zoothorn

Ok thanks markc.. was just off this minute to get soft sand! Would you have it level with my slate door sill bit? My floor inside is 1" below this, for reasons mentioned in #1. Or same level as floor? Zh

Nit in yiur opad factome yiu dodnt. Thats hiw o caught ot.

John is 5:1 about right fir this ? (fir... Ive caught this frim yiu, opad disease).

Ah good, ok will try this way then. 5:1 mix, straight onto clay ground ok? Thanks, zoot

Hi markc, thanks/ understood. So you mean compacting once some sort of sub base is put down? I had thought this job might be just roughly level off area, mortar, slabs.. adjust level with a rubber mallet. Is that completely wrong?

@joe90 if I'm pretty confident my ground is compacted enough, to get these above paving slabs down for my entrance walk bit, would I need to do layers of sub stuff, whacker plate? Seems alot more complicated than I anticipated. Maybe a simpler way? Thanks,, zoot

Basically 4 of these paving slabs maybe, spanning the doorway inc frame spot on. Then create a top step @ ground level. https://www.jewson.co.uk/p/ultipro-farndon-natural-utility-paving-450-x-450-x-32mm-LSMUF555

Hi John. Well it was just exposed by the builder/ but not disturbed. so it seems to be fairly well-compacted clay basically, additionally so with me walking on it, in/ out of the room for 2 years. thanks, Zooter

Hi chaps. I wonder of anyone could help on this. I've researched 'laying slabs' but all clips involve sub bases, whackerplates, sandy mortar mix bags... I don't think my level area warrants this, just my hunch. Could I just clear a level area of this compacted ground, whack down 40mm mortar, lay say 4x 18" patio slabs, mortar as grout afterwards? Thanks, zoot.

Hi chaps, I've a smallish job to build an "entry walk/ & step area" to my workshop (lower-room of new extention). As the room's 450mm below ground level (Grr.. shoulda been 200mm), Im walking down a slope, then up over sill > in. So maybe a level walk bit, then a step to form the top @ ground level? I don't really know/ ideas welcome. Room is an annoying 25mm below door sill too. Cable to help idea of slope. Wood for idea of walk flat bit. Ive also got an old cottage foundation coin here, rather alarmingly to me.. I wonder if I could hide while Im at it. I dont want a gap for rain to collect between it & my entry walk bit. Thanks for reading, zoot.

This sounds for me though like a complicated retrofit. My ashp also goes off when my heating programmer says off. But comes on/ overrides this off setup period, to do this frost thing. Its like shroedinger's cat, the ashp at this juncture is both off & on. Zoot's quantum heat pump. Separate point: ok now ProDave you I assume, like me, dial in an overnight setback situation, correct? If so what are your heating on & off times? Thanks, zh

Hi Marvin, well yes say half the winter nights might be. But I still can't understand: A) why the outside trip figure isn't minus 3*C, if refrigerant which is designed to be an antifreeze, exists in outside unit. B) why, if the frost mode moves around rad water, only inside, the 3*C trip figure shouldn't be registered from the -inside- temp sensor. C) why if the room the hydraulic unit (noisey box) in bedroom cupboard is in, registers no less than 8*C ever therefore the rest of the rooms temps similar, rad water needs moving around rooms ever at all. No other CH system's done this Ive ever known, bc no logic to it. D) why this trip figure can't be adjusted, even by engineers. E) why this trip fig can't be deactivated. F) why it even exists if it's not shifting any water around outside, in environments susceptible to frost, but instead shifting water around inside, in environments never susceptible to frost (or incredibly unlikely if I find the inside lowest temp around 8*C, probably a full 6 degrees higher than any frost likely to happen). If it shifted water around inside at 2.31am, in order to push it (via basic hydraulic pressure theory) OUTSIDE... to "warm" units in frost- susceptible-areas SOME LOGIC would exist. But it doesn't outside at all. So why, if the pipes connecting the inside to outside units DO NOT by nature carry water, & do not replace the High Pressure gas (or refrigerant or wtf lives in these pipes) with "warm" water (especially in the opposite direction to normal) to carry it to the outside unit..... & back again to the rads too..... logic tells me no water is being circulated along these pipes, no water is going to frost susceptible ares ( outside ). So why why why in this wretched mode, is water ONLY being circulated around the flaming rads inside the house when the temp is 8*C?!?!? If there was some circulation within the outside unit at 2.31am, logic exists. But instead it happens not out there (apparently if its minus 4 outside no circulation happens: fkn nuts if there's a 'frost mode' !!) , but only only only inside where it can never, possibly, have any logic to circulate water if rooms never dip below say 7 to 8 degrees at the coldest. Is rad water by nature 5 degrees lower than surrounding sir temp?! Fk no. Drives me fkn insane. Madenning. And I have the same fkn system to contend with on the new system!!!

