TheMitchells

Yes, it is nice to know. Another example is my EPC inspector. I had organised for a new EPC as one of the companies who are quoting for the ASHP said I'd need one, our old one was out of date. (I did not check myself - Doh!🤪) Yesterday the guy who was coming, rang to say that my EPC was valid till 2028! So no need for him to come. What a nice chap!

Any one bought this yet? Sounds like it could be useful, particularly for someone like me, who knows only what we are told by the industry. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0D6WBGSRV?_encoding=UTF8&dib_tag=se&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.aYF2hlRd4NDGeaORD3YlgX2BwaGtVAai_6RILxUYdSapFuQCFknreE9l1gzLdMO6DKdN3ZCdv1areI1Pawtu8OT-F-u1LLCBYCbTjbq3j97Vt_yiRdrBbwtjjqCeC1mjYXMO3q3dWEQQtySXid0QaA.br7hTlYkRRQJq9lzjx5s_Tl-lCABWAjM-hKh5S8XoSI&qid=1718263790&sr=8-5&linkCode=sl1&tag=myhomefarm-21&linkId=f2d6239efb72c296a20c3c2d78a1f177&language=en_GB&ref_=as_li_ss_tl

Thought folks would be interested to read this. Copied from the Renewable Heating Hub 27 July 2024. In a significant development for the renewable heating sector, an industry insider has revealed to Renewable Heating Hub that a new heat pump standard is on the horizon. This forthcoming standard, being developed in collaboration with Flexi-Orb, is poised to compete directly with the existing Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS). According to the source, this initiative promises to address many of the shortcomings associated with the current standards, offering a more practical and user-friendly approach for customers, installers and manufacturers alike. Full details here. https://renewableheatinghub.co.uk/new-standard-set-to-revolutionise-heat-pump-installations-in-the-uk

Good news! Contacted a company who deals with Electricaire units and they were able to check their register. No asbestos! So we can go ahead and arrange for it to be removed. Phew.

it was a light pen. Similar to one of these. https://www.screwfix.com/p/fluke-non-contact-voltage-detector-pen-1000v-ac/85949?kpid=85949&cm_mmc=Google-_-Datafeed-_-Tools?kpid=KINASEKPID&cm_mmc=Google-_-TOKEN1-_-TOKEN2&gad_source=1&gclsrc=ds However, we think the problem may be solved. An electrician finally came today after booking him Wednesday last week. Once he had removed the front of the Off Peak circuit board, this is what he found. Not good! He has replaced the Main switch and cleaned up the cables going into it and is happy that it should all work now. Particularly as we know the power is coming on during the night. So it wasnt Octopus's meter after all. And, if the electrician who I asked to come at the very beginning (10th July) had come and taken a look, we could have saved ourselves 3 weeks of aggravation. But instead he told me to contact Octopus and the rest is history as they say! So fingers crossed it all works okay overnight. The RCBO next to the main switch is slightly damaged too, but that is for the central heating system which we are replacing next month, hopefully, so that will remain turned off till then. He did say he could replace it but for now it is turned off.

I'll ask him when I next speak to him.. And I guess if it more efficient, then I can make do with extra radiators.

yes, we have double glazing and they arent too bad. The chap did say the het pumps from Stiebel Eltron are more than others but he feels they are worth the expense. We dont have too much loft insulation at the moment, minimum required, i believe but we will add more as soon as it is all installed. All the pipework and stuff will across the loft and drop to the required location, so we can then add the extra insulation on top of it all.

Hmm, the chap wh came to look at the place today was very scathing of such a high HP. He said we'd be looking at a one around the 7 mark, taking the floor at less than 100 square meters and a basic rate of about 70 - not sure what the 70 was but he was looking at the windows/walls and giving a broad estimate. He also siad they onlyuse Steibel eltron who provide the whole system, so it all works well together and has space for expansion should we want to add ufh in the future. have to admit that i liked him - he's local and said straight off that if we went for him, it wouldnt get done till end of September ish. So just waiting to get quote from him now. I did give him all the window/doors sizes and floor plan and he asked me to get an up to date EPC. The current one was presumably done when we bought the place in 2018. CVC got back to me but the quote was far more than the first quote without any deetails from us. So they are out of the running. Fingers crossed that the second guy gives a reasonable quote. 🤞

now we are very confused🤔. Hubby went over and stayed at the property, checking the Night suppy cable at various times. there was no power in the cable at 10pm nor 1.21am . However, when tested at 2.53am there was power! 😃 When fitted, the Octopus fitter said night period started at 1am. So thats strange it had not been on earlier. However, even stranger was around 9am when Mum rang to say they still had no hot water or heating - though we know the power was getting through at 2.53am. 😢 So is it a problem with the night circuit? We have someone coming on Monday to dead test. I am also going to ask him to connect the two units to the daytime supply and we'll just add timers where needed. Hubby came home at 3am so we dont know if it stayed on or turned straight off. I shall maybe stay there tonight and check it throughout the night.

