't do that, if the thermostat, has been rewired (a huge length of cable running 15m away from where it is) to be in one of my cold rooms downstairs. Thanks Zoot

That's pretty much what I came to as well. Glad to see it verified.

Just echoing the others £70 is way too low to cover the cost of energy to heat the house. That's just proof your old system wasn't set up right and wasn't outputting much heat. My bills in a large 2 bed modern flat are higher. My mums bills in a 1940s 3 bed semi, uninsulated solid walls, no floor insulation, 250mm in the loft are about £2000 a year. In winter she spends £10 a day heating the place (bills average it over the year). I said earlier that I didn't think your new system on for four hours a day would cost more than the old one on 24/7, now I'm not so sure, I don't think the old one was doing much at all. @zoothorn you mentioned your regret for persuading your parents to upgrade their storage heaters as it didn't make any difference. I'm afraid you will feel the same regret if you proceed with your concrete floor. It's the wrong place to spend money. Spend your money moving the thermostat (if needed), installing TRVs in the warm rooms and running the heating 24/7. Once the house is warm there are things that can be done to lower bills but first step is getting the house warm.

I have to say, John, that I try to avoid WB boilers like the plague. I think their designs are awful, I hate working on them and I would definitely never install one (although I have installed one, once!). I think the 8000s are worse than ever, but lots of installers seem to like them for whatever reason. I've never been called to investigate this specific problem, only that radiators aren't getting hot and this is almost always to do with a system balance issue and not the boiler itself. When I do system diagnostics involving temperature measurement I always ignore the internal boiler temperature given by the sensors and instead use my own clamps to as close to the boiler as possible. This is because I very often find discrepancies between displayed flow/return temps from internal sensors and those measured immediately outside the boiler, it's not just with Worcester. The only times I take the internal sensor readings more seriously, is if I see the boiler cycling when my readings suggest it shouldn't and 5C difference is just not unusual in these circumstances. This is why my approach here would be to ignore the boiler and investigate how the wider system behaves over time. A recent example is a hall where I installed a boiler a few years back. I designed a low temp system and explained all this to the caretaker and for several years the system ran beautifully. This year I received calls to say the heating wasn't working and the hall wasn't getting warm. I went and looked at the boiler and found out that the new caretaker was expecting the system to heat the hall up from freezing cold to between 18-20C within 40minutes so they'd even cranked up the boiler output to 75C! I explained to them that they should drop the flow temp back down and be a bit more patient as their bills had dropped noticeably since I installed the system. So in short, sometimes it's about education!

@SteamyTea apologies I accept you -are- morally superior, in that you have vastly more building knowledge than I. I just don't care for snapping posts that seem to wish for likes, more than offer help. I'll take it on the chin tho, from yourself. Thanks, Zoot

@SimonD, in your experience of Worcester 8000 system boilers, have you come across this strange? behaviour on both this boiler and others, where, after a HEX change, the indicated flow temperature doesn't match the Target temperature even under steady demand conditions and with the boiler demand well above its minimum output, can you suggest any reason for this behaviour?. and which WB says is normal.

If I only paid £70 for all electric I would be well pleased, but living in a cold house and have an angry wife. Not having heating on, causes house temp to be cold, everything becomes damp - funny old thing, all the things @zoothorn describes. Suspect the heat pump could heat the building well, but is never given the chance - £70 bills leave no place to hide, when you have a 9kW heat pump. The heat pump is off more than it's on. I'm running a 4kW heat pump, only pay 15p per kWh and my bills are way more than that.

Don’t know any rule for this but I tend to find a picture or drawing that looks right and measure the proportions with a scale rule.

I have to jump in an ask why would a system with the installed pipework as described ever need an secondary pump of 8meters head, let alone a LLH. I find it almost inconceivable that the index circuit on this system needs an extra few meters of head above the 4 it's already got, unless the installer had accidentally welded shut the pipes somewhere. I've worked on Worcester 8000 system boilers that are fine under more demanding system conditions. I would suggest doing a factory reset of the boiler (maybe that was done when the engineer came?) to get everything back to default. Then run the system taking regular temperature measurements through the system. Pinpointing which rads are problematic and then taking a methodical approach to understand the whole system behaviour. But I'm also wondering what exactly is the problem you're attempting to fix? If it's this: Then we need more specific information about what exactly you define as quick and from what beginning state to what desired state.

