marshian

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?

Boiler temps on CH or HW don’t mater - what balancing achieves is an equal distribution of heat to all the rads in the circuit this is better for condensing efficiency (so cost) boiler cycling (again cost) and house heat up (so comfort)

I’m planning to put the Essex flange as close to the top section of the tank as is possible - In my view you want as little mixing at the top of the cylinder with cooler water already in the cylinder

I’ve got to balance the rad circuit in a neighbours house - every single balance valve was wide open and TRV’s were the only control on room temps - his main complaint in winter was upstairs warms to fast and downstairs takes an age to warm up (classic short circuit with the water being lazy and taking the shortest path back to the boiler)

Save a few pence on pump cost and have a house that warms up room by room via TRV’s shutting down to manage temps doesn’t sound to me like a great way to heat a house most balancing valves do very little to increase pumping resistance until almost shut and when they do start to impact flow rates 1/8 or 1/4 turns can change the flow rate massively

I know for me the cyl is a spray foamed one from 2011/2012 and I'd have no issues with adding another hole because my intention is to replace the tank once I've proofed the concept of PHEX in my set up The plus side of this conversation is I need to make sure any modern direct tank also will have a return point fairly high up the tank

doesn’t seem too difficult

Well if we are recommending products I use this for shed, decking and anything else that is wood that I don't want to creosote. https://www.smithandallan.com/product/smith-allan-cedol-wood-preserver-decking-oil-4036 20L for £48 in vat and £6.95 delivery

I have been looking but smol tanks with 3m2 coils don’t come up often

I didn’t regard it as kick back - more that “most of the cases you are right trying to make a gas boiler run like a heat pump isn’t going to make the boiler happy” But it’s not a hard and fast rule……. If people do get a boiler that can run lower temps than most and has a high modulation then it can be quite happy “pretending” to be a heat pump in terms of delivery of heat to the house ufh or rad circuits. it can also go back to not “pretending to be a heat pump” when asked to do HW 😉 I’m sure other boilers are equally capable of doing the same but a few manufacturers are lagging behind and they need to up their game Viessmann however need to do a better job of writing their installation and operating manuals 😉

It’s absolutely possible to run a gas boiler like a heat pump but you need the right boiler that can cope with narrow deltas between flow and return at the boiler. my Viessmann has no issues when doing CH with a flow temp of 30 deg and having a return of 23 on CH it’ll tun for 20 to 40 mins at a time without cycling when doing HW flow of 64 and a return of 57 it will also not cycle and will do the water heating in one hit (obv delta is wider at the start of water heating and narrows as the tank heats up)

I always link at the top when daisy chaining water butts - less risk of water loss due to poor sealing on the link pipe when I was daisy chaining - Mrs Alien instructions was to use from furthest from the source first - of course she ignored that because it was quicker to fill a watering can from the fullest one (she doesn’t like waiting for anything) I’ve since upgraded the taps from std plastic ones to brass full bore ball valves - this way flow rate is less dependent on volume in the butt (it still is faster on a full one compared to a half full one but much less of a difference)