the current windows do not have trickle vents and I would not want them in any replacements. we plan to add mvhr when we do the renovation in a couple of years. The bedroom windows front onto quite a busy road which for me means closed windows. My parents are both going deaf so its not a problem for them. I had planned to have the unit under the front bedroom window. But the company who gave the quote say the regs say it cannot go to the front of the building if it fronts a highway. however, looking at the regs, it says in the case of land, other than land within a conservation area or which is a World Heritage Site, the air source heat pump would be installed on a wall of a dwellinghouse or block of flats if— (i)that wall fronts a highway; and (ii)the air source heat pump would be installed on any part of that wall which is above the level of the ground floor storey. As ours will be on the ground, I read that under the front window would be acceptable. We are not planning ufh yet - thats for the renovation and then we'd have a utility room so hopefully the manifold would go in there? I believe there would be a buffer tank with the hwc. and that is all going into the cupboard in the centre of the bungalow, where the current heating system is. Once we get it removed. Still waiting for the 2 asbestos companies to reply to my enquiry. job for the morning - chase them up.

will get some photo's tomorrow of both consumer units and meter box so hopefully can see. Hubby seems to think there is no main switch/isolator in the meter cupboard.

Oh no - please dont confuse me any more - there are so many options already!😁🫤

I dont have one. I am trying to use Jeremy's spreadsheet but there are bits I dont understand. Here is my attempt. But as we dont nhave an mvhr, that may spoil any results. Heat loss calculator.xlsx

Scarily, it looks like they use 10,000 kW per year for hot water and heating. 😬 They do like it hot! Hubby is asking why we cant just add the radiators and a simple gas combi boiler?? I guess the easy answer is that there isnt gas to the property and the supplier for their area is talking about installation 10-12 weeks after acceptance of the quote, which was £1200. Unless we are able to connect into the neighbours incoming pipe? But with the central warm air unit still working (just), we could manage for a few months, getting the radiators fitted so that as soon as the gas is connected, a combi boiler could be fitted. It goes agaisnt my principles to use gas/fossil fuel. But it would be easy to install and probablly the cheapest option. Urhghh! The bill below shows their day and night use. The only thing on the night meter is the heating (mostly off currently apart from a small night storage heater in the shower room, turned low) and the hot water heating.

Plan now is to get an electrician round to connect the night circuit to the day one, so the poor Smart Meter only has one supply to worry about. And we can add the time switches as suggested by Alan Ambrose. Best he can do is Monday though 😒. Will i need to get Octopus to turn anything off? Or can he do it with the supply still on? And if they need to turn off the supply, can they do it remotely or do they need to come at the same time?

One bath but not used very often - once a week? I looked at Octopus for a quote but it looks like you have to pay £500 for it, which is then deducted from the cost. The ufh install will come with the extension but thats not for a couple of years time. I'm looking for a simple heat loss calculator that i can use myself. I know jeremy had one. Will look for that.

One more thing - is a 210 hot water cyinder normal? our current one is only 120l and that seems fine. There is only ever going to be two people living there. And we have an electric shower so that would not come from the cylinder.

Okay - we have the first quote for ashp, radiators to 2 beds, bathroom, shower room and hall. (thats 5 rads), HWC and ufh to the lounge and kitchen - even though we didnt ask for that. I plan to add ufh when we do the extension as we will be re-doing the whole back of the bungalow. So will get that taken off. But its rather a lot!! while the EPC shows D, the bungalow is only 68m2 with an additional 28m2 when we do the new extension. So it is not huge. And we plan to retrofit insulation and renovate to a better air tightness. Am I being taken for a ride! That seems a large ashp for such a small building. I can see the Grant ashp for sale for £4,266 plus £800 for the installation packhttps://www.plumbnation.co.uk/grant-aerona3-13kw-r32-inverter-driven-air-source-heat-pump-hpid13r32body-111-37273?gad_source=1. But adding in the rads, hiring a plumber and electrician, should I just bite the bullet and get it done? I do have a second chap coming tomorrow for another quote. Unfortunately CVC have still not come back with a quote. I asked them over 2 weeks ago but nothing yet.

