Nickfromwales

Ok, thanks. A bit of thought adjustment from the Welsh Neanderthal needed then Dhw is a bit of a sticking point, so even more argument to heat a whopper of a Sunamp by trickle charging it and drawing space heating and Dhw from that. A bit of discipline with use / duration of Dhw should suffice then.

With a diesel / lpg genny reinforcing the island 5kw, it can literally just be used on demand. Does anyone on the island have kerosene ( light oil ) delivered / installed ? I'm sure gennys can run off kerosene.

Not quite Sherlock ?

Can you not just use the diesel genny? In the times of no solar gain it's a near perfect choice. Remote start and silenced it will top up batteries whilst also simultaneously providing waste heat to a thermal store for DHW. You can simply run this more or less on demand TBH, but I'd probably go for an LPG fired one so you can have one bottle bank and use that for cooking too. Space heating a passive-esque property will be child's play so I'd go for the fabric-first approach here and go all out for as near a zero energy home as is practicable. Great thread btw, I'm ever intrigued by the off grid solutions.

You cut the section, then screw that into the outlet until it hits the rubber washer. Then you wind the pair in, in unison, until the lot is sent home. Tbh is probably change the rubber washer to a fibre one as the rubber one may well scrunch up or displace under the torque required to compress the PTFE. It's not the greatest design but it's the same as many I've fitted before. In fact, I think I'd use the liquid PTFE on the brass where it screws into the outlet and a few turns of PTFE tape and ditch the washer altogether. That'll be bombproof .

That's not the type that gets wound in by a hex key until it bottoms out and then the chrome bit get fitted over it and it's o-rings and then centralised and held in place by grub screws. Stick to my ( comprehensive ) instruction and you'll be all gravy, baby. Regarding the PTFE tape just put loads on, for the depth of the outlet female thread and a bit beyond.

Does the Allen key allow the chrome and the brass to be pulled apart ? Is the inside of the chrome outlet hexagon shaped to take an Allen key ?

Don't beat yourself up.........let me do it

@Onoff I've never had one with a backnut. Tbh, it's rare to get rear access so you'd never get to fit one anyway. The one you've got fits as follows. : 1) you measure the diameter of the fitting, the chrome bit after the brass thread. 2) you get that size tile hole saw and make a hole 2-3mm bigger. 3) you fit an outside tap backplate into the wall at about 1/4" shy of finished tile face. 4) you tile and grout after blanking the outlet and pressure testing. 5) turn the fitting into the outlet until its tight. At this stage it'll likely have bottomed out without the chrome going past the tile face. 6) measure what you need for the chrome bit to finish 3-4mm into the tile. 7) cut that much off the brass thread. 8) you put 22-26 turns of ptfe onto the last 25mm of thread ( so 50 turns or so in total to get the thread covered ) 9) turn the outlet into the backplate until it's pointing down and just shy of proud of the tile face ( slightly recessed ) 10) do not go so far that you have to back turn anti clockwise 11) clear ct1 the tile hole tobthe brass thread by pumping it full. 12 ) push the cover ring down the outlet until it rests on the tile. It's NOT there as a waterproof seal, and the rubber o-ring is only a friction ring to keep it parked. The ct1 forms the watertight element. Clear as mud ?

Yup. Not toooooo shabby .

Silicone grease on rubber seals is the norm. If they're dry then the seals often roll as they're being sent home, and then just break.

That's why I asked about cutting into the 4 pipes . Connecting cold mains to the lowest tapping should result in water coming out of the other 3.

Errr....a 40 year old baxi 551 has one . 4 pipes means this has deffo got a PRIMARY heat exchanger, much as just about any heat only boiler would have. Agree it could be circulatory issues and air locking too but the DHW should circulate without kettling even with no heating connected.

Deffo. And a couple of pics.

I still don't know what appliance were dealing with . Does it have a dedicated burner for the boiler, and a separate fire 'front' ? Eg could you light the forefront without getting hot water and heating ?

Then it's circulation issues. The water isn't flowing through the boiler fast enough so it's boiling ( kettling ). Have you got / did you try a new pump yet? Can you cut the pipes on the boiler and connect the hose to them ? Sounds like a blocked or partially blocked heat exchanger. A power flush may sort it TBH.

@recoveringacademic, Ian what were the symptoms that had you 'tinkering' in the first place? And please don't say boredom Did you hear fizzing and kettling from the boiler ?

It's gravity hot so the highest tapping should vent the boiler

Sounds a good way out of it, just the white pushfit elbow isn't the prettiest thing I've ever seen. The stem is made from very robust plastic though, but I'm still not a fan of compression onto plastic. At least when done it'll all be fixed so shouldn't have any issue, but I think I'd put a few turns of PTFE over the olive to give a bit of additional give. Fyi, you can cut the stems shorter if that helps .

When you say multi fuel fire / boiler, what exactly do you have? 4 pipes out of it, 2 to the DHW cylinder rising on convection / gravity and another 2 to the heating circuit via a pump ? Some pics would help maybe. ?

I've fitted a few Impey trays, and I can't say I've ever noticed this but admittedly I've never done more than push it home and let folk use it. No complaints of stench etc have ever arisen so I can only assume this is a problem for the test, as you say. I know a lot of those type of buckets with the seal often lose the seal as it breaks with the regular removal and refitting where folk clean the trap a bit too often and aren't very careful. Have you contacted Impey yet ? It would be interesting to hear their POV.

Thanks for joining .

I'll add to this asap.

What typo ?

More to the point, they don't understand or foresee the consequences of missing such basic but vital links in the chain. A lot of them rely on Bco's that don't double check everything, a disservice to the customer who has paid for that service. On a garage conversion I was involved in, one Bco asked for holes to be drilled into the garage slab to PROVE that it was thick enough to take 5 courses of block for the internal, and then watched as the outer lip of the footing was also drilled for the same. Once happy he left after giving strict instructions on what needed to be done to open and clean the cavity out. He asked for photos of everything if it was being covered before his return. On another job, the builders used a petrol disc cutter to make two lines in the slab. They got the labourer to chase out about 2-3" of the concrete, bought some concrete in bags, mixed it and troweled it back in. When the Bco came out he said "have you dug a suitable footing ?" They replied "yes, of course we have, look the concrete is still soft from the 'pour'". Bco said happy days and left. He wasn't so happy when he came back and they were trying to hide the pair of 3600mm concrete lintels that they'd tried to put in stead of steels. That wall was load bearing and taking the hip of the roof. They beat my price by £2k, and bodged every single thing they did and cut every corner they could. They just kept redoing it until the Bco said that'll do. There are builders, and then there are men who bought building tools and a van. Huge difference. Check with at least two previous customers so you know if things went south on previous jobs.