zoothorn

@sharpener thanks for your post today. It'll take me a week to go through it though. Ive read it twice & can only understand the bare minimum. Alot of the trouble is I just find it too complicated to understand. TRV's added on, & I'm -really- up against it. Two thermostats. And I need two brains. I can't possibly understand the Cop stuff. --- As for the £700 a month thing, I mean I'm absolutely bewildered. If I had all of my 5 cold rooms, built to the same standard as my 2 warmish new-build ones, my heating bill wouldn't be affected. It'd still be £70 pcm. Conceivably likely a bit less. So of that was the case here, I'd have my 7 new-build rooms, at reasonable warmth, with the rads on during the day doing the on-off dipping thing, none on overnight as I prefer.. for £70 pcm. So where on earth is this ten times a much figure coming from as some form of reference figure-?? I'm so lost & getting loster too. Zoot

@Big Jimbo so how is it that I was spending £70 pcm, & had the rads on in the continual setting you all now want me to set the new one like? I'm not lying, that was my bill. And I had the HP set to continual, albeit not the 23*C you can afford, set to 18*C. I certainly didn't have the rads on overnight, no, I think that idea is ridiculous. Why is it that no-one agrees with the calculations people, who said "no way our HP can run your cottage"? I just don't get it. They were right. I knew it couldn't. I never intended it to work here. In the 2 newbuild rooms? YES it can work there. But not in the old 3 main rooms. There is such a clear example, right under my nose, of what rooms can be heated by it & what type just can't. New build rooms yes: I can see the evidence 6m away from where I stand. Old stone room & crap 80's extension rooms no: he question is why. And the answer is so damn obvious too, right here, evidence right now, at my property. Warm room. And a cold room. The difference is the answer. And the only difference... is insulation. That is the reason one room is warm, one is cold. I mean this is so damn obvious! I can't honestly believe why anyone could disagree! It's like when Blair stated 'education education education'. The difference between th3 rooms, & therefore the 2+2=4 answer IS IS IS 'insulation insulation insulation!!'

I don't understand Nick apologies. How could such a screwfix thermostat trip the system on & off-?

Absolutely not. I had no idea such a figure would be relevant to me here, having been paying £70. Again: the prior HP was being run, to all intents & purposes, continually (bar night- I'll never entertain the idea of rads on overnight never in my life have I lived in a property with overnight rads on, it's sheer lunacy). I was paying £70 then. So why anyone would ask 'would you be prepared to spend 2.5x as much per month?' Tbh I'm fairly baffled by. I mean of course I wouldn't. Thanks, Zoot

Thing is chaps, with all respect (& I will talk to the engineer Monday with all that's discussed) once the U readings were done -if that's the calculation/ I think you know what I mean anyway- as I said the Co wanted to pull out. No way they wanted to put a HP in the cottage. To reitterate, I had to beg them to relent & agree, but only because I was effectively getting a new cylinder out of it. I had no intention of CH useage. They did relent, but stipulating basically "but it won't work, in your house there, the calculations show". So all I'm doing here, is reitterating what this set of people (whoever did the U calculations I mean- I can't recall who but it wasn't the installer, nor was it the innitial door to door salesman from the council super eager to put a HP in my property) what the calculations people, said about the maych of a 9kW HP + my property. That it won't work. All I'm doing, is showing you, that they were right. I'm not arguing for argument's sake, nor being obdurate & not running the HP for long stretches over months: this -was the setting- of the prior (noisy, yes) HP. The fact that the cottage remained freezing cold, only tallied with what the calculations people said. That it tallied too, with what I suspected, I think shows a bit of intuition from myslef tbh. I don't think you're giving me due credit here. And you're effectively arguing with the calculations people, rather than me per se, ghat a 9kW HP can work here. It can't. And I'll say it till the cows come home too. We'll set the HP on Monday, to work as it did before. In longer continual day periods. Like the last one was set to. Why anyone thinks this time I'll have some warmth (in the 3 main cold rooms that I mostly use), tbh I find rather bizarre. Anyway, much appreciate the help. I'll do my best on Monday, & I'm better placed to ask the chap questions, than I was before. One being whether -I- can power it down, rewire the controller box via a new 30m cable from the interface unit box, through a wall, & down say to the kitchen (which we can agree on: this cold room I frquent the most being a far more convenient place to have it to monitor it/ fiddle about with it's settings etc)... I'll certainly ask. Another logical question, being why was it placed next to the cylinder; if perhaps convenience to the installer's workload, might be the obvious answer. Thanks Zoot

