zoothorn

Yup ok thanks IanR, no I didn't know this.. but its the wild west here/ might be different to england, & for the purpose of patchin up me tank which will be needed either way, I'm just going to crack on.

Ok great. I'll do a good clean up of area, & take a clearer pic of how its constructed. No it'll be covered by plants, & only looks twds stream.. so no need to be perfect, just functionally patched up. Thanks markc

Hi chaps, next job on my delapidated cottage list, is patchin' up me septic tank wall ( top part of one side ). If I could ask how. Like a nazi bunker, buried on 3 sides, the top half of 4th wall exposed = bad frost damage? blockwork has crumbled etc. A tricky prospect for me.. but possible for me? I do get some pong from holes.. so a job rather overdue. Thanks alot, zoot.

Yup it's important info to be aware of. So you basically use ppe, use with care, & by very localised use ( a few cm's worth drip fed into a hollow stem, even via a farmers syringe ).. never ever spraying it on. You are not exposing yourself to it at all like so. The roundup US scare was farmers exposed to it from vast machines, inhaling it over donkeys years. For James it's either this way, or getting in experts ( who'll use the same pink glyphosate but legal weaker stuff now so less effective, in ppe with syringes possibly injecting into the low stem areas, without cutting as it saves them having the added hassle to dispose of the greenery ) who'll charge you hundreds for a less effective treatment. Or 3rd option is to use even weaker stuff ie roundup, in greater quantities, which likely will not be effective at all.

James, I had about 10x this area of JK, similar height ( thats its max height generally speaking ) when I moved to my cottage, one reason why it was cheap. Seriously entrenched. A corner of a whole field of it too just over from me, downstream thankfully. Ive spent 5 years treating it mine, but it still pops up, albeit a few sprigs only now @ 10" height max. But I have won on the whole, just. Only one thing to consider treatmentwise, strong pink glyphosate. No roundup nonsense. Now this stuff is illegal though... so I will pm an idea. You must do asap ( now is almost too late this year ), your n'bor doing you a favour pointing it out if not a direct threat to their plot. Still dry evening, strong gardening gloves taped wrists I do with wet weather gear on, wellies, glasses & a proper big rubber 2x filter mask job. As its so tall treating the leaves is n/a as its too established to feasably do this. I did this: very carefully cut each to 6"... place cuttings carefully into a strong black binliner. Incinerate later ie logburner, not a leaf or any bit of it forgotten. Bleach secateurs. Then you have the hollow stems. Carefully spray into each stem, almost drip by drip ( it'll blitz immediate area even so ). Next year will be half height, do same. Year after will be 1/4 height: then don't cut to stems.. but now treat the leaves instead. This method simply what my builder showed me, the only way, they know out here... cos in areas its rampant in wales. Zoot.

Dpm, you're suggesting there's a fault someone could come check, & fix. It is firmly established there isn't a fault/ that this mode is how both mine, & the proposed ashp is designed/ you cannot change it/ or it would've been fixed after 10 engineer visits. The only thing to check by any engineer, is the software, in germany, telling this damn system to come noisily alive overnight.. that means a retrofit of every similar ashp sold. Which they won't do. Which they tried in vain to do on mine. What they tell me they -are- doing, is a big meeting to discuss how NOT to include this design distaster in their ashp's, sold from now on. But that cannot help mine. Nor can the replacement if its made prior to this potential 2022 redesign.