ProDave, the point is being missed here. The only issue in question, is this appaling overnight frost mode's design ( keeping one awake with terrible nouse ). Not the effectiveness of the ashp to heat this old house ( 90% which includes 2 additions as freezingly uninsulated as the stone shell they attatch to) which I knew wouldn't work but I nevertheless agreed/ wanted it. Why? Because if I have a mice infested rotten cylinder, & no rads... the prospect of getting this replaced with -anything- new (plus as a bonus some rads & a great big fanny etc) then I can't possibly say " no thanks ". On the contrary Im gonna be begging them to fit it. Now, if I find it useless -it seems to me- of heating my new extention (well half useless: it works in these two rooms well from 4 pm to 10 pm).... then I have a right to moan. I am - not though - moaning about how it fails to heat 90% of the house, all times, because it's not fair to criticise it ( I knew it wouldn't heat it whatoever, not any of the 5 rooms even slightly, because it cannot, bc there is simply too much cold for it to battle). Even knowing this likelihood beforehand, even with surveyor saying " it'll make cttg really warm you won't need a stove " ( i knew totally wouldn't be )....... Im still gonna get the ashp fitted > which has resulted in it preventing sleep, bc of some design disaster the mfr has concurred exists enough to replace the whole thing foc.

Ho Marvin, if I had this option & it let me override the frost blx mode... by god I'd have found it. I've spent many msny hours on calls, to their tech dept to try & find a way to stop it let alone countless engineer visits " this will do it, new pcb boards, 100% promise ". No you're not misin summink. The frost mode trip figure, in the wretched software which cannot be altered, is 3*C outside temp. Same with the replacement ashp they'll put in. Same pcb boards. Germany mfr are tho ( for future customers ) redesigning it. Bc of me! So if its gonna be 5*C according to forecast.. I have to be safer than sorry & turn the bigass red Kyle switch OFF at 11pm. That's most nights of the winter. Now you can possibly see how infuriating this has been... & possibly still might be with the new ashp too.

Haha.. just seen this. Good one DJ. I like your style. 6 pages actually. The only reason I said put it in was to add value to the property tbh. I knew it wouldn't possibly be capable of heating this house. But not heating me AND keeping me awake all night? That's double fkn useless.

Hi John, Im a bit confused as to what I mean by turn off, & maybe others idea of what it means to do this. No, I recall ProDave not liking any tiny bit of noise overnight ( he would have seeked therapy if his was like mine in frost mode ). But i dont think he turns his off.. i think he just has the setback situation dialed in when he sleeps. Now, is this what some say is " off"? If so, then I do likewise to ProDave. But I am forced to go a whole step beyond this, in order to prevent the frost mode happening: I have a huge red plastic switch ( like the one Kyle turned the internet back on with, in South Park) which cuts all power to the system. Now that... is as off as off can be. Anyway, it is remotely possible that the new ashp's 2.31am satanic frost mode, might not be heard, by me t'other end of house to the demon box with pump in ( vaillant also agree to put this ghastly thing next to back door. Woohoo!).. but I aintholdin me breath tbh. I bet you it'll at the least make ProDave overnight slight rad noise, if not a bit more & some horrorshow pump motor noise transmitted along the system: what I do know, is it's very likely, I won't be hearing the box's pump directly from it via 2 thin walls/ 2 thin wood doors. So if it introduces any irritating noise through rads at 2.31 am.. heard once, even if slight, after what ive put up with.. & my hackles will be raised enough to have to resort, once again/ back to square 1, to my big red OFF switch at 11 pm. Exactly the same.