You can't escape the Zootmaze.

But Rick.. the difference here between your house & mine (& it's massive/ it's so absolutely fundamental/ the crux of all this issue here).. .. is you (& all those members you collectively listed earlier in the post) have decent insulation. It goes without saying, that with your knowledge, this priority structural factor, you WILL have up to par. Likely beyond-par up to a very decent standard. I do not have insulation. Practically.. none. This is the cause of the cold. This is why so much cold enters. This is why a HP which typically produces medium-warm rads, cannot hold a candle to making any inroads, here. The only way I can affect the insulative factor of my kitchen & bathroom (in their terrible construction 80's extension I sit here with nose & feet freezing cold as I type this, with it 14*C & mild outside..) is to knock it down. Rebuild it. Not by running each of these two room's small rad on for countless & pointless wasting hours. I cannot afford to rebuilt this extension. If I could, my main sittingroom is still in need of effectively the same treatment. I can't knock that down. I can affect a tiny perimeter cold ingress, but that's merely a sticking plaster solution. it's just a cold house, it will always be so. Unless 2 jet engines are introduced. Still I'd pee & huff my breath one side, even with the afterburner singing my arse the other. thanks, Zoot

Please forgive me Rick, I just can't understand a word of this. It would take me a week of brainache, tk puck through just this one post, reading it 150x to maybe glean 1/4 of understanding from it. Look, all I can do, is ask the engineer to set the rads to go on during the day. Not overnight, sorry but I cannot entertain this idea as anything but nonsensical, if I catagoricallly & absolutely do not ever want to have any radiator on during the night time in my house. I've got your set of listed things to ask him. Apparently there's a 'Setback temp' (which I don't quite understand why hasn't been mentioned as it seems pretty fundamental to the rads switching on situation) that I guess in principle, I could have set to say 10*Cmax if that's what someone mentioned the 'see your breath' cutoff temp is. But no more than that. I'll also ask if the 'controller- thermostat' can be moved.. but the logistics of doing so, with it being wired (not wireless) would be very costly & needing a cable of maybe 30m to be fed through an attic, down through a ceiling.. 3 hours work min costing me £100's, which I can't afford tbh. I could conceivably do it, if I knew how to remove the cable, replace with 30m of new stuff, but then my warranty will likely be compromised wouldn't it. But then even if I did run it downstairs, to one of the 3 freezing cold rooms, it would be running overtime, & totally out of kilter, just being left to trip the rads on, pretty much all day long. The average day room temp in these 3 rooms, I'd hazard a guess is about 14*C, they can never ever get any higher than that, that's even with their room rad or rads producing heat, because (& pretty blindingly simply & also as blindingly obviously) so much cold is coming up from uninsulated cold floor & in through uninsulated cold walls. I honestly think we're at an impasse here, whereby I say the cause of the cold is fundamentally due to the uninsulated nature of the rooms, & you say the cause is the heating system isn't introducing enough heat. I'm absolutely adamant, & you guys are. But look, I live here, the doctor analogy is applicable/ you know your own body best analogy. I will do my best with the engineer though. I'll record his voice saying the answer to each thing you suggested to ask. Thanks, Zoot Thanks, Zoot

