marshian

Don't even bother to try Stick a low branch end into a pot - it will root itself - once rooted cut the umbilical cord so to speak and you have a new fig tree to pass on to someone else - done about 10 so far!!!

Put it in the ground and put the root ball in a stainless steel washing machine drum Add a 100 mm soil pipe to the bottom of the WMC drum poking out the top so you can provide the required water (up to 2 gal a day is needed)

1st Thursday was last week Can't do this week - I'm at Prescott Hill Climb orgainsing a car show

As always when buying baths try one before you buy one - yes on line is cheaper but if someone likes a long soak in a hot bath then you will never hear the end of it if the bath is uncomfortable to lay in for any length of time. if its just for showering next owner will find out if it’s comfortable

In other news Boiler had it's first service Gas turned off and disconnected from burner All electrical connections to burner and ignition removed Burner came out and it and the ignition electrode were cleaned Heating coil scrubbed with plastic spinny brush on a drill Burner re-fitted Condensate trap removed - emptied - cleaned and replaced (refilled with water) All removed connections checked - he found a loose/poor connection on the outside temp sensor so he cut back and re-did it. Boiler fired up and he repeated all the commissioning gas checks (hi and low flue gases) Boiler wasn't quite 1 year old and from arrival to leaving it was about 75 mins and £72 with the vat (he did say his service work is normally busiest in Sept and Oct and right now it’s fairly quiet for anything except new installs, mainly ASHP because of BUS grants) but I had the boiler purchased & fitted in July for the same reason I want any servicing to be outside the busy period. Scores on the doors from the boiler stats for one year Heating Demand Hours 4117 (171 days - I was initially heating to schedule and only moved to 24/7 in Dec 2024) Burner Hours 1917 Burner Starts 3965 Hours on CH 1683 Hours on HW 234 Average Cycles per day 11 (Summer HW process has driven down the average) Average Boiler Cycles per day in winter heating period 22

Blimey!!!

This is exactly my aim - minimal overshoot at the top of the tank - whole cyl heated to almost same temp at as low a flow temp as I can get away with in one burn cycle within the shortest time frame (ideally under 30 mins) If I can achieve that with current 13 year old copper tank (where I know my losses are still higher than a modern tank) then subsequent replacement of the tank for a more modern jacketed tank is hopefully only going to reduce the static losses and the efficiency of the HW heating isn’t going to change for the worse.

Stats from this morning (all Deg C) peak/end temps taken just before cycle ended start Tank Top (start) 31.3 Tank Bottom (start) 26.2 flow temp peak 77.5 return temp peak 66.4 Tank Top (near end) 55.2 Tank Bottom (near end) 47.6 my temp monitoring records all temps on the hour every hour (you can see current temp at any time but the data is only logged at hourly intervals) Does mean I have a really clear knowledge of my tank temp losses over time)

Oh and I appreciate what I’d like and what is actually possible might be very different (ie impossible)

I’m slightly confused (nothing unusual there!!!) water flow temp to the PHE has to be above the target tank temp no mater how efficient or how much surface area it has so if I want water at lets say 45 deg C then the flow temp needs to be above that I’m not looking to heat the radiator circuit with a PHE - the boiler copes nicely with a flow temp from 25 to 35 for the rad circuit (it doesn’t mind a delta of anywhere between 5 & 7 deg as long as the circuit is unrestrictive (ie full circuit available to it) needed to heat water today quickly this morning - tank temp start 25 deg (flow temp ramped to max 80) had a 10 deg delta at the boiler at the end of the 30 min cycle) and had the usual issue of a massive overshoot of tank temp (stat set to 50 deg) top got to 57 before bottom got to 50 and it used 4.88 kWh of gas heating with a lower flow temp (62 Deg C) stat would have switched off at 50 with virtually no difference between top and bottom of the tank and used 1 kWh less energy (this is how I do my water heating in the winter to shorten the cycle time and get back to CH before the house temp drops) My existing tank coil I think is maybe a 3kW one - certainly looking at similar tanks for sale the coil surface area is going to be maybe 0.5 m2 if that. I’d like to get away from high flow temps but still heat in a shorter time period - my thought was either new tank with heat pump compatible coil size 3m2 surface area or PHE with similar surface area and bronze pump to circulate Ideal world I’d like to achieve flow temp of less than 55 deg C and a target tank temp of 50 deg C with 115 litres of water at 25 deg C heated in a maximum of 30 mins max with one boiler cycle (ie it fires once and runs till stat satisfied - not cycle several times to achieve the target) If I tried to do that with current set up I estimate that HW cycle would need to be 90 mins and the boiler would fire maybe 3 or 4 times with ever shorter burn lengths and still wouldn’t achieve the target tank temp although it would probably be close)

thats how they ended up single mothers in the first place

How often do you boil the kettle when in the E7 period - gut feel says not as often as it’s boiled in non E7 period?