Hi GW. I understand the sentiment here.. but look I have an 8kw log burner. I have when I had plenty of free wood, run the stove during the whole evening day after day before = alot of heat into this main old shell, regularly for 2 months. It never once though felt like the fabric got any different.. it remained ludicrously cold. I just don't believe a slate & concrete floor upon wet clay cottage - can- retain heat, sufficient enough heat, in order to say the fabric of the house will change after two months etc. You need some form of insulation, in my estimation minimum 2 cm under floor & in walls, in order for retention to happen. Or maybe a sandstone instead with more air within the stone structure or something. Not out in w. Wales in my slate cottage you aint doing ya poncy retention see. So I've ruled out this idea of running the ashp for hugely long contiunal periods (further ruled out as it is impossible for me to afford) so the idea isn't feasable. So all I do to give the ashp due credit, is discard the results in the old house. Just how does it perform in my newly built well insulated room ( its just not fair to assail how it performs in an old stone miners cttg, suffice to say its not worth putting the rads on: you just --cannot-- expect a v.moderately hot rad, in the old house, to heat anywhere but a foot or so around it, ever). So can the ashp heat my new room? Hmm yes, just, with a huge struggle it can. Can it heat it when I want? No, absolutely not, unless I keep the bloody rad on every hour of every day from now until march.. then I could: but this idea is so preposterous; especially in this time of curtailing wastefulness/ helping the polar bears etc, & especially the cost of such a wasteful exercise. Thanks zoot.

No. In normal operating I don't: only when it gets very cold (then I'm forced to). Generally I put my night setback -afaik is normal use- so heating off at 9.30 pm, on at 6.30 am. This means the system is on 24 hrs/ day. But doing so, the rads don't warm up until midday & house is cold until mid afternoon. Even in a newly built insulated room. Useless. I do not intend to put the setback/ heating to start midnight in order to get the rads warm by 7am, to get some warmth in this bedroom by 8 am. Hearing radiators work just enough to be irritating in a quiet bedroom is reason enough not to have a rad on in a bedroom overnight, besides it being ridiculous anyway when you want a cooler temp... besides being a huge waste of 7hrs electricity running the whole system just to get a modicum of heat into one bedroom 1st thing. It is a hopeless system. Whether the new one will be any better though time will tell. But Im not holding my breath. A £5 fan heater is currently better at getting me warm.

Actually turned out well markc, just completed. I rescued the flab & refilled gaps above it.

Vaillant say I should be able to up the flow temp on this replacement ashp, as i did before, but the rad temps still seemed very hampered by the outside sensor ( seems just a crap thing ) which influences the temp too.. a second infuriating aspect of it besides it tripping the wretched night frost cycle at an infuriatingly & incomprehensiblly high 3*C point (the same damn circuit with same 3*C figure.. Im still lumped to having on the replacement ashp). Hope new sensor might not curtail the rads temps as much tho as I wouldn't want to up the flow temp further to negate it's influence: but even so its can only be the likelihood of cold rooms again until mid afternoon with a similar ashp.

The significance you mean being I could in theory then, if it is R290, get my rads up a bit hotter-? I think my rads are ordinary 'doubles'.. just bigass ones, well 2/8 are, the rest are normally sized couldn't be bigass due to logistics fitting them in.

Hi GW.. no I can ask though; would this be relevant to how it might perform in frost mode overnight? ( or do you have plans to siphon it off & huff it maybe-?). Is it huffable..?