marshian

Remodelled Gutter and Fascia (House side) Pergola Drainage would have been nice to have one length at the same angle but the pipe would have to run behind the 350 Litre water butt and I wouldn’t be able to harvest the rain water

Had to remove the fascia on the garage and re do that - wasn't happy with the previous job (not done by me I hasten to add) and it hadn't held up well The length of fascia sloped from old part of the garage to new part and it looked bloody odd and the gutter supports were all over the place - add to this the Gutter was above the slope at one end and below the other and tiles overhung 50% of the gutter width Library Picture from a few yeas back Refitted the gutters with better fall, neater support bracket spacing and I can now clean the gutters out without losing skin off the back of my hands Water drainage on the house side is done now - Not the prettiest set up but I had to work round the Y I needed to introduce as well as the rain water harvesting in the down pipe and the tank. I tested it with a 10 litre watering can and it coped absolutely fine , no leaks or drips. Just got to replace the fascia on the original part of the garage that no longer meets the adjusted main fascia with the gutters refitted (it's too short). No new pics cos it was dark by the time I finished I'll add them in tomorrow

The plumber (IME) is right vertical rads do not deliver the same level of energy as convector rads surface area is far less than an equivalent convector rad and it’s the combination of flow temp and surface area that transfers the energy to the room. My main point is this is difference is exaggerated at lower flow temps (30 to 45 Deg C) so use manufactures outputs with caution when matching vertical rads to room heat loss when running lower flow temps If running higher flow temps (50 - 60 deg) the difference is much less and you can size based on manufacturers rating with a lot more confidence

Absolutely what I found - need a higher temp to recover than what is needed to maintain the house at the desired temp

Wowzers that's a lot of progress made.............. Excellent

I get that hence the 😉

to be honest at one stage I considered it 😉 however I’m a bit long in the tooth for a career change and I’m 5 years away from retirement 🙂 but I wouldn’t mind setting myself up for a post retirement “heating optimiser” I don’t want to get involved in installs but I bet there are a lot of systems out there being run way more inefficiently than they are capable of being run…. Might make a nice beer money sideline

Or get familiar with what you need to ask the installer to set up - I would have loved a heat geek accredited installer last year but not one locally that would do a viessmann boiler the way I wanted it done - so I used the only Viessmann installer in 50 mile radius and told him exactly how I wanted the system set up X-plan DHWP and I initially got an S plan!!! (eventually we got there and I think he learnt a few things on the way)

Old boiler was 10kW min effectively 45 deg C was the min practical flow temp and christ that boiler cycled a lot in anything other than mid winter. I upsized only some of the rads initially - big mistake - do all or none unless you want rooms to cold (original rads) and rooms to hot (upsized)

Well bar a little bit of trimming work it’s done Louvres shut Louvres open suns gone and it’s cloudy so light isn’t the best for photos need to re-instate gutters and fascia and sort out the drainage but quite happy how it turned out - It was never going to be a quick job and limboing round a post parked smack in the middle of the garage side door would have been awful

I was advised with my house set up I was ASHP ready but I really wasn’t confident enough to dive in the deep end without knowing I could run low and slow at ASHP flow temps - so I went for another gas boiler (one that could modulate down to a low level 3.2 kWh and down sized from 24kW to 16kW as another stepping stone towards ASHP) Very confident now that in 10 15 years or so I can switch over when the boiler reaches the end of it’s life)

having journeyed from scheduled high flow temp 65 + heating (barely any condensing savings except in warm up phase) to scheduled heating flow temp 45 to 55 max where the boiler was always condensing (although not to max eff) and then finally to low temp heating 23.5/7 ditching all schedules with a weather compensated flow temp between 25 to 35 max there is no way I would go back to scheduled heating. The cost difference is insignificant compared to the huge benefit in comfort factors. House never overheats, everything in it is a nice temp (it’s the little things like I don’t miss coming into a house where air temp is fine in all rooms and sitting on a cold leather sofa) It really was a total game changer.

I have trickle vents in a few SUDG windows added post 1995 which was when the original SUDG widows were fitted - I bloody hate them for two reasons 1. Useless from a noise suppression perspective (I live near a busy road the main bedroom when the house was extended was fitted with a TV as the window had to be replaced) 2. I already have a ventilation strategy (I have a PIV in the hall and extract fans in both bathrooms and kitchen) all the windows with TV's are closed anyway and I have no condensation issues at any time in the year If I was to replace the all the windows again a PIV is not enough under the current regs to avoid TV's - MVHR is but I don't want or need to fit that because the PIV does what I need. There is a clause which enables you to replace windows without TV's and that is provided only a certain percentage of window are replaced (less than 30% from memory) So I'd do all the windows in 3 bite sized chunks each time stipulating with the supplier that under the current legislation/regs I do not want TV's to be fitted to the windows on each occasion Any supplier refusing to do this wouldn't get the work and I'm pretty damn sure very few window suppliers would want to turn down the work as a result of my work around.

That doesn't even reach MOT std.............................. (and that's normally bloody terrible!!!!)

Very good point - my current cyl would be almost useless with an ASHP - the coil is tiny and incapable of transferring energy quickly In summer I heat HW with a 62 Deg flow temp and it takes anywhere between 35 to 45 mins to get the cyl back to 50 Deg C (I do this to maximise the condensing benefits where the boiler doesn't have a whole house to maintain temp (because summer) In winter I heat HW with a 80 Deg Flow temp and it's done in 20 mins because I want the boiler to get back to CH asap (low temp heating needs to be continuous to replace the heat lost. (at 80 deg flow temp it's condensing for maybe just a few mins out of the 20 mins cycle) An ASHP compatible tank with a 3m2 coil would solve the issue but it's ~£1500 plus install costs. It's one of the reasons I am investigating a PHE if I can improve the HW reheat whilst running lower boiler flow temps I can extract a little more efficiency out of the boiler even in winter. If that works I only need a direct UVC with no coil and that's a heck of a saving even with the cost of a PHE