It’s ok it’s balanced out in the other bathroom they go up down 😉

I couldn't put my finger on why it didn't feel right it just didn't - it wasn't tiled in or siliconed to the wall but in hindsight the way a bath is used for a shower is completely different in terms of feel to when it's used as a bath - 80 litres of water and an 85 kg person laying down in it is completely different loading to zero water and an 85 kg person standing at one end with the bath supported by 4 points of contact aligned more to the middle section. Increasing the number of braces to 4 and feet to 8 really changed the solidity of the bath. One day I'll get rid of the cheap ass plastic panel and build a proper tiled one with the spare tiles I bought to do it and kept aside under the bath Yeah we all have one day jobs like that.............. But then again as Mrs Alien chose the tiles and they my my eyes squint and remind me of a stiff little fingers album cover I probably won't

I fitted an 8mm thick bath (P shaped for extra width at shower end) I was not at all happy with the feel of it when I trialed it after first fit - it felt like it had movement when standing in it My solution was to use the feet from the previous bath as well as the ones supplied with the new bath (so 8 feet not 4 feet) Feels like a concrete bath now no flex or movement at all

I’ve always found the biggest issue with movement is with towels - easy for the load to become clumped up the other thing is be 100% happy with the floor level - having to pull the machine out to adjust the feet because the floor where it sits under the worktop is different to the floor when it’s in front of it’s home

my boiler seems to work on CH with a delta between flow and return of 7 Deg - if the delta narrows it will cycle so maybe 20 plate will be more suitable - just trying to get my head round it so thanks for your contributions

I'm thinking this kit (20 Plate 15kW unit rather than the 30 Plate 20kW) because the boiler is 16kW - I'm not sure how much benefit I'd get from the 30 plate version but it's only £60 plus vat more https://beetbg.com/products/dhw-plate-loading-20xplate-kit?srsltid=AfmBOoodTI_0ue5CDsk2tfjQHhl6sCoT7GMV-jrUXRcS5F1xDFg7Ym7l DHW Cylinder Plate Loading 20 x Plate Kit - For up to 15kW heat load Heat Pump, Boiler £450 plus the vat Consists of the following 1x 20xPlate SWEP E8TH Heat Exchanger 1x EPP Hard Shell Insulation Jacket 4x 22mm x 3/4" Flat Faced Unions 1x DAB Bronze Pump 2x 22m Pump Valves 1x 22mm

Sounds perfect- I'll have a look at those - thanks for the tip (New Danfoss Tank Stat seems to have a similar +0 -10 deg hysteresis - annoyingly initial usage seems to indicate that the temp scale is not aligned very well to the tank stat switching point (50 Deg C results in ~47 deg tank temp. (Plus is that it has a range below 50 Deg C that isn't just "Off" but I've only got two days of data. That's the aim - lower boiler flow temp and reduce standing losses The "why have we run out of water" in this house is normally "I do not like a cold shower at any time - sort your shit out" I'm just trying to find a summer time balance - heat water in tank to low 40's deg twice a day (with reduced standing heat losses) v heat water in tank to just over 50 deg once a day (with higher standing losses) One will result in lower energy usage - just not sure which one. My 45 min schedule and boiler 62 Deg C flow settings gets the tank to 40 deg in 15 mins - it takes a further 30 mins to get to 50 deg. However the first 15 mins the boiler is heating up the circuit, is running a higher modulation before ramping down so the difference may not be as great as the times suggest. I'm really warming to this idea as a way to establish the effectivity of a PHE in terms of tank heat up times. (I'm finding it quite hard to find any real world data on PHE performance) My original thought was get a "Heat Pump" compatible tank 3m2 coil surface area but for a 120 L tank it's a lot of coin. Modern insulated tanks with no coil and two immersion points are much much cheaper (It appears the reduction in tank cost would more than cover purchase of a PHE) Long term I don't want to do it with my existing tank - I could do PHE as step one - evaluate the process - if it works then great. If it doesn't I'll have just a PHE to sell on rather than both a PHE and a Modern Tank which is only suitable for Direct heating only. As a stage two replace the tank with a newer Direct heating (with a lower heat loss level) and hook up to PHE knowing the results will be as expected