What if planning conditions removed permitted development? Your simple definition would appear to ignore that?

If you are only paying £70 per month for electricity then there is no way you can be putting enough energy into that house. At this time of year I am paying that much for heating a very well insulated and air tight house. If I put that level of heating into an old cold stone building it would be cold. The only way you are going to solve this impass, is to turn your heating on 24/7 for at least a week to try it. Once you have been shown how to do this, please give it a try. For the first week or 2 the bills WILL be high as it will be heating the mass of the building and drying it. Bills will go down once the building has warmed up and dried out as you will then only be replacing lost heat. Until you get over your conviction that it is not going to work and actually try it, you will never know.

I’m at the stage of it works and performs, it doesn’t really matter if it’s uPVC or timber alu. Lot’s of personal preference of course but you can save a lot and obtain the performance with a good uPVC system.

Heat pumps are fickle things. During the commissioning of our heat pump, I tried various ways of operating, a high fixed flow temp and thermostat and Weather Compensation. Surprising both got a similar CoP, BUT, and it's a big but, the weather compensation had to deliver way less heat energy and used way less energy for the same house temperature. Both tested on very similar outside temp performed over 24 hours. Weather compensation delivered 48kWh and the fixed temperature had to deliver 81kWh. Which is bonkers amounts of heat being delivered. Sounds the perfect place and house to live in! Living with a crap heating system (or mainly rubbish setup and or operating manner I would suspect) that cannot warm your house, all so you could get a free cylinder, you could have bought yourself for £500. Doesn't really matter what house you live in, a steady flow of heat into the place it will get warm, even a stone house. As soon as you switch off the heat source that energy starts to be lost and the rest of the energy trapped within the structure also goes. Leave it long enough the effort to replace the energy becomes an uphill struggle - I suspect your heating system is operating like this. Digging out floor if it's to add UFH then you will adding a further delay in getting heat into the house. If you have a thermostat in the warmest part of the house, you system will go on and off and the cold parts never get warm.

(expletive deleted)ing right. adjective making a show of being morally superior to other people

I did a quick heat loss calc on a ground floor stone building 12m x 6m x 2.5m without any insulation and rooms above which gives a 5kw heat loss @-2. If the rooms above are of a similar size and insulation level then a 9kw heat pump is going to heat the place. That's physics. If you know someone you trust who has studied physics then speak to them and see if they can explain it to you in a way that works for you. One thing that you've said several times is that you have run the heating continuously then in the same breath you say the radiators were alternating hot and cold. That's not running continuously. If the heating is turning on and off then you've either got a fault, got the system set incorrectly or the thermostat has been switching the HP which suggests the area where the stat is installed got up to temperature.

One of the main reasons passivhaus specify 3G is based on comfort. The window internal temperature of 3G being very close to room temperature, so isn't uncomfortable to sit next too. The lower the performance the more uncomfortable they are to be near for long periods with it cold outside. We have a bay window, with floor to ceiling glazed and I sit there quite a lot, it's comfortable whatever the weather is doing outside. Not sure I could do that with 2G.

Economic fabric first probably wouldn't be very nice to live in. It would only include the smallest windows necessary for fire escape purposes and they would be the lowest legally acceptable spec. For comfort I would always upgrade to thermally good windows before going behind Bregs insuation.

Good quality 3g white/white uPvc. Anything more expensive is just buying an Audi instead of a Skoda in my view. More $$$ without any more performance but at least the neighbours will be envious.

