zoothorn

Aha! Crikey I was confused before.. Ok status is Im waiting for reply from my head office nice woman. Have put the different mfr buffer idea, tentatively to her. I'll mention Grant. Grateful to y'all, Zoot

I think Ive been getting confused with my grant, & Grant too.. which I must now think, is a mfr? Thanks Zh

Hi chaps, hugely grateful for these recent replies. I've put the Q to my nice Vaillant woman, of possibly a slimmer but taller buffer (1200x300? I asked if they did one?).. or.. my very last gasp idea to put her way, of using a different mfr buffer. Which if this above fails, I'll ask. If the installer kicks up a fuss & refuses another mfr's buffer, then Im stuffed. Back to square 1. Thanks, Zoot

Hi Hugh. Hugely grateful for this. Even on page 2, with the diagram, my head still aches trying to understand the basics though (eg it suggests indoors, a fan moves the compressed [water or air?] around.. & my head hits a brick wall). A fridge, in my world & most people's too, isn't some super-simple device like an oven is fir example. It's next-level design. Personally I think it needs a prior-level explanation, for people who haven't studied engineering frankly: likely 95% of customers. Nevertheless I might be able to brave the buffer/ extra heat sutuation page. But I don't expect to understand that either.

Bravo. Thanks alot for this pinpoint post. I'll even email this example to my nice woman @ Vaillant. Zh

@PeterW is the ARotherm plus 10kw, a 'monoblock'? I couldn't quite understand the significance of your mentioning water outside bit.. but my eyes lit up with the higher flow temp. Maybe, just maybe they chose this partly because I had mentioned even in my new build rooms, it was impossible to get them warm, using my current 'split' system, unless I ramped up the flow temp (+ some other upping of a level to max) which THEY themselves told me how to do as a niggle I had -paling into insignificance vs my overnight cupboard noise- which was a frustration at the ashp rad performance. This performance niggle, I hear on phone moan-ins even on radio4. So many people think as I do, their performance is nigh on hopeless. UNLESS of course, you have a super-scandi-built-home (my term) to contain the paltry heat emitted. Most UK homes don't fit this category, so this whole ashp venture/ shift IMHO, is so poorly thought out, & also hoodwinking UK customers (even ones grateful to get one via a grant, despite a protracted intrusive noise "battle" with a mfr..) that they're a good idea for their home. The cost now to run them too, apparently, is huge too: 50% of the moan-in calls I hear on R4 are this. Thanks. I'll email my nice woman @Vaillant whose reinstated the offer to me (we agree we're both stuck at this buffer 'hurdle' is the situation) if the monoblock is this one you refer to. Thanks, Zoot

I'll need a day to comprehend just these last two paragraphs. They just read double-dutch to me. Read these 3x now, yet still cannot understand the relationship between an additional heater & a tank. I judt don't think Im going to get it ProDave, even if you used stop motion stuffed animals, lego buffer whatnots, & fully slowed it down for the fully retarded. Thanks, Zoot

THIS much, ProDave, I do know... because it is the very source of my woes/ my battle with Vaillant/ because the unit that houses the pump to drive the water around during this satanic 11pm-7.30am frost cycle... was placed.. 1.5m away from a bed, & which was so loud & contiuous, it disturbed sleep in the adjacent bedroom & heard clearly in every corner of the house. THIS is the same cycle, which luckily with your different mfr unit, you are nothing whatsoever similarly disturbed by. Because. Yours isn't faulty. Mine is/ was. Zh

@AliG why is there 105 litres of water discrepency, between a system that has a heater, to one that hasn't? I cannot equate a huge volume of water, to a heater. The two things seem alien ti each other. But you say they're inter-dependent. I have absolutely no idea what this additional heater's design principle is. Additional? Surely if there's some water in a CH system, it is heated by a heater. What on god's earth then, is all this about an --extra-- heater, sometimes there but sometimes not ?? And how does this bizarre extra heater thing, relate to a huge fridge sized vessel to hold water? It's like someone saying a car 'oh well if it has an extra combustion engine, you need to tow a trailer on the back'. I'm sorry what did you just say, I have a what & so I need a what??? Two totally unrelatable things, but somehow inherrantly dependent on each other. It doesn't compute. With these pathetic sniping posts in between trying to read your info.. I honestly cannot cope anymore. Appreciated. Zoot