So here Rick, you -are- unless I'm mistaken, saying all my rads, should be set to 'on', overnight. In my life I've never known any house, any heating system, anywhere, in any country Ive been to including cold NZ, to have the rads on overnight. I cannot possibly believe this is what you or anyone is suggesting. I just can't sorry. Ive never heard anything suggested being so preposterous. All 12 rads, to be on, when I'm alone for 9 hours in one room.. when not only do I not even want heat (because I'm under a duvet), but also when I open a window to sleep, needing a bit of cold air/ how I prefer.. is such daftness I can't believe this is being suggested. How can I possibly run my house like this? I can't sorry, this is sheer madness to me. The wastage, the expenditure, just no way. This may be how you like your bedroom overnight, maybe in a family of 4, with all your rads on, but never in my life have I ever heard of it before, by anyone, anywhere. You yourself agreed with the storage heater ridiculousness, of them belting out heat at 3:45am. You agreed. No-one could ----possibly, possibly---- disagree either. It's like having a car sat in the driveway idle, but left on & somehow using up MORE fuel, than you do when actually driving it. "Yes that's logical, keep it on running idle in the drive overnight, that's what they do". You'd commit that person to a mental asylum.

No, none have. The installer asked this question too. I have no idea why this question would be asked, by you, or by him, if the room's rads are ultimately defined by the 'controller thermostat small box'.. therefore cannot for the life of me comprehend why any discussion of extra thermostats/ TRV's, makes any logical sense. Their mention merely adds further confusion for me.

Hi Nick, alas I'm not blessed with family to help, 86/90 yr old frail parents, brother 200m away not close-brothers either. I don't even know anyone in wales to ask to tea, let alone ask to come & decipher some engineer's spiel! I can spin the wheel on the controller though, know how to zip around it's menu (having to on phone to Vaillant, yet again, due to some minor fault). I'm even adept at it. But look I don't know what is being meant, by "set the heating to always on". I must try & establish what, exactly, is being asked here. Everyone seems to all know what is meant; but Ive repeatedly said that I do not, & no-one answers. Thanks, Zoot

Hi ProDave, honestly thanks for trying to explain it, but if I can't understand "If you still have an account balance of £300 at near the end of winter then you are paying more than you need to".. I just can't do this. I've tried & tried for so long so many times with this stupid electric billing system. But I can never get it. Not even with childlike analogies. It just doesn't compute. If my prior HP was (& afaict this is what you mean by 'always on' but I don't know) set to go on-off all day long, then afaict it was, in all normalcy, 'always on'. That is if you can't be suggesting in a 3-bed cottage just me living here, that I have all my 12 rads on continuously overnight: I just can't bring myself to believe that is what you are suggesting as it makes no logical sense. So if my prior system was always on, for weeks on end set like so, during the winter & despite what my expense on electricity.. then the test is done, surely. The 'put your HP set to always on' test (which you're asking me to set the new HO to) has been done. It failed. The cottage remained freezing. Bar two newbuild rooms that is (sod's law being the least used rooms). I'm in a perpetual cycle of non-understanding here. And the number of subjects I cannot understand, is increacing, with now mention if electric bills. I'll have to bail out, tbh, & with huge respect to all here, simply because I can't cope. I'm getting increacingly confused, leading to increasing kinda creeping mild stress. Thanks, Zoot

@-rick- I can certainly give him your wording here, to the engineer, on Monday.. despite not understand some of what you're asking me to ask him For eg. Always on?? Why would I want the heating always on?? (Why would anyone want their heating always on??) I don't want to wake up sweating, besides, you & I were on the same page grumbling about Storage heaters being on at 3:53 am when you absolutely least want them to. So the very first thing, you're asking me to ask him here, I don't understand whatsoever as to why you'd want me to request this. From then on, I'm further confused. But I can show him your reply, record his answer on my iPad's audio, & write down what he said. But then type it on here, for it to be "translated", by you guys. I mean I'm exhausted enough. But if that's the only way. TRV's which iirc are independent thermostats.. plus separate thermostats.. & my head explodes. I cannot understand an iota of this principle. Apologies. How to be ready: 1. Get the engineer on Monday to show you how to: a. turn heating to - "always on" - "always off" - "timer" b. adjust the set temperature c. adjust the timer 2. Deal with the bedroom external walls as discussed. 3. If needed, arrange for the thermostat/heatpump controller to be moved to a cold part of the house 4. Possibly, get TRVs installed on the radiators in the warm part of the house (this is something that couldbe done if needed at a later date).