Tried that last week as I too heard they were good at customer service but our experience was awful! Especially when the parents were logged as vulnerable. Several days with no one calling back, even when they said they would. I was ringing daily but it took till Friday evening for someone to actually take control of this (from initial call on Monday morning) and get things moving. I like Octopus but they did not do a good job dealing withthis. Even if it turns out not to be their meter causing the problem; they should have contacted us sooner. But i guess all companies can drop the ball occasionally. 🤔

that sounds like a good idea and it would mean i could control things remotely for them. I shall suggest that to the electrician when he returns my call. he's an old school sort so hopefully can understand what they currently have. 😁

Well, Octopus are saying we have to get an electrician to test everything and see if it is all working. So i am going down that route first. I just hope they can check things during the day when there is no power to that circuit.... hubby plans to go over tomorrow evening and stay the night so he can test the incoming cable from the meter himself. unfortunately he can't go tonight. he seems to think the electrician can do a 'dead test' on the night circuit. Its only the night storage and immersion on there.

Can i ask Octopus to remove the Smart meter and replace it with a dual rate meter??

When this happened initially, i did contact our electrician and he said it was an issue with the meter so hence dealing with octopus. I am happy to get him back out but as it is both the immersion and the one small night storage heater that go off together, we know it is not one or the other but the whole night ring. I feel that the Octopus 'engineers' have no idea about old systems and how to integrate them to their meters. ideally we would go back to a simple mechanical meter, if possible. But as we are going to ashp and maybe pv soon, it probably is best to keep the smart meter. (happy to be corrrected on that) Re the immersion, no, it is only on a night ring and we cannot operate it during the day, unless we get an electrician to connect the two back at the fusebox. but then it would be on all the time unless my parents switch it off (this is likely to be the short term solution). We need to replace the whole heating/hot water system as it is that very old warm air central unit that is breaking down and I am looking to remove, once an asbestos person tests and removes it. (thats our other post on asbestos). And add ashp. Hoepfully then, it can all be changed to a standard set up, rather than the unusual one we have!

My elderly parents live in our bungalow with an old 2 ring system (one on all the time for most things and one for night, only for the immersion to hwc and night storage heaters). On Wed 10th july, they rang to say that they had no hot water or heating in their bungalow. I rang Octopus and an engineer came later that day and removed the old meter, installing a new Smart meter. As there is a daytime ring and a night time ring (hot water and heating) in the bungalow, we did not know if it had fixed the problem but the following day, it all worked – Hurray! However, on Monday 15th July, Mum rang and said the heating and water had gone off again. We contacted Octopus and I was told someone would contact me regarding this. That evening, someone did ring and we went through some questions that had been emailed to mum. They said they'd 'reset or something' but the following day, it was all still off and I rang Octopus again. I was assured someone would get in touch but no one did; however, everything worked on Wednesday morning. Sunday 21st July, Mum rang. Once again, the heating and hot water was off. I tried ringing Octopus but of course, no one works Sunday, and, as it was not a complete emergency (they did have daytime electricity, just no way of heating the water), I had to wait till Monday to contact them to report the fault. Details were taken and I was told it would be sorted. Long story short - eventually after many calls and two very distressed parents, Octopus sent an engineer on Saturday who replaced the meter again. Sunday, all was fine. But today, its all gone off (it may have gone off overnight sunday but Mum wasnt sure). So what to do?? I cant believe it is the meter again, unless it is not able to work with their two rings?? why does it work for a couple of days then go off?? We are getting quotes for an ashp and radiators, when hopefully the system can be made to work with the Smart Meter - the wiring and fuseboxes were done before we bought it in 2017 so all fairly new. but till we can get the system put in (hopefully as soon as possible), what can we do?? Should i pester Octopus and see what they can do? OH suggested a short term fix of connecting the immersion to the daytime ring and asking them to turn it on a couple of hours each night. They can do without heating luckily for a while. I'd be very grateful for suggestions.

Mix SBR with the cement, and then no need for a slurry on the pavers? Is that what you are saying? What do you mean by 50mm of conc?? concrete?? I plan on a good thickness of concrete, to raise the pavers to the level of the grass. I have laid them on the ground to test the look and if they fit in the space for the seat.