AliG. I've just tried, three times, to read your post here.. to make sense of it.. in order to ask what you suggest. I haven't got a clue how to even understand this. If I were to read out your post, to them for example, the answer... would be incomprehensible. I could conceivably only record it on a dictaphone/ type it out in a post here. But that is getting ludicrous. The backuo heater. Its like an alien being I have no conception of what it is, where it is, now, or in the future, whether inside another unit, attatched to it.. Im this stumped, just by twi words: backup heater. Its just far too complicated. To you it's simple. To me it makes my head ache trying to think what X could possibly mean, look like, be. I just can't cope, apologies. Im absolutely exhausted. Zh

Hi GW. Well this is one angle I hadn't thought of. Great. That being asking the if I can pay, for an entirely different mfr buffer, of the same size they insist.. & go shopping for a slimmer one. And go around here evaluating where the heck this could go. At least if slimmer, I can possibly find one spot without ruining my cottage. Cant be the cupboard as its likely not tall enough. But they'll counter this saying they cannot fit other mfr's equipment, or your guarantee is shot doing so, or simply their fitter says no.

I don't have UFH though. @AliG you are very kind to try explaining all this. To redact it & think how I could understand it. But I just don't, barely a word of any of it. Even the 'fridge running backwards' which is the pg1 analogy give to me outside my home to explain in very basic terms how an ashp works.. is, 3 years later, incomprehensible to me. I try & try to imagine what this simplest idea could be. Backwards? Backwards? No idea on gods earth what even this could mean. Like my mum driving her car analogy, I don't think I -need- to know, how an ashp works.. let alone what on earth this tank is for. Let alone why one system has it & it's replacement doesn't. I just need help with how I tackle Vaillant to either: reduce its size, or d without it. If this means needing engineering degrees.. then Im fkd. I do like to know how something works though, especially if I have to live with the bloody thing seemingly waling up, doing things, when it wants. I hate not knowing -why- it's just come on for 5 minutes at random the during the day. It took me 2 winters of insanity to find the reason why it does the overnight thing ( which at the very least, I WILL have resigned to being outside & away from my bedroom: although this doesn't mean as a certainty that I won't still hear it: the design if this ting is so bad I have no confidence even it being outside). Very frustrating to hear the thing even now, suddenly go on for 5 minutes. Why. Why has it just done that? I ask myself. I have no idea. Drives me a bit bonkers, just this (daytime, not that loud, but just why should it be doing anything, whatsoever, at 10.55am, in August?? My god how I loathe this thing). Thanks, anyway. I think Ive exhausted myself & everyone too trying to help. Apologies. I have my last last gasp idea (my own) put to Vaillant: to turn off my main room rads, & them install a smaller 8kw ashp monoblock. Of course they'll refuse it, but 2% chance is better than 0%. Zoot

Urgh good point. No mains gas, no. Damn I thought that was my ticket out.

Understood, I think. Actually I just had the call by my nice woman in head office, right now. Urgh. Bang in the middle of the thread. I proposed the idea of a smaller system & promising to turn off my main room rads in compensation. She is putting this idea to the Renewables dept: obviously only validated if it has a smaller buffer. ALSO she briefly skipped over the idea of a BOILER option instead. S S sorry what did you say just then? I asked. Well, she dipped ino the idea of a conventional system, as a replacement instead (I think assuming this had been out to me as an option -it has never been- once they'd relented & agreed NOT FIT/ TO BE REPLACED FOC last August. Well well. A boiler/ conventional CH system possible option??Another avenue to explore?? She is also putting this idea across to the Renewables dept. So 2 new avenues to explore. I with a smaller buffer tank, but t'other... *no damn buffer at all, *nor any indoor hydraulic unit. Please tell me at least this * * is so chaps. Thanks Zoot

@AliG thanks so much for thst. Im still struggling to under the purpose of the buffer. Even resding your post above, 3x. So I still can't comprehend the reasoning for one in the proposed system, & conversely the reasoning not to have one currently. I would if the 10kw figure was different. But it's the same. I don't think I have the engineering mental capacity to decipher explanations (I can only do engineering basic logic). Tbh I just don't think I -should be expected to as a customer- either.