Hi ProDave, but it will - not - be silent at night. This is the damndest thing. Its the same software in this other ashp, meaning it also will do this overnight frost cycle monstrosity. ONLY thing different, I am only 'told' so, is this pump "will be quieter" a chap says. I had an engineer here a year ago, actually replaced the pump said "ooh thats quieter eh?" (yes muggins said, at 4pm). A week later 3am.. the fkn same "high gear" night noise. Cant trust a word. So my confidence in what they say... zero. So how it works, via details of the pump types Ive demanded is the only way I can get confidence this new pump, put in the exact spot as the old unit's no doubt ( with same software, engaging same wretched overnight cycle), WILL POSSIBLY be quieter... is to pore over techy pump details possibly even calling the pump mfr, to get certainty, that it DOES only have one "gear" therefore diferent from my prior system's ghastly pump.. & possibly bearable overnight. If I cant extract this info.. then its as much a chance the new system will be identical, to the old one. They've repeatedly said over a year " this will fix it, definitely". The same. Another engineer comes, tries. The same. Another, the same. Im left to plead with the next one (head UK engineer, two chaps here, new pcb boards in hand ) "I promise you, issue WILL BE solved today ", the same. April. Not heard back since. Now you get the full picture of the fight Ive had. Ontop of the stress of sleep deprivation. A triumph to get them to replace ... but will it be the sodding same is the nagging q.

Anyway Im once again told with certainty, that this Heat Exchange pump simply has only ' gear '. So thats all I have for surity. So assuming this is a normal CH running ' gear' which wouldn't likely be anything fast/ high pitched/ high gear.. plus... my insistance (now I understand this pump exists & will be inside the bloody home) that this Heat Exchanger unit with it inside, NOT be put upstairs.. That hopefully will be sufficient, that when this fkn overnight frost mode innitiates (which it will bloody do/ nothing I can do to prevent it) the damn pump noise will be far enough away from bedrooms & possibly sufficiently unobtrusive.... to not be heard, at all, upstairs. A worthwhile gamble. But, if the installers say the Heat Exchanger has to go upstairs... Urgh: I just cant accept this. I think surely they would understand if I kicked up a fuss after a year of this sh*t with this wretched thing upstairs ruining sleep in all bedrooms.

No understood. I only mention, because I sense this info I squeezed from them, when I push really hard... like they're letting me in on a ' behind the counter' fact. Not that it would ever ever be admitted, no way. Just a plus point to me. Helps me get confidence that my fight is entirely rational, logical. Nothing more.

Well that's an interesting angle dpm. But the room the internal sensor is in, gets never lower than 8*C. Its only the outside sensor's reading a tipping/ tripping point of 3*C that's of relevance to the damn frost cycle. Hence my idea of building a temporary ' bird box ' of insulation to climb a ladder every cold period & shove on the exterior sensor.. as a way to keep this damn 3*C figure at bay from it.

Hi dangti6, Hw is fine perfect for me just runs out last legs end of a good size bath. You can adjust both the temp & ammount easily. No point doing in summer as a test, because its only sub the fixed software tipping point of the outside sensor... of 3*C. I reitterated my opinion, to them, that i think all this might be some software designer doing a friday mistake of leaving off the "-" before the 3. Minus 3*C, push some stuff around just the outside hardware, which afaict contains antifreeze anyway... makes SOME semblence of logic. But run water thru my rads in 9*C rooms instead, not pushing anything around outside hardware ( this is what im told it is doing at 3 am sub 3*C.... !!.... utterly absurd if true, absurd telling this pap.... if it isnt true) is abominably illogical. So if I can't understand what it's doing, I can't understand the problem, so I can't be in a position to be clear enough to put bullet point demands to them. I have demanded the lead engineer call/ email me, with tech details of the inside new pump... clutcing at starws for any deciphering of what differences new to old pump might be, just to get a tiny bit more clarity, not as anything definitive. Ridiculous I should hsve to ask this. One feather in my cap... the tech dept have said that there was a design flaw, insomuch as the pump in my existing hydraulic unit, should not have been chosen for it/ its ott/ hence going into this high " gear " when it doesnt need to. But Im still left to blindly guess that this new pump, sat in same damn place, same coming in at 3 am, will be quieter. But what a tiny bit quieter?? Someone's subjective opinion quieter?? Some tiny incriment on a flaming decibel reading quieter?? Anyway thanks for that. Zh