@S2D2 Your £700 figure has polaxed me. I've no comprehension why you'd pick such a figure (unless you live in a castle?!). I know I pay £70 odd, each month. Now this is likely not an actual figure of useage in winter, because it's compromise/ average/ I forget the word, figure. When I call up Octopus to ask why my 'balance is £300 in credit' & what this means, I ask them to please speak very slowly, to explain, to please use simple analogies, to help me understand, what on god's name this figure means. Just this. They do so, but I cannot understand a word they say; I have to politely say thanks but I still haven't a clue what this figure even is at the end of the call. It's economics. My brain doesn't compute economics. So much so, that the very fundamental lesson 1/ page 1 example of 'supply & demand'... is 100% counterintuitive, to my brain. I do not understand economics. It seems you need to have a basic grasp of it, in order to pick the bones out of these super-complicated (to me) electricity bills. So I don't. I set up a direct debit, & £70 is taken each month. I often put in a meter reading, but still, it takes £70 each month (IE it seems my putting in meter reading, makes zero effect, on what is taken each month.. so I never know why on god's earth am I even being asked, to put in meter numbers at all?? A rhetorical question). I just pay £70. And enough already. Whether that is a correct figure, or wildly incorrect, I have no clue whatsoever. I dare not ask, or rather there's zero point me asking an Octopus person, because I won't understand a word of their reply. Thanks Zoot

Hi ProDave, as Ive said I just kinda left both systems for the installer to set, last thing. On Monday, I can certainly ask the engineer (come to fix HW issue) to set it a certain way. But I have no idea what to ask. When you say 'leave it on 24/7' I'm not quite understanding what you mean: you see I know that my system is working 24/7, what I mean is it's connected up to receive power, but obviously doesn't produce rad heat overnight. But it's still 'on' nevertheless. So this word "on" is hugely ambiguous. Are you suggesting I leave all the rads to be warm for 24/7 ? Surely not as I wouldn't be able to sleep, it seems massively wasteful, environmentally ridiculous, when just 1 person living here. So you might be suggesting some kind of setting -between- these two situations. If so, isn't that what I had it set ti before with my prior system with the rads dipping on-off all day?? I've tried that. The try failed. The cottage remained freezing. I'm also not understanding the thermostat suggestion thing. The suggestion to place it somewhere other than where the installer put it. Why, would the installer put it anywhere other than a sensible place? How can I override his decision, & ask him to place it some other room, when I can't even understand the system? Afaik, the thermostat needs to be close to the cylinder. Close to the other interface box too, which itself has to be close to the cylinder. Cylinders are typucally found in spae bedroom cupboards. I know this to be true, as Ive seen them with my own eyes, in almost all the houses Ive ever set foot in. An orange foam covered tank, warm, usually in a tiny cupboard often called 'airing cubboard' residing within an upstairs bedroom. Usually the smallest, least used bedroom. When I call up saying 'another fault' the Vaillant fix team person asks me to look at the screen on the interface, then go to the controller (I think this smallest box is also referred to as the thermostat). So I have to dart between them. I can't do that, if the thermostat, has been rewired (a huge length of cable running 15m away from where it is) to be in one of my cold rooms downstairs. Thanks Zoot

@SteamyTea apologies I accept you -are- morally superior, in that you have vastly more building knowledge than I. I just don't care for snapping posts that seem to wish for likes, more than offer help. I'll take it on the chin tho, from yourself. Thanks, Zoot

