mk1_man

What part of country are you at?

I am doing install myself under the umbrella of MCS. Waiting on schematics but in the meantime looking at all options that may optimise the system and hopefully input from others. Things that work well and not so well etc. Cheers

Hi, planning on using Vaillant control, not sure what combination I need. I would like to have two wireless controllers / thermostats as part of the setup, zone 1 - whole ground floor, then one on top floor as separate zone. Plan is run open loop for whole ground floor with no buffer etc, approx 150m2 and then run single zone on 1st floor but with room stats which I have on old system to limit each bedroom temp in case they get to hot.

We have a nice 800mm entry to loft room with stairs - use it as a den for my lad, door off that to ' plant room '

Again something that has probably been discussed so apologies. I have gone to a lot of effort to make sure I have primaries in 28mm, swept bends, minimal restriction etc but now I have come to sourcing the 3 way diverter and the traditional Honeywell type appears very restrictive. Just wondering what peoples thoughts were and what others had installed. I am biased towards the ESBE VRG131 at the moment, probably in the 1 1/2" size.

Thanks for the input re the cylinder. I have decided to bite the bullet and go with a Joule Cyclone high gain, 3m2 coil, 28mm fittings, bonus is that they do the 250l in a 'short' 600mm diameter so height is only 1400mm, this is beneficial as my small plant room is in the loft (warm roof) with restricted headroom.

Thanks all for the advice. It is frustrating as my existing cylinder is a Warmflow solar 250l with twin coils, I currently have these plumbed in series on my gas boiler and the re-heat time is very quick however all of the MCS installers are saying that I must upgrade to a ' heat pump ' cylinder. I am hoping I can convince them that my existing cylinder is fine and swap it out afterwards if proven not. The Vaillant R290 shows good efficiency even at 65 - 75 degrees, if that is the case I don't see why anyone would have to swap out their cylinders. I guess an option is to upgrade the existing by running an external heat exchanger connected to secondary input running in series / parallel with the coil ?

Hi, apologies if this topic has been covered previously. We are just in process of installing a Vaillant Arotherm 7.0kW and need to change existing cylinder. My default go to option was the Vaillant Unistor 250l cylinder but having checked the specs it only has a 2.2m2 coil and also uses 22mm pipe as opposed to other dedicated heat pump cylinders such as Joule that have 3m2 coil and 28mm connections. I like the fact that the Vaillant is a shorter (600mm wide) tank which is beneficial as it is going into a place with restricted height and they are a neat looking unit with hidden wiring etc. Am I worrying to much about the smaller coil dimensions, surely they wouldn't sell a product not up to speed? I understand that regardless of coil size if the heat pump only outputs x amount then the coil can only transfer so much heat so a bigger coil doesn't necessarily mean faster heat recovery, also it is better to run cooler and longer to improve COP so again bigger coil not such a benefit? Thanks 🙂

if you are happy to install yourself or get your local plumber to install try AltoEnergy - they do the MCS umbrella scheme where you can claim BUS grant, install yourself but you still get mcs certificate and manufacturers warranty etc. They supply Mitsubishi and Samsung systems. Price after grant is approx £1000 - £1500 I have been very impressed with them and their feedback on Trust Pilot is great

AltoEnergy openly promote the self builder to install heat pump and go on training course. The only thing that would need assistance is a plumber with g3 to install cylinder.

The problem I have been fighting is the insistence of what i consider to be an overly large heat pump. The solution currently proposed is an 8.5kW Ecodan plus their 210 cylinder with heat exchanger. From what I have read the re-heat time doesn't appear that different to a normal cylinder with 3m2 coil. As cylinder is in loft concerned about now having three pumps going and noise issues etc. I would prefer single system pump within the monoblock so as to keep pump noise external. If using an external heat exchanger was so good / efficient why are there not more solutions like this?

Looking at the 210L and that's a full 210L as there is no large coil inside taking up space. On a standard 250l cylinder with 3m2 coil how much usable water is left? We have a 250l non heat pump compatible cylinder at mo and am a little concerned about dropping down to 210 litre

They also do the training remotely via Microsoft teams. I have been incredibly impressed with AltoEnergy and their feedback is excellent. After a bit of back and forth have decided on final spec, cost etc. What are peoples views on the R32 Mitsubishi Ecodan heat pumps, especially the 8.5kW unit ?

Hi all, just wondered if anybody had any experience with the Ecodan pre-plumbed hot water cylinders. They use an external heat exchanger instead of an internal coil for faster re-heat times (supposedly) https://les.mitsubishielectric.co.uk/products/residential-heating/cylinder/ecodan-r32-ftc6-monobloc-pre-plumbed-standard-cylinder Am I asking for trouble going this route or are they a good option alongside quoted 8.5kw Ecodan heat pump.

Its a minefield out there. At the mo I am likely to follow my gut and purchase my own solution and that's likely to be a Vaillant Arotherm (7kW) or possibly the new Samsung R290 unit (8kW) instead of the 11 - 12kW units that are being quoted. Nobody appears to pay much attention to the fact that I have been a little anal with the air tightness measures and insulation to way past building reg standards and the fact that we have an mvhr installed and triple glazed Internorm passive standard windows and doors throughout. They just go by the fact that its a 1960's house .... heat loss on recent quote has come down to 7.8 from the 10.5 the other two mcs companies quoted but they are still insisting that I need to add another 3kw for hot water capacity and that I have to replace my cylinder even though it is a twin coil (solar) 250litre and reheats very quickly at the moment. Going my own route allows me to keep my gas boiler and use it to heat the water and as a backup to space heating via a couple of shut off valves. If I have my calcs wrong when its -2 etc I can simply revert to gas for the few days !