Another hour on phoneto vaillant to try explaining the pump thing. Im now told my problem pump, effectively splits into -two- pumps, & the " problem one goes outside, a quieter one inside". Omfg. So now I do have a pump, inside, in same place as old one, doing same thing as old one, same times/ same mode = My worst suspicions confirmed. The only reassurance being " inside pump has only one ' gear' & will be quieter". But how can I possibly be sure? Quieter. A subjective opinion? Hopelessly vague. And Im still not understanding why water is in need of being pumped around inside the house at 3 am. But it seems it just does/ will do/ cannot be changed. Same bloody boat after this installed? I ask what is pumped at 3 am, if its frost protection, then it must surely be re. outside hardware ? (yes)...... so why any need for anything being pumped inside, around rads in this mode ? ( no clarity.. just the new pump " will be quieter "). Omg. It is causing such stress just to understand what it is even doing at 3am, why, & I still have no answer. Not only this, but contradiction from them: if in frost mode then it can only apply to hardware in an environment subject to frost I ask ? - yes he says - So this refers to outside hardware only yes? - yes - So why are you telling me, that it is not pumping anything around outside ("because pipes dont need it as they contain antifreeze" he said) but instead only pumping water around my rads then??!... which is exactly what they repeatedly have said it is doing at 3 am. Total nutcase contradiction of logic. Impossible to understand. So how can I make an informed choice on this new proposal based on this nonsense?

Hi Onoff. Yup all understood & agreed.. but the inny outy ext stone character would be ruined, plus big cost, so not an option. They are a million miles apart indeed, my 2 new rooms cosy pm/ rest of house dreadfully cold ( same huge rads, same heat from them ). Insulate Britain could come here, & insulate my floors? This I can only think thus: remove all xyz from main old room ( having two beds above it) dig out floor a foot, PIR 140mm & cap it back to existing floor level ( or add a very useful 2" to room with main beam skimming my head.. an incentive / idea just occuring now ).. this to be only possible way to get main room alot better. Costly, huge upheaval tho. But my kitchen/ bathroom/ utility room ( one 80's extention as cold as main room ) the idea isnt so feasable, & a seperate huge upheaval. thanks, zh

@Nickfromwales Hi Nick, really appreciate your input on here- as I do everyone's too. As to blood on my hands- yes indeed/ understood. I've said all along I knew this ashp wouldn't heat most of my rooms,, apart from two new ones due to their chalk/ cheese insulation aspects. So I'm not complaining about this on the thread here. I wad grumbling though, re. the two new rooms unable to get heat in until midday considering my setback 'stop' at 7 am ( any earlier.. & it wakes me, bc the suitcase is upstairs, small 2 bed cottage board walls etc ). But this was a minor grumble I should've left alone, for the PUMP issue thread. I am to blame. A separate thread maybe. Ok so back to the nub. This wretched pump thing. Now, you say here ".. Have the 11kW mono block installed. Any less than 11kW then tell them to FO as the maths will not have been done again at that point and around we will go. That will give you heated water entering your property in a manner that befits putting your frustrations to bed as there will be no internal compressor ( suitcase ) unit at all. The most you would have is a plate heat exchanger to separate glycol mix from your internal primary heating circuit brine and a standard UK circulation pump to circulate the heat from the HeX to your rads / UVC. Problem here will be completely resolved in that instant. " This is reassuring, & sounds like my plan thanks for this, but still a nagging thing to get reassurance on is left for me, before i plunge in:- As I read on the very heat exchanger page ( i put a link to ) prospectively going in.. Im still concerned about the wording "frost protection blah blah"... " pump inside blah blah". The very pinpoint problem Ive had, being a pump located exactly where prospectively this replacement ' suitcase box' will go, doing ' frost protection duties'. Its alarmingly similar. I know ProDave reassured me, that this pump is - is not- the same wretched thing as before, & vaiilant renewables tech person seemed to concur on a call "the problem pump, a separate one, is located - outside- in the monoblock" he told me... a spanner in the works was that having asked what exactly is being pumped, at 3am, expecting the answer to be " glycol, around fan unit pipes" ( because logic tells me anything subject to frost would be located EXTERIOR )........ he told me not so. That the pump at 3am is pumping rad water around he said. W W W What??! i said. And a new pool of total confusion left be polaxed. You see if he was right, rad water being pumped at 3 am ( as utterly nonsensical it seems, reasons Ive said )... & I have a replacement box with a pump, inside the house, in the same location as the other one... it remains steadfastly worrying, & it is known that this pump will -also- do frost protection duties ( confirmed in the heat exchanger info page link ) by pumping X around the radiators too. And if the same pcb circuit is in this ( without either a switch to OFF the frost mode, &/ or without ability to simply change the 3*C figure to say 8*C meaning it wouldn't go into frost mode by manually choosing it not to... a design addition the nerds are actually considering, due to my problem/ my insistance this simple addition could hsve solved all this) then Im still no more than 50% reassured, by the kind replies on here explaining this wretched overnight pump is definitely not gonna be in the house anymore. To sum up: If this new pump is gonna do frost protection, with a pump ( tech pg tells me it will ), in the same location as my old suitcase box.... how can I not still be concerned? Thanks for reading, zoot