Sorry I don't understand a word of this post (apart from credit to Rick bit). £700??? I pay £70. Selling the house? This is my first house, bought for a steal, which Ive renovated -with fantastic help- that fits me like a glove. A fluke gem which I'll never find another place like it. Besides, 9-years being bullied by sometimes viscous hatred by of a pack of locals, living all around me, which Ive mostly quelled with police help.. I refuse to be defeated, which IS to sell up; the very goal of the coward haters. Making me MORE intent, to stay. Despite the cold, & dreadful damp climate. I'll be watching a YouTube channel as to whether to dig out the floor: a similar sized stone cottage, with a HP, new owners with a similar skillset as me. That will give me the best guage of whether it is a good idea, or not. Despite the owner not being anywhere near as experienced as those on here. Yiu don't need experience, to tell if something is warm. To twll why something is. To determine why something isn't warm, too. It's intuitive. It's a case of living in the area, hearing of others with similar stone properties they find impossible to heat. The first 2 months here, I had a physical pain in my lungs, I knew 1000% was due to the climate. The heavy, damp, welsh hills/ valleys something or other local oddness. It wasn't something I made up, because it was a pronounced physical pain/ ache, which was the nearest Ive come to selling up. This pain abated when I visited few days in England, & returned when I arrived back in the local vicinity. It was extremely strange. Never had any lung probs, never known anything like it, anywhere in the world that Ive been to, including NZ/ Malaysia/ Thailand humid countries etc. This huge delbilitating chest ache did fully abate in time. In 2 months as I said. Now, I don't need a doctor to tell me this wasn't likely true, or that this area doesn't have some climate-related factor that was the cause of it. I just knew, 1000%, it to be true. It was true. You guys...... would dispute it till the cows come home. In fact, you did exactly this. Not you specifically s2d2. Sometimes, an area does just proove to be ----especially cold---- &/ or ----especially damp/ humid/ whatever that aspect is----- without some humidity reading froma gadget, dismissing it as nonsense. The same with warming this cottage. You can't. I swear to god that to be true.. that you just can't. Zoot

Again, blaming me for the operation of the HP, rather than accepting some houses... are just impossibly cold. I said before Rick, I ran the old HP at a continuous setting way. I remember it going on & off, the rads dipping on & off, all day. Was this situation cause for my bathroom, kitchen, main room to notice an iota of warmth? No. Never. Not even for 5 minutes, in these 3 main useage rooms, in 5 years of running that HP, the way you keep saying it's best to run it. Why was it set like this? I've no idea: I presume the installer did so innitially. I never changed it. Freezing damn cold. YOUR chosen way of operation. The ONLY time Ive felt a bit of warmth, is with the new HP running at a non-optimal way. Why was it set like so (did I choose this? No). Because the recent installer set it the new HP to run like so. I never changed it to this setting. If it's running at an alarmingly high cost way, currently, then I will have to change it. Beacause I cannot afford to run it so. But it is NOT my choice, the way both systems, were set. They are too complicated for me to set them. I say as much at the time of install, & ask the guy to do what he thinks best. [[I never expected to feel any warmth either. I knew a HP is totally incorrect for here. Hence I only got it for the cylinder. I've been proven entirely correct that at whatever setting, optimally or not, a 9kW HP hasn't a hope in HELL of providing heat, in this cottage. Proven correct. I mean it's like knowing your own body isn't it.. YOU are the one who best knows it, NOT NOT NOT neccessarily, the doctor with the pHD!!]] Thanks, Zoot

