marshian

So to continue on a more positive note After the boiler was fitted I explained to the gas engineer that I wasn't exactly a happy customer but as he had done everything he said in the quote I would settle the balance however I would like him to supply what I asked from an operating perspective I sent him 1. links to various X-Plan set ups (Both web sites and youtube videos) 2. Details of Viessmann part number 7574319 cunningly titled "Cylinder demand terminal box" 3. Links to suppliers of NO zone valves 4. Kimbo write up of why DHWP should be used I was being helpful although I would have expected someone who was asked for DHWP and specifically a combination of NC and NO zone valves to maybe say - actually fella you're speaking a different language to me - can you help me understand it....... Anyway this Friday he's coming back with a NO Zone valve, Cyl demand box and the wifi module which has been on back order since the boiler was fitted and hopefully we can keep the smoke in the wires. Because in my original brief I did put "The boiler change is not to save gas – it’s to stop me having to constantly manually adjust the flow temps based on expected weather and having to heat water at elevated flow temps manually. I’ve got other hobbies I’d rather concentrate on."

I did and apart from the engineer I used the nearest alternative Viessmann installer was 55 miles away and he wasn't interested in travelling for the job and as a result quoting for it either...... Problem with living in East Anglia I guess. The £3600 was including all materials on the quote below Drain down current heating system and remove boiler from kitchen Supply and install a Viessmann 100w 16kw heat only boiler Supply and install a weather compensation sensor on north facing wall Supply and install the WI-FI module to boiler Supply and install a new flue with plume management kit Connect gas pipe and adjust as needed Connect condensate and adjust a needed Convert the heating and hot water system to a S plan with a normally open zone valve and a normally closed zone valve giving hot water priority Commission boiler Register with Viessmann for a 10 year warranty Register with Gas Safe Five days prior to start date we would need to add a system cleaner to the current system so we can chemical flush it in the day of the install A 50% deposit is required before the start date with remainder on completion That should have rung alarm bells with me What I got was a weather compensated boiler in an std S plan set up with NC zone valves on both HW and CH It also doesn't know if it's doing HW or CH so weather compensation is pretty bloody useless unless I want to heat water at 35 deg flow temp I was just a little bit piddled off on the day when he finished the install and said so how do I set the temp for water to be different for CH and he said you just set the flow temp to 55 Deg..................

I'm not going to reply to all your very good points in turn for a couple of rreasons I'm kinda going back to April this year when I was decided on what I wanted and will move shortly to July when it was installed............... It modulates down to 3.1 kWh and my intention is very much to "zone less" once the "issues" with the install are resolved....... This will be My Viessmann boiler journey "part II"