Which is exactly what I do. Put the setback temp overnight period lower, 9pm to 7am. With the weird '"controls'". A moon symbol appears.

I agree totally. But the company who sells it should have a responsibility to explain to customers their product only works, in certain situations, especially if the majority of UK homes do not fit this criteria. Build Hubbers will be at a massive advantage, knowing beforehand that their property fits this bill. But others are not so lucky & rely on the Co's product literature, primarily: & this critical info, as well as the noise aspect from units, another fundamentally important aspect, plus info to installers about where NOT to site noisy units ie there was no such info.... all important info totally absent, on my mfr's website. This is how I have got them to replace mine, arguing this info as being fundamentally ineptly absent. Its left awol deliberately, or at a pinch, simply lazily.

I refuse to have radiators in at night. Yes. Absolutely. Noone ive ever known has done. Or hotels ive stayed in do. Anyone's house ive stayed in. Nowehere in my whole life. This country, any other Ive been to or lived in. But the exception is everyone on Build Hub does?? Nowhere is it mentioned in the info " the radiators have to be on all night in order for this system to operate normally". Nowhere. Why is this not said? Most likey because noone would choose it, because no normal person wants or needs radiators on overnight. If that is how these systems are designed, they are inherrantly so utterly flawed as to be a joke. And if this was how they were designed Id have been told by the survey person, the installers, vaillant, someone. Noone did. So, they are not designed exclusively to be used like you say or Id have read so, or told so, at least once. Conversely I was told, & the system shows me by way of a moon symbol.... that you can put in normal rad on/ off times, as everyone used to any other CH system knows & uses it like, that being blocks of timed periods fir the rads to come on & off. The most obvious, im sorry it just goes without saying, is OFF overnight = moon symbol ( I mean why is this there then if not?! ). If it has this function with overnight period obvious symbols, & an engineer putting in my timed blocks for me without saying " it cant, or it shouldnt be run like this".... then it is designed to be run in this way, as well as the bizarre way of keeping it on (if you like to sweat yourself silly overnight each night wasting energy & money ) keep it on 24/7 for the whole winter.. as insane as that idea is.

I agree & this is exactly what I said. But if others are expanding & saying Im wrong I have to defend myself. If this experienced builder's youtube chsnnel is saying what he is.... there is validity to it. All Im doing is expanding on this basic theory, that ashp's are crap unless optimal house insulation conditions are inherrantly there. I just don't see how this is cause for argument.

