HughF

It’s an even easier decision for us - we need to replace a 72% efficient boiler and all the rads anyway, so we might as well ditch the gas and go green as the installed costs are basically the same (parts are more expensive but my labour is free vs cheap gas boiler and paying a gas safe guy because I don’t have the certs) and the running costs will be about £600/year less.

Good idea…. I’m putting our ashp in the garden, shaded location with plenty of airflow, away from the neighbours

I’m planning to run full weather comp, the carel controller has a 4 point setting so it can be non-linear. I’m going to try without a room stat and just use TRVs in the bedrooms as hi-limit stats. I’ll program the flow temp to be set back at night and just leave the heating ‘on’ from Sept-April. Nice and simple.

I don’t need zoning, we have all our internal doors open and it’s only 100m2.

I've been wondering if there is any possibility of using the Carel th-tune panel in conjunction with the pGD1 to provide room temp control using the full suite of Carel parts. th-Tune (carel.com) Not sure if that's just for a2a units

Yeah, the BUS scheme. You’ve got to go through the hoops with some MCS certified installer rubbish and end up paying three times as much as if you’d just bought the gear yourself. It's just not practical for me to use an outside contractor on my retrofit job for various reasons. Encouraging to hear you've reached the stage where you're all up and running - glad to hear it's performing as expected.

Anyone can get that rate, it’s the backstop rate…. scop of 2.9 is easily achievable… I wouldn’t rip out a working oil install to make a swap, but if you’re at a stage where you need a new boiler and tank then certainly consider making the move.

A small update - after visiting the Cool Energy stand at the NSBRC and showing my wife the size and noise of the 9kW model, I've placed an order. My install will be a domestic retrofit running rads and UFH with a 150ltr slimline cylinder. I'm aiming for change out of £5k for all materials (ASHP, UVC, Pipe, Fittings, UFH mixer) and I'll be DIY'ing it next spring. Just got the new rads left to buy. We're replacing an 11kW Baxi Bermuda and heat loss calcs give 6.7kW at -3/21 Some googling seems to point pretty strongly to SPRSUN being the OEM for Cool Energy. Compare the SPRSUN manual attached to that from the CE website. inverTec_Range_Manual_Version_6.6_Final.pdf sprsun-user-manual-for-dc-inverter.pdf

Just thought I'd mention that Myson have a handy little windows application - 'E2 Heat output calculator' that allows you to easily play with flow/return temps and room heat requirements to size your rads. Although I have been using the Freedom heatpumps toolkit to do my rad sizing, their default deltaT is 30 degrees, which implies a flow temp of 50. The Myson software allows flow, return and room temp to all be easily adjusted. Available for free from: Software by MYSON

Do you have a puddle on the floor? If not, ignore and move on 😁 It'll swell/rust up and seal... Looks like copious amounts of 55 if you ask me. @NickfromwalesI'm about to buy a bunch of new type22's, can you advise a decent brand that doesn't break the bank? I was looking at screwfix/toolstation specials because I'm a tightwad... Although having used Myson on a previous job, they seem to have a nice offering.

I keep a pretty big stock of the most common fittings in press copper (m profile) and press mlcp…. I rarely encounter a situation where I don’t have the fitting I need in the box.

Dad built it all in ‘74 and it has been in daily use since. I think it might actually be built from blockwork (I will need to check the photos from when he built it). I know there won’t be anything else apart from ‘matter’ in there.

I’m going to be the outlier here and say I do everything in pressed mlcp - in European sizes. Mainly because I ‘found’ a press gun, and I hoover up second hand pipe off Facebook when I’m bored. Got enough to do half the house now. Eurocones where required to go onto compression stuff, although direct press isolation valves are becoming a thing now.

I've ordered some.... My scum layer is particularly thick at around 4-5" so I'm anticipating a full pump out and possibly a jetting of the insides too - it would be beneficial for me to inspect the interior brickwork (yes, it's a brick chamber) as this hasn't been done for a good while and I'd like to know the condition of it. for £39 it's worth having something to hand if I do need to do a full suck out.

Understood thanks....

I've got the pump-out man coming on Monday next week to do a pump-out of my septic. As this will be my first rodeo with the system at this particular property (my late father dealt with it all before he passed away this year), can anyone advise on what is a good brand of 'starter bacteria'? And do I even need this?

What matters is what you're putting on top.... ceramic tile, that won't be happy with a moving floor.... Carpet or vinyl, that won't care.

Egg crates, 16mm pipe, many many many bags of ultraplan renovation Jokes aside, you've got loads of options if you aren't build-up height limited.

My thoughts? An oil combi is probably the cheapest way of delivering heat and dhw at current energy prices…. if you do want to go down the ashp route, it’s all about the floor buildup. Do you have the height to play with? For example in my place, I don’t so I’m looking at the omni torfloor2 system.

It does somewhat doesn't it... It's one of those old back boilers with a gas-u-fire on the front...

You mean like the Baxi Bermuda in my wife's house that she has been paying a BG service plan for, since forever* Luckily, I think we'll get this winter out of it before retiring it next spring when we put the extension on the back and replace all the rads. *The same BG service plan who failed to spot a faulty 3 port mid position valve, a faulty cylinder stat, and a faulty room stat... You'll be please to know I made her cancel the service plan this year.

Why anyone would apply for this grant is beyond me…. All it does is push the cost to the consumer up by the amount of the grant…

You are joking with this comment, right?

This obsession with old rads needs to end, now.... Who the heck wants their old rads? Mostly they're scratched up, badly painted, undersized and full of sludge.

I was looking at that product as Ingoodnic appear to have the best prices around. It looks identical to the Rehau product, with a fully bonded pu foam inside a heatshrink type outer. My biomass installing ex-neighbour said that the fully bonded product behaves better when it leaves the ground with less risk of differential expansion along the pipe runs causing the inners to push out of the outers. I like the fact it’s around 110-120mm OD too as I need to fit one end through a cored hole in the foundation. 0.9m bend radius, I can live with that as I’m only needing to bend it to 90 degrees in the horizontal plane, I can do the out of ground transitions at 45 degree or less, gently coming out of the ground as I need these ends to be horizontal.