Sorry but this is sanctamonius ST. My bathroom is tiny. It could only accommodate a small chrome towel rail. It has zero insulation, bar some loft fluff/ doubling up this too, made no noticeable difference. I've run the old HP at a continuous setting, with medium warm rads. And I've run this new HP at 2x blocks of heating periods, with higher rads. The bathroom was freezing cold before, most often seeing your breath & never one iota of warmth felt. The bathroom is also similarly freezing cold, wit( the new HP. This prooves, your/ anyone else's theory that "He's not running the HP correct, if he did so, the bathroom would have some warmth felt" absolute BS. Utter twaddle. The bathroom, is freezing cold, because SO much cold is winning against little heat. It is that simple. It is that blindingly obvious. Whether you have knowledge, & that I don't have as much as you, or not. It is BLINDINGLY that obvious, why it's freezing. THE STRUCTURE --NOT-- FKN ME OK!! If a bathroom is built like mine is, with zero insulation under the floor, zero insulation in the walls, built onto one old original freezing cold thick stone wall, north-facing, & doesn't have the wall area for anything bigger than a fancy towel rail.. it WILL be freezing cold. It hasn't a hope of being warm. It has never, ever, once ever been warm. Not even with a fan heater on almost continuously. I cannot stand this ganging up. With others all chiming in with the likes. It's mild bullying. And no help whatsoever either. You can't offer help?? then why post at all-? to glean a few likes to massage an ego is that the reason? Enough. Zoot

@-rick- I appreciate what you say here. And most kind to think from my pov as much as you are doing. But I do find some opposing sort of opinion, if I may: the only time Ive ever said to myself 'ooh I can actually feel a bit of warmth! I can barely believe it! Warmth in my cottage?!' is since this new Monobloc's been in for the 3 weeks. Doing it's 2-hour block of rads on periods. That's the only time, in the last 5 years Ive actually noticed some warmth from them, enough to get a modicum of comfort. So to say to me, no I have this present setting wrong, that I have to turn the system output down & run it longer instead (which is I believe how I/ or rather someone else set the prior Split HP system to run: it was on more continuously, but the rads weren't nearly as hot) & as a consequence, I'll not feel my bit of warmth, Is.. well, it's just counterintuitive, it's taking my bit of warmth, away from me. I can't see how I could rationally make that decision. When I wake up, last 3 weeks, I'm not stepping from duvet into a freezing cold room. It's not say over 16*C, no, but I'm not noticing cold immediately as I'm so used to here for 10 years. That's a huge change. Even for just a block of 2 hours.. it's like a mini luxury for me. Honestly Rick as Ive said, I've only used the HP as a HW source. It's just not meant to reside in such a dwelling. And I feel grateful for the free cylinder. But iteasy to see they're designed for Scandi timber homes, having big insulation as priority in floors/ walls/ ceilings. I can't expect it to work here in a stone cottage sat upon cold clay with these slate & cold mud walls, honestly, I just can't. And I dont blame it for not working here as it's designed to at all. But I do need it to give me HW. Because it's impossibly cold in my tiny bathroom for 6 if not 8 months of the year to have a shower (even with it's towel-rail HP rad on). So I -have- to have baths. It's this bathroom, & adjacent kitchen, which are the most uncomfortably cold rooms. They pip the main old big room! It's barking mad the way this house is cold. Sometimes it's noticeably mild outside in the air, & when I nip to the bathroom, I can see my breath. It was 16*C on my iPad in my area outside in autumn I recall, & felt like it too, mild, then I go to pee.. & I can see my breath. THAT's what it is often like here. it's bonkers cold. Irrationally cold. Completely, unusually, cold. So imagine the bathroom when it's 0*C outside!! No HP can be expected to input heat into such a bathroom. Like the cloying wet atmosphere, the cold is & I'm not even exaggerating, like an huge enemy entity. Thanks, Zoot