What statement Ive made isn't true? (If ever a quote is needed.. ). Im tempting fate by being a lone voice, but in terms of discussion (not argument, esp with you) I do have to stick up for myself. I read all available info on my ashp. Tech details in pdf. I tried to understand the basics on youtube clips. That's about average, for any customer, & what is expected prior to it being fitted. There was no mention of keeping it on 24/7. There was mention of noise only from the outside unit which isn't noisy, but NO mention of inside unit noise. So then: the info isn't fit for purpose ( let alone the hardware, which is proven to be NFFP if Vaillant are ripping it out, whilst it is -- i think & I'm 99% sure now-- proven to be running without any fault). Also, recently I saw an excellent youtube clip, summing up ashp's limitations. An experienced UK builder whose clips Ive trusted implicitly & followed for other jobs. His core point, is these systems for majority of Uk homes is hopeless, because we just don't have adequate insulation unlike scandinavia when a gnats' ammount of heat can suffice to heat rooms. This angle, Ive simply reitterated, because it fits - exactly- why my ashp is fairly useless to heat my house... bar the two insulated rooms (but only works post midday). Insulate Britain... they don't half have a point! I can't change my insulation in my cottage (without huge expense & ruining its chsracter), or change the fact the ground floor rooms sit on clay, without a cm of insulation, next to a water course meaning -in my opinon/ theory- with the ground generally retaining water especially in winter = a particularly cold clay slab my house sits upon (& next door C19 cottage reknown for being ungodly cold forcing out previous owner, because of the cold no less, just ours are next to this big stream). The floor insultion, or lack of it, & it simply feels (because my legs are 1st to get cold) like a huge ammount of cold is coming UP... this lack of insulstion could not be calculated in any survey. Wall cavities could. So a guess was made, probably re floor insulation. This guess falls sooooo faaaaar short: & IMHO this is the core reason this ashp cannot contend with the house cold. Not, because any calculations haven't been done, or Im running it wrong, or it's not quite powerful enough ( its now running above its capacity by a good chunk, but this upping has made no difference whatsoever so much cold just sits on the ground like a dry ice fog it cannot counter).

Well Ive never lived in a house with CH on at night, never stayed in one be it a b&b or hotel, or known anyone who had rads on overnight: the idea of a hot bedroom when you are by nature, unless a naturist, under a duvet doesn't make sense. But this is just horses for courses. Yes that might be true of the 11 kw good point. Ive yet to say yes, prior to that asking what kw they had in mind... but for this thread, prior to that, all I was asking about was the pump thing- the most important aspect to me considering the problem I outlined in #1. I think Ive got some clarity on that, so thanks best put a line under it then as I'm back again at loggerheads disagreeing on aspects not actually in need to discuss! Thanks, zoot

No ok I understand your point. But the thing is, this house just isn't suitable for an ashp. They knew this, told me, &, I knew this. But how could I say " no thanks" to the offer of any CH system if they were dishing them out? i bent their arm, somehow. Ok if they'd whacked in a huge thing double the power... I couldn't afford to run it. Why not then just run this one at a higher output, which is what im doing, but even still it cant heat my main room with two big rads in... even slightly. It really is down to this house not being suitable for an ashp. They are designed for very well insulated homes, to be run at a low output, continuously (apart from night time, in my opinion.. but you guys say it is). They are just not suitable for the majority of uk homes I now know in retrospect. But,how could i say no even if it means i'm only able to heat one room properly with it as only I can do, If it adds good value to the house as Im renovating it? prospective buyers will view in summer, most likely, unnaware its next to useless in winter. Then it was the right decision despite not being at all effective in most of the house (!!), if & only if, I didn't have the choice of anything else.. because I havent £8k to spare on a gas CH. If my house is t suitable, the reason can only be that it just isn't insulated at all ( bar loft fluff ). I cannot see any other logic John, with respect.

Hi Tony, I understand your point, in am ideal world Id have the luxury of deciding the size. But these calculations have been done, by the installers in order to put in the current system. So all Vaillant are proposing, is get installers to fit an an Arotherm3, the same power/ size as mine. If your point is that you consider mine now to be -underpowered- based on being cold here in most rooms despite the CH being on, this is not due to it being underpowered.. it's purely down to the absence of insulation & cold ingress (UP from floors which isn't easy to tackle: even a bigger powered one couldn't possibly heat this house : apart from that is, one new modern room, where the CH works well albeit only from afternoon on as it takes half a day to get up to speed from 7 am when heating goes on) not insufficient calculations.

Perfectly good q Tony, they have simply stated they're willing to replace with an arotherm3. It must be assumed, that with 10 visits & all emails/ calls they know what size is in, so just replace it with the same 'power' new one. Presumably. If i say i wanna 4! they say fk u! I think the 3 is a level of power... but if not, you get my point.