Water Heating Optimisation TLDR (Sub title - I really should get a better tank and until then I’m going to see if I can replace an annoying tank stat and experiment to see if heating once daily to a higher temp is more or less economical than heating twice a day to a lower target temp) OK Background so it’s a ~115 litre copper tank from 2012, it’s spay foam lagged - heating coil is prob a 3kW (so not very large) Summer it gets heated to 50 deg once daily and between the two of us we use all of the available hot water on a daily basis Tank losses are 0.5 deg per hour in summer but higher in winter so winter we heat a little higher temp and use DHWP to heat water quickly at higher temp so CH can get back to heating house at low flow temps. Tank temp control is a Drayton tank stat. Boiler flow temp is 62 Deg C and 45 mins of heating is scheduled per day (stat declares satisfied at 50 Deg C so actual heating time ranges from as low as 31 min but typically 40 mins is the norm and sometimes the schedule stops the heating cycle before target temp is reached but it’s close enough not to matter above is last 7 days peak temp from stand alone temp monitoring (consistent yes?) better still comparing summer water heating with previous years I’ve reduced the average daily water heating energy usage from 4.8 kWh daily to 3.8 kWh daily trouble is the tank stat min is 50 deg and normally once a week Mrs Alien likes a bath - a long bath and she likes a hot bath and she likes to top it up 50 deg C doesn’t cut it for the repeated top ups over a couple of hours so I do a legionnaire's cycle at the same time - manually increase the tank stat setting to 65 deg C and increase the boiler flow temp to 80 deg C - 30 mins and tank is ready. My issue is that finding the 50 deg setting again after is bloody tricky - the 50 deg position is so close to “off” it normally results in a cold shower day after bath night - The Drayton Tank stat is just so “hair trigger” between 50 and off it’s annoying - add to this it requires a small flat head screwdriver to adjust it and it’s bloody annoying……. Tonight I’ve replaced it with a Danfoss one that has a working range of 30 to 90 and has an adjuster that can cope with my fat fingers This got me thinking………… (this is never good) Is it more economical to heat a tank to 50 deg once a day or to heat it to 45 deg twice a day (ignoring bath night) I can understand that the cooler the tank temp the lower the losses between heating cycles but gut feel says once a day would be the most economical approach…… I feel a small trial is needed to prove it one way or another……

I laughed but it was a little risky 😉 Probably one for Off Topic and even then it was a little edgy

Hmm I'm starting to wonder if that's the answer for me too - Tanks with no coil at all are substantially cheaper than one with a HP suitable coil? Yes I know you need a suitable circulation pump and a PHE but with both those fitted any increase in tank size is just another relatively cheap tank Plus they normally have 2 immersions so if and when I go down the PV route........

Then to qualify you are almost certainly going to have to go with a bigger tank as it’s very likely to be heated to a lower temp (maybe 50/55 max) I’m keeping my eye out for a suitable pre-owned tank because I’m sure sooner or later one will pop up having been replaced as a result of the BUS grant 😉

which is why (as my house is definately ASHP ready) I wouldn’t bother with the BUS grant. a future owner if they wanted a higher volume of HW for a family of 4 or 5 could get a bigger cylinder fitted I stand by my comment that it’s more economic to heat only the water you need. I’m still thinking about changing the cylinder but Trevor quoted me £1400 for a 120 L cylinder which had a ASHP coil (smallest one they do apparently) I can’t see the point of fitting larger for our needs and we have no plans to move until we self build

I had a two to three foot crawl space under my suspended wood ground floor. It’s ventilated with air bricks every five all the way round the house getting underneath there was a lot of air flowing if there was any breeze at all. The ground was concrete over DPM and it’s very dry under there (dusty) the floor joists were mostly four or six inch (an extension added had six inch due to the span. most ground floor rooms have either tiled finish (overboarded with ply before tiling) or 18mm oak. all floors in winter were bloody freezing and most rooms were drafty near the skirting boards I used 75mm kingspan and did the whole ground floor from underneath - this left a reasonable amount of joist exposed if any moisture needed to escape - I tapered the insulation at any air brick The best thing from an energy reduction perspective I have done - I’ve been under a few times and there is still a good airflow under there and no sign at all of any damp. drafts have been completely eliminated and even in winter the floors (esp tiled ones) are closer to room temp rather than 10 deg cooler 100% recommend but if you can remove the floor and do it from above it’s a lot easier @Sparrowhawk I think has also done similar