That's another good point Rick. And another following that too. Yup could be a summer project, to address the upstairs bedrooms. But my sense, that is you do simply get this from living here/ & a few exceptions houses are just 'impossibly cold'.. is the the vast majority of the cold ingress is UP & IN from the walls. Like you point to, I will never be aiming to run the HP on flat out. The rads are hotter now, yes, but the installer (trained up by Vaillant, & used by Vaillant) said this Monobloc os just able to do this higher rads output. So I assume the rads are not running flat out, but just set "medium" currently. I'll only ever be able to use two blocks of heat, 7-9am & 6-8pm. And the setback temp at 12*C. So that setting is surely on the 'easy HPump workload' side of operation, not straining it at all. Honestly, I just never expected, nor do I ever expect, this HeatPump (or any HP) to be able to warm this cottage. It's not designed for it. They wanted to pull out & not install it due to U calculations or whatever the thing's called, which they did here & found it so low as to be totally unsuitable for a HP. But nevertheless, I do expect to be able to get hot water. In the morning, 2 hours after it's meant to have done it's 'HW create period' (as I call it as Ive no other way to describe what on earth to call this 1 hour HW period) of 1 hour 9-10 am. And this is exactly what I had for 3 weeks too & what Ive always had, producing very HW... until it failed to, today. I find them unbelievably complicated. I can't understand a word the engineer, or installer gabbles on about. So damn fast. Not a word. All I can do, is ask the installer to "please just set it to medium/ all of it". And keep my fingers x'd it keeps working. But the number of callouts of the Vaillant engineers, to fix this, fix that, no HW, no water pressure, was so numerous & extensive on the last system (that's totally separate to the noise issue plaguing me).. that I'm just not surprised the new one's failed in 3 weeks. As soon as the winter's out I will turn the damn thing off. I can live with no HW, having a shower (that works- & I installed that too!), & never using any hot tap ever. Thanks Zoot

Hi Rick, very valid points- all taken into consideration. If I -could- just block the perimeter loft air from hitting the main room ceiling edges, by injecting foam.. I'd think that's a logical 1st step. Evaluate. If no difference felt, then the whole hog wall renovation of the 2 bedrooms needs to be considered. The tent analogy.. still eludes me! Nevermind. I'll put a line under this cold ingress problem, for now. Nearing winter's end anyway. ----- Back to Vaillant success. Or not.. Erm.. spanner in the works: new Monobloc (Arotherm Plus is the exact wording description I'm informed today by them) system faulty already. 3 weeks that took. No HW last evening, no HW this morning. Otherwise rads working as normal. Engineer visit booked Monday. No fault code showing up on little Thermostat controller screen, nor on the 'Interface' box between cylinder & outside HPump box. These things, are SO fallible, you need a lifetime warranty to be able to live normally-reassured with them. I have only a 2 year warranty.. & I'm panicking about the cost of engineer fix visits after the 2 year mark, already now just 3 weeks in. Zoot

@-rick- Many thanks again for your suggestions: All taken on board/ redoing the upstairs plasterboard especially etc. Understood. A big job I can't quite plunge into right now, February etc. But food for thought! And @Big Jimbo for the holes / foam idea: this is the most feasable idea, for me, & as I don't neccessarily need these bedrooms warm, only priority is improving the big room below. I'll put a line under this thread, having been a conclusion to my Vaillant battle, now me drifting way off topic. Fantastic help, as per usual. Zoothorn

Here's as it was when I bought it, a scruffy property. Woman who lived here sold it, due to the cold inside apparently. Far end is the kitchen/ bathroom 80's single story addition. My yellow block area, is where my 2021 (2-story) extension is. The porch is airtight enough, no draughts evident, & you then enter house via the next door into sittingroom. Thick curtain blocks this door off nicely, once inside. My pointer aims to the start of the crappy brick 1st floor addition. 1 brick course? (possibly 2 if I'm lucky) & no idea if even 1" of celotex between: certainly feels like no insulation added. Thanks, Zoot

Photo 1 here, is one of the 4 areas, around the sides of the main sit'room, which surely introduce cold ingress, downwards. 3x are above windows, 1x is above door. No idea what they're called, because I've never seen anything of the like before. Where my yellow marker is (square of paper).. right here is a board of some kind. If I knock it sounds hollow. This one's the biggest, over the 1 big window. Pic 2 shows upstairs, above it: a sort of boxed affair. Likely a cavity inside where the bedroom cold air, sits down directly onto my main sittingroom ceiling edges. These 4x areas are -separate- from the ring of cold loft air, trapped in the 4" cavities behind my bedroom plasterboard walls, which sit around the perimeter of the sittingroom ceiling: I can only describe this ring. I cannot photo it. Thanks, Zoot