SteamyTea

Less than Zoothorn though.

Right, last go. Think of it as a car, one with manual gears. Each gear will have a maximum top speed when the car is running on level ground. Think of that top speed as temperature. Now you can keep the same temperature, but get there faster by using a lower gear i.e. better acceleration. Temperature compensation does this automatically for you (no don't say you don't understand automatic cars and have never driven one, they exist, and work). So when there is a large temperature difference, it in effect uses 'lower gears' to get desired temperature faster. So when you are asked to 'turn the temperature up', there will be a larger temperature difference between inside and outside, the ASHP will 'drop a gear' and endeavour to close that gap as fast as it can. If it fails to show much difference, then the temperature compensation 'curve' may need changing (and don't ask for an explanation, just accept it can be changed). There are a number of reasons that the curve is wrong, mainly these controllers are sold globally and the default settings may be for a totally different climate than the UK (you can claim this is wrong and should not happen, and is bad design, but you are one customer out of millions, and they don't give a flying (expletive deleted) what you think). Turning it up a few degrees for a few hours is going to take that, say 3 hours. You have spent several days, and many collective hours of other peoples time on this. Just give it a go, you may be surprised.

How are you going to power your electrically driven ASHP?

The Horror that is Cornwall. But only the second worse planning office.

Welcome There is the SW, and then the proper SW. I am at the proper end. Wind is one thing to factor in, it saps heat away quite rapidly. But basically you can just about design anything, thermally. Be careful with the Passivhaus figures, some times they are primary energy and not usage energy. I use about 4 MWh/year for everything. Could use 1MWh less if I swapped my resistance heating for a heat pump, or put in PV to heat my water. So yes, ASHP. Thick, well insulated walls, MVHR, spend time on making the place super airtight, initial design helps here, and never be tempted to put in a wood burner.

Yes, and it is painful. But it does keep the beaches clean for the dogs to shit on.

Give Mark Walker at Walker Machinery a call, he will point you in the right direction. 01993 772255 He is just outside Witney. http://www.walkermachinery.co.uk/contact/

We have no shortage either, but the most expensive water in the country. It is not the amount of rainfall, more the storage and treatment. If you live in a very rainy area, and most of the towns are close to the coast, then waste and run off water treatment is very expensive. I think the water targets are base don national averages i.e. average usage and average houses, then a bit taken off, and then 'weighted' for house types i.e. size. I live on my own, but the identical house 4 doors away, there are 4 adults, next to that there is a family of four, then a family of 3, then a single, then me, then a family of 3. Now you cannot have 2.6666 people, so that will be called 3. So the water calculation are possibly based on 3 people in each house of my size and type.

Well it looks to me that you are in for a miserable time with it. Unwilling to get installers back in and unwilling to accept advice, or suggestions, and not even bothering to look up 'difficult terms' on the internet. How much help do you really need, a magic fairy.

Or a simple picture, though suspect a hiding for nothing. Only physics needed is T=temperature and t=time.

Maybe something like this 15 quid special https://www.switchelectronics.co.uk/5v-8-channel-solid-state-relay-board

So these relays are just closing and opening a circuit, they are not actually carrying the motor current. Shall have to see what small SSD there are. I think I have a mechanical relay 'hat' for a RPi somewhere.

That should be easy enough to set up. Is the current very low, and at what voltage is needed?

I don't know the inner workings of a SA too well, only seen an early version. I suspect that for material longevity, and very little performance gain, the heater cuts out at the optimum charge temperature. So a little above 58°C. This will also reduce expansion. Phase change materials are odd things. They can be charged up i.e. change from solid to liquid, then allowed to cool while still in the liquid phase. Then they can be activated to change phase, releasing the energy at the phase change temperature. This partly accounts for the low standing losses of the SA units. If they did overheat the material, that extra energy would relatively quickly be lost to the atmosphere (the small amount of vacuum panel insulation is to brilliant at retaining a 55°C temp difference). So this heating regime may account for the pulsing, it is just limiting the power being inputted, which also limits the overall temperature.

Yes I did.

I made a deal once.

That is a circular argument and the kind of thing an accountant would say. An economist would say that you have not taken into account the external costs.

Then keep going, it eventually works. Purely from an educational academic viewpoint, reading is not a very successful way to learn things for most people. But as you have no choice, keep reading.

I told my students to read until they did not understand it. Then start from the beginning again. Eventually it sinks in.

An good electric shower is the simplest and easiest solution. You need to calculate i.e. read the meter before and after the shower heating period, to work out a payback. But then payback is an odd concept. Do you calculate the payback of different food types, different plants in your garden, different types of pets. No. So why should choosing a long term reduction in your overall energy bill, be compared to not getting your system sorted (if you pay the right amount, someone will fix it).

You may find that in the summer, you are better off setting the TS heating period to switch off just before your normal usage time. This reduces the thermal loss time. It does seem barmy that you are heating, to a certain extent, half a tonne of water for a 30 litre, or even 150 litre shower. I would fit a simple electric shower. Or get that ST sorted, which is probably part of the reason you have the set up you have. You could junk the ST and fit a simple PV system that just dumps into your thermal store. ask @ProDave to sort it, he is always in need of cash to pay for the losses on his build.

Yes, but it is what it is. My car does not have an MP3 player, I live it it. With this old thermally leaky house, a third temperature/time option is not necessary. It is also just a matter of changing the controller to a better one. Sooner or later, Zoothorn needs to take ownership of it and sort it himself. We have pointed out just about as much as we can, and just get the same 'finger pointing' response back "it is there fault".

Read the (expletive deleted) manual, page 13.

Yes, and when it has changed phase there is not a great deal of energy stored.

Does your space heating system also draw from the thermal store? If not, do you have any idea what the temperature gradient is. I heat my basic E7 cylinder to 40°C now (used to be 50°C but reduced it for an experiment) and can eke out two baths, just,