NSS

Have convinced them I don't need the sensors, but it seems it would require the wiring from the controller to be terminated to different connections inside the heat pump (which is not something I'm going to attempt myself). Will give our friendly installer/maintainer a call later in the week ?

Hi Janet, it is part of the Panasonic Aquarea range and, as such, connects to a Panasonic Aquarea heat pump such as ours that has (in theory at least!) the ability to provide cooling as well as heat. If you don't have the correct ASHP, I doubt you could attach the air rad.

It transpires that Panasonic don't 'encourage' the use of cooling to ufh systems without the installation of dew point sensors, so the system won't actually do so without some additional technical setup. Not entirely sure I understand all that might entail, but seems it will at least mean some changes to how the controller is connected to the heat pump. Of course, getting this done will a) not happen in the next 24 hours, and b) cost an unspecified sum of cash to be handed over. Given, that SageGlass has again done it's stuff today, keeping the indoor temperature bearable, my inclination is to keep said sum of cash in our bank account rather than someone else's for a while longer!

Update: I tried increasing the room stat temps and sure enough it then 'calls for heat' and opens the manifold valves but seems just to circulate the water that's in the pipes (no cooling). Awaiting a call from Panasonic tech support.

Actually, scratch the above, the circuits haven't actually opened on the manifold. Some late night reading of the operating instructions is called for ☹️

I'll let you know in due course, but one interesting observation already. I initially activated the air-rad only. It's circuit contains a relatively low volume of water so cooled quickly. Since turning on 6 of the 11 ufh circuits (approx 650m of pipe) the temperature of water leaving the ASHP has crept up (currently at 18C) but this presumably is because it is now circulating a far greater volume through a slab that was comparatively warm.

We have 70mm of fibre-reinforced concrete over a Hanson Jetfloor. We only have one bedroom upstairs but we have a Panasonic air-rad in that room so have spot cooling when we need it (activated tonight for the first time this year but was very effective last summer when needed).

For the first time since we moved in, I've turned on the active cooling to our floor tonight. With the projected high temperatures for the next couple of days, and the current high humidity level, I thought I'd see how effective it is. Floor temp prior to activating was circa 23.7C. Water temp leaving the ASHP is currently 9C.

I've never liked tea, but my mother, 'til her dying day, would still offer me a cuppa every time I visited. "No thanks Mum, but I'd love a coffee please" was always my reply. She never did seem to catch on to the fact, bless her ?

It's pretty much all I drink, apart from the odd Havana Club (or six ?). Coffee is the first thing I have in the morning and last thing I have at night, and I still sleep like a log ?

I drink around 12 cups of coffee per day (sometimes more) and Mrs NSS drinks one. At your 'usual' £2.40 per cup it would take less than a month to cover the cost of my £750 B2C machine ?

Don't think it would work anyway as there has to be a hard wired connection to each glass unit.

Similar to others, we use a pack (2 blocks) every 4 to 5 weeks. We buy 10 packs at a time for £55 4o monthly cost is circa £5. Only two of us in the property but I reckon we save as much as the salt costs in reduced use of soaps, shampoo, washing/dishwasher powder, cleaning products, etc.

I know you must all think I'm on some commission deal (I'm not), but SageGlass really is (imho) the most elegant and least intrusive option if your budget will stretch to it.

Reading this and other Sunamp threads, one could be tempted to conclude that Fischer's customer support may be carp, but at least they have customer support ?

I'm glad we didn't use an architect as this sort of thing just serves to reinforce my opinion that, too often, they seem to want you to have what they want, rather than what you want. And if he's omitted a window to the front of the property and the drawings get approved then you may well have to submit a revised application (rather than NMA) as adding it back in will change the 'street scene' view of the property.

We moved our Twintec from the old house so, in total, it's been in use for over 10 years. The guts of it were replaced within the first 2 or 3 years (factory recall due to a faulty batch) and we did have it serviced between removal and reinstall (I think they replaced a couple of seals). We get a bit of salt crusting on the inside faces of the block housings (which I just scrape off) and the blocks have always been consumed at slightly different rates (circa 20%), but otherwise I don't touch it.

According to The Guardian "Bathstore has 132 stores and 529 staff. Most employees – 405 people – are shop workers, while 124 are in the head office." No wonder their shops look empty @Tennentslager, they barely have any staff in them!

Can't answer the cost question, but a few things things you may wish to consider. 1) does that blind cost provide an automated solution, i.e. closing the blinds automatically when solar gain is going to lead to overheating or does it rely on you being there to close them? 2) when blinds are closed that will inhibit (if not totally obscure) your view out, whereas with SageGlass you can still see out, albeit through tinted glass, and 3) we also looked at integrating blinds into our Internorm Windows, but the advice (at least then) was that they wouldn't offer the level of reduction in Solar Gain that SageGlass offers (and of course SageGlass tints progressively to suit the conditions at any specific moment). Noise reduction wasn't an issue for us, but automated control of Solar Gain very much was. Brilliant sunshine here today but the glass is only about 33% tinted as the sensor recognises that the sun is high in the sky so the angle it is hitting the glass means the solar gain is not as great as when the sun is lower.

I'm not sure there is a straightforward yes or no answer to that question @lizzie. As @JSHarris has mentioned, there is need to get a 2-core cable to each frame from wherever you site the control panel, plus another cable from the external light sensor to the control panel. The SageGlass 3G IGUs are 44mm thick which was fine for our Interior frames but not all frames will take a 44mm unit. As for connecting the cables to the glazing units, it's not quite as simple as @JSHarris suggests, i.e. it's not just a 2-wire to poke through and connect. The SageGlass units come with a cable 'tail' that has a flat connector on the end. The cable from the control panel has a similar connector and, when mated, the connector sits between the frame and the edge of the glazing unit. From memory these connectors when joined are circa 4mm thick so there needs to be provision for this in the sizing of the frame/glazing units. Frankly, I wouldn't contemplate retro-fitting SageGlass into a finished house as it would be a huge undertaking to discretely route the cables. It would also be less cost-effective as you would be ditching the glazing units that were originally fitted. Whereas, if factored in at the design stage, as we did, it's much easier to justify the expense.

I know it got a brief mention earlier in the thread, but don't discount using SageGlass. Yes, it's expensive, but so would automated external blinds and active cooling be, and I'd suggest SageGlass is a far more elegant solution.

@selfbuildaberdeen, as is well documented elsewhere on this site, MVHR and the air quality it provides was the sole reason for our self-build, but we're all different and we all have differing priorities. My advice is to listen to the various opinions you'll get and then make decisions on what best suits your needs, not what has suited others'.

According to Mrs NSS there's a large fossil in our bath/shower.... ... every time I step into them!

Herzlich willkommen.

Probably goes without saying, and with a 'traditional' design you may not intend to have a lot of glass, but worth considering what effect solar gain may have. A well insulated near airtight home can easily overheat.