Sorry I don't understand a word of this post (apart from credit to Rick bit). £700??? I pay £70. Selling the house? This is my first house, bought for a steal, which Ive renovated -with fantastic help- that fits me like a glove. A fluke gem which I'll never find another place like it. Besides, 9-years being bullied by sometimes viscous hatred by of a pack of locals, living all around me, which Ive mostly quelled with police help.. I refuse to be defeated, which IS to sell up; the very goal of the coward haters. Making me MORE intent, to stay. Despite the cold, & dreadful damp climate. I'll be watching a YouTube channel as to whether to dig out the floor: a similar sized stone cottage, with a HP, new owners with a similar skillset as me. That will give me the best guage of whether it is a good idea, or not. Despite the owner not being anywhere near as experienced as those on here. Yiu don't need experience, to tell if something is warm. To twll why something is. To determine why something isn't warm, too. It's intuitive. It's a case of living in the area, hearing of others with similar stone properties they find impossible to heat. The first 2 months here, I had a physical pain in my lungs, I knew 1000% was due to the climate. The heavy, damp, welsh hills/ valleys something or other local oddness. It wasn't something I made up, because it was a pronounced physical pain/ ache, which was the nearest Ive come to selling up. This pain abated when I visited few days in England, & returned when I arrived back in the local vicinity. It was extremely strange. Never had any lung probs, never known anything like it, anywhere in the world that Ive been to, including NZ/ Malaysia/ Thailand humid countries etc. This huge delbilitating chest ache did fully abate in time. In 2 months as I said. Now, I don't need a doctor to tell me this wasn't likely true, or that this area doesn't have some climate-related factor that was the cause of it. I just knew, 1000%, it to be true. It was true. You guys...... would dispute it till the cows come home. In fact, you did exactly this. Not you specifically s2d2. Sometimes, an area does just proove to be ----especially cold---- &/ or ----especially damp/ humid/ whatever that aspect is----- without some humidity reading froma gadget, dismissing it as nonsense. The same with warming this cottage. You can't. I swear to god that to be true.. that you just can't. Zoot

Meant to post these as well a few days ago. If you do choose a 8M UPS2 Pump then you can see from the attached that it should satisfy a flowrate of up to 30LPM based on your present flowrate of 20.89LPM at a Rad head of 3.98M.

Your monthly bill would have to be circa £700 to test this theory. It would be useful to know what your next bill actually is. I'm glad your noise issues are sorted and you've found some balance in the heated hut. If you think selling the house would improve matters then that seems very pragmatic. Do not dig out the floor and install ufh. It's a complete waste of money in your situation. All credit to @-rick- for thoughtful suggestions, unfortunately you're not going to get the answers you need to progress the train of thought, it's just not what zoot is looking for from this forum.

Firstly, not blaming you at all. You've relied on others to set them up (both times) and I'm not convinced either was done in a way that will fully work for you. There is plenty of evidence from other people with similar houses that these houses can be heated, physics says they can be heated. The only question is whether it's economical, which is why I'm trying to help you have another run at addressing this long standing issue. I know you've been around and around this issue and I know you are getting frustrated but the goal of being warm is worth some persistence. From what you've said it wasn't running as I propose at all. If the room is below the desired temperature then the rads should be on pretty much continuously (except when the hot water is being heated). The fact you noticed them regularly going on and off suggests things weren't working correctly. I've asked a couple of times where the thermostat is. I suspect the most likely reason for them going on / off is that the thermostat is located in the warmest part of the house so the system is stopping because it thinks things are warm enough. If not that, then there are other possibiilties. I doubt as it's currently set up (4 hours a day) it will be costing you more than the other system on 24 hours a day. If you set the current system to run 24 hours a day then it will likely cost more than the previous system because the water temperature is set higher but this is all adjustable and can be looked at so no need to panic. I do think you are not getting value for money out of the system as you are still cold and do think it's possible to do better. Earlier, I did a quick calc based on some Scottish government research for buildings with thick solid walls like yours. That calc suggests your heatpump is likely just enough to keep things warm in your place except during the coldest few days of the year. It was only very approximate because I don't know that much about your place, but the house is not huge and has a modern extension which helps limit energy needs. I don't share your confidence in this, there is some evidence supporting your view but it's not conclusive. There is also evidence that maybe you've never had a system that was set up to maximise the chances of success and there is also evidence that there are some relatively easy to fix issues that could be limiting things (walls upstairs causing the loft insulation to be bypassed). One of the big issues in your house is that the really thick walls means that once it is cold (and damp) it's really really difficult to then warm things back up again. As in it might take many days (even weeks) of continously hot radiators. The heatpump really isn't big enough to do that, but it is likely big enough to stop things getting cold in the first place, so long as it's given a fighting chance to do so. This is why I've been pushing for you to be ready for end of summer. How to be ready: 1. Get the engineer on Monday to show you how to: a. turn heating to - "always on" - "always off" - "timer" b. adjust the set temperature c. adjust the timer 2. Deal with the bedroom external walls as discussed. 3. If needed, arrange for the thermostat/heatpump controller to be moved to a cold part of the house 4. Possibly, get TRVs installed on the radiators in the warm part of the house (this is something that could be done if needed at a later date).