Leaderboard

They definitely run far better with power at both ends, plus the little 3A wire on the ends doesn't get warm! There is a fair voltage drop down a 5m length of the super bright stuff I found, hence the reason I fitted wires at both ends, to halve this.

You still need the controller though, don't you? I've not tried, but have the feeling that the unit throws an error if there's no controller found on the bus, probably because I think many of the settings are actually stored in the controller rather than the ASHP itself, so it needs it in order to run. The rest is just relatively cheap plumbing stuff. I found that adding an adjustable pressure bypass valve across the flow and return as far from the unit as possible (mine is just next to the UFH manifold) is very useful, as if you have any valves that take time to open it avoids the unit shutting down due to an over-pressure event and then waiting for several minutes before trying to re-start. All that happens if you do have a momentary period where there is a flow restriction due to valves being slow to operate is that the bypass opens and the ASHP modulates right down because there's very little heat being drawn off, but it keeps running, rather than shutting down, which means that the pump keeps going and as soon as the slow valve opens flow starts, the heat pump senses the change in flow/return temperature differential and ramps up the power.

The habito plasterboard looks promising as it is both more dense and able to take screw fixings. It is almost as heavy as sound bloc, so good at reducing sound, but heavy to carry and install. I haven't looked at cost yet but will be interesting to see how it stacks up against a sheet of 11mm osb with a standard sheet of 12.5 over the top, which is my current preffered route. This gives the ability to fix to any wall and also helps with a flush shadow gap type skirting detail which needs a double panel thickness.