marshian

Absolutely

When there is no room for discussion and opposing viewpoints are shut down people are silent for fear of being labelled - they voice their opinion in the only way they can at the ballot box and stick a very large two fingers up to the establishment. I can see that happening in the UK and a complete bunch of fruit cakes standing for reform being given the keys to the bus!!!!

It’s how the USA got Trump (twice) - food for thought? If you have seen it before sorry now replace Trump with Climate Change or Covid - the video works for both

Politics, climate change and Covid are three subjects where the populations view has been polarised by the media and now the vast majority sit in two camps with hardened views and no discussion is going to change either sides point of view…….. Quite sad really

I've actually found an alternative 117 litre cyl (copper and vented like current system) But it has a 2m2 surface area coil https://pirateheatingsupplies.com/product/ultra-high-recovery-117-litre-vented-hot-water-cylinder-900-x-450/ Only downside is the heat loss is a bit steep compared to modern encased cylinders

Then we are going to need to work out which is better PHEX first and then HW Cyl Coil before return to the boiler or viki verki?

Oh I'm sure they will work - just not much better than what I have which is definitely not a heat pump compatible cyl

I'm not adverse to picking up things second hand but at a good price, However the chances of an ASHP compatible indirect HW tank fitted with a 3m2 surface area coil and a volume capacity of 125 to 150 litres appearing on Ebay, gumtree or FB Market place would have some serious odds against it happening

Yes wise words - same would apply to replacing the boiler when the previous one worked (but was 15 years old), HW tank (currently 14 years old), circulation pump (was 20 years old) and many other items - none of them will recover the costs in terms of savings (well except maybe the pump because the old grunfoss pump was a watt hungry little bugger. However from my own perspective I'm getting close to retirement so currently trying to mimimise extraordinary household expenses in retirement by choosing wisely whilst I have the disposable income to facilitate the purchases. Of course I can never eliminate all potential expensive surprises in retirement but if I get the main ones done I'll feel a lot happier with a far lower income stream

I agree everything has compromises I could settle for heating less water more frequently but efficiently heating full tank more efficiently in a shorter time frame without resorting to 80 deg flow temps due to coil surface are of 0.25 m2 (best guess) or something in between

Provided work doesn’t intervene (and it shouldn’t) put me down as attending please

Try here - no experience of the company just the first place that seemed to have a decent range after a google search https://www.handlesandhinges.co.uk/12-fire-escape-and-easy-clean-upvc-window-hinges/

I did some thermal images around the house (inside and out) last winter basically all external walls to see if I had any “leaky” areas it showed an issue under the gas meter box (on the right) but not the electricity box (on the left) it also showed another area that needs looking at on the other side of the house where potentially the insulation has compressed or sunk

Picture

Nice that the window has click to centre hinges - makes life easy to clean the outside of the window and frame - we have the same and our windows are from 1995

Yes agreed - perhaps some “gains” could be made with a tweak here an there perhaps circuit is fitted with lockshield with in built restriction I’ve seen some with ~8mm internal path Or maybe the house is piped with first rad on the flow being the last to return and last rad on the flow being the first rad on the return (system would be balanced without any lockshield intervention)

In fairness @HughF was giving advice based on his experience with ASHP which probably has 3 times the flow rate but I do agree bad advice for a gas boiler set up

what @SimonD said I’m currently using Drayton TRV4 bodies with 6 flow rate settings so lockshield end is fully open I moved to TRV4 bodies because my system was a bit of a pig to balance on cheap lockshields and to put decent lockshields with decent linear flow rates on (IME ones) was as much cost as buying TRV4 bodies. I’ve now got Danfoss RB-2 TRV bodies to fit (which is what I should have fitted in the first place) because 1. a few rooms I need between setting on the TRV4 bodies (example is a room on 3 is just a little too low a flow rate but 4 is too high) when using a setting with too high a flow rate the dT across the rad drops - the room exceeds target temp and the TRV intervenes which on weather comp I don’t want it to. when using a setting with too low a flow rate the dT accross the rad increases but the room target temp is not achieved the Danfoss ones have a finer level of control with from memory 15 presets. The Danfoss app is a breeze to use. I would have bought the Drayton equivalent but they stated they are not suitable for temps below 45 Deg C when I asked them to update their app to cover lower flow temps - Danfoss are OK with temps down to 35 so I got them

I did specifically say "Boiler Power" Perhaps I should have qualified the statement with "Gas Boiler Power" But it does illustrate the increase in flow required when running an ASHP

Quick look that the Ideal esprit eco 30 Install manual and it needs a min of 17.4 Litres per min for CH However I would expect that the boiler has been sized for HW demand rather than heating demand so it might be worth range rating the output on CH if it's possible (Min output is 6.1 kW and max is 24.2 kW on CH)

And there my dear chap is the significant reason why it works absolutely fine for you - ASHP and dT of 3 Deg - heating at low temps and weather comp for the flow temp adjustment - Very likely that your heat pump flows a fair chunk of water On a gas boiler running higher flow temps - you only want the flow that keeps the boiler happy and not over shooting the set point Real rough and ready rule of thumb is 1 litre of flow (per min) for every kW of boiler power

Thank you PS heating HW with gas boiler 😉

I don’t really want to piggy back this thread with my plans but it’s a good discussion with lots of input from knowledgable BH members so hopefully the OP won’t mind too much? Firstly we never heat water in a period where we could potentially be used (always early morning before we are awake) So no concerns for getting cool tank contents before the HW tank heating process is complete. Secondly - if using a PHEX process there might be a potential to heat less water than a full tank (currently with coil in tank process we have to heat whole 115 litre to desired target temp (currently 52 deg C once a day) if circulation through PHEX is returned to top 1/4 of the tank and PHEX process is effective at generating water at a temp of say 50 Deg C to the tank without upsetting stratification we might be able to heat say 50 L of water to target temp rather than whole tank if we feed return from PHEX lower then we will have to heat more of the tank to target than we potentially need each time we re-heat

Yeah black armoured cable

Made an interesting discovery at the weekend now thinking how best to resolve it so throwing it open to the great minds of BH Background House built in early 80’s - Brick outer skin, thermalite block inner skin with at the time of build an empty cavity. Had a company inject cavity wall insulation for all the external walls (blown in via a large number of holes drilled in the mortar between the bricks) insulation material is white/grey fluffy fibre I was painting my electricity and gas meter boxes which are on an external wall and I dislodged a lump of mortar around the main cable feed into the electricity meter box I can clearly see no insulation material in the cavity below the box - I’d like to fill this cavity as the wall is on the North side of the house. question is do I 1. pour bead type insulation in the hole and hope it flows to all the areas where insulation is missing 2. Get a cavity wall insulation company to come and add similar to original (and maybe check other wall areas and top up as required 3. use a liquid foam?