Background Current house owned 33 years but updated over the years early 1980's built detached 4 bed so originally 1. Open cavity walls. 2. 25mm of loose fill loft insulation. 3. Single glazed doors and windows. 4. Suspended floor downstairs over a 2 - 3 ft crawl space. 5. Heat only boiler (non condensing). 6. T11 rads in some cases sized a little on the mean side. Back in 1991 we had an annual gas usage for CH and HW of 25,000 kWh It’s two floors with a total floor area of 113 m2 (Small extension done in 2006 to building regs at the time) have reduced energy consumption over the years with Double Gazing, Cavity wall insulation, upgraded loft insulation (75mm so could still be better), new condensing boiler got us down to 16,500 kWh per year Most recently every rad in the house has been replaced basically changing T11’s for T22’s of similar or larger size and a few verticals where space for T22’s was a challenge or SWIMBO demanded something “more modern” I also spent 3 months in 2022 doing 56m2 of 75mm PIR between the joists under the ground floor. The PIR was an amazing reduction to heat loss considering heat is supposed to rise but the airflow under the house is quite a high rate when the wind blows with one air brick every five bricks outside (house was built near a flood plain and the water table is quite high) The other contributor may or may not be fitting Wiser controls and Smart TRV's but last winter I ran it like an on/off timer rather than a 24/7 with setbacks due to issues I had with heating controls (old sunvic wiring centre with relays) I was running a manual weather compensation for CH and turning the flow temp up to do HW The last few improvements got us down to 8500 kWh gas usage per year for CH and HW but the current boiler for last 14 years was driving me nuts. It was a Glow Worm Flexicom 24HX (So 10 kW min) and it cycles like crazy. When I did the heat loss calcs it confirmed to me that we had a heat loss of 4,500 kWh at -2 so clearly there was a good reason why it cycles. Annoyingly I replaced the vented HW tank a few years ago (old one needed 1 hr to heat water due to scale inside - hard water area) so it's not that old but I'm sure you are right if I could get a better vented HW tank with a high surface area coil it would probably help a lot when at lower flow temps (at the same time I fitted a water softener so I'm not expecting the same level of scale build up impacting water heating performance) So with the boiler driving me crazy and wanting to bring forward potential big spends to before I pack up work I wanted to buy the right boiler this time. So I did a lot of looking at boilers before deciding on a Viessmann 100W “Heat Only” I wrote a short brief of the “Proposed System” Boiler Required: Viessmann Vitodens 100-W B1GA 16 kW Location same place as existing Glow-Worm Flexicom 24HX Flue needs to be supplied and fitted with a plume management kit (vertical after exit thro wall as a car port is next project) External wired weather compensation sensor Wifi Link Board (So I can link to Home Assistant). Convert to DHWP with CH being the rest position (normally open) on a 3 port (2 position valve) or two zone valves NO for CH and NC for HW Set up to weather comp for CH flow temps (38 to 50 so slope of 1.4 as a start point but I think it will end up at 1.2) and full boiler output at 80 for HW requirements Considering HW cyl replacement with larger coil for lower flow temp water heating but may do this at a later stage as the efficiency gains from heating HW at lower flow temps in summer are quite small. I asked a few local gas engineers to quote but most either weren’t Viessmann trained (so no chance of the 10 year warranty) or wanted me to accept a different boiler (WTF is that all about) Anyway one gas engineer was Viessmann trained and said he could do what I wanted and came back with a quote of £3600....... (ouch) I gave it some thought........ A lot of thought....... £3600 buys a lot of gas!!!!! (About 72,000 kWh at current prices so I could cover the heating needs of my house for 8.5 years.........)

^ This

When we bought our current house in 91 it had no coving in any room - before we moved in we had the whole house done. When we added the extension in 2009 we didn’t add coving but pretty soon did because the rooms even when finished didn’t look it. We like it - we liked it in the 90’s and we still like it now. However as stated it’s relatively easy to add but not as easy to remove all traces if you don’t like it so if it’s being built to sell I wouldn’t add it (and save the cost)

Exactly as I spec'd my new boiler to be set up - shame the Viessmann specialist ignored what I asked for and set it up as a fecking S plan Still next Friday he gets to do again - this time as I asked..........................

Thanks for the knowledge - appreciated I’ll add it to the cat sanctuary charity donation I make every year instead of sending Xmas cards to people I know. Always feels like a much nicer thing to do at Xmas

oh no problem @joe90 we all are busy with life I’m still a smidge concerned about the weight even with I-Joists (which are 1/3 of the weight of timber equivalents) but I’ve been up in the loft today and noticed part of the loft already boarded is actually double boarded - I obviously didn’t trust what was already there and boarded over the top!!!!!) I reckon some of the boards I won’t be able to use so I’ll not go right to the edges My delivery of ventilation gap things arrived today to stop the loft insulation going into the eaves and stopping air circulation - should also stop air washing thro the insulation too…. Like most moulded components I’ve seen better quality but for £1.96 each and I needed 32 it’ll stop me worrying about ventilation issues. only thing I will need to buy is the loft insulation rolls so currently investigating options and pricing for that. just need the weather to turn a little - currently it’s 30 deg in the loft (south facing roof with concrete tiles that do seem to absorb a lot of the sunlight and cook up the loft)

I’d say it was - odd choice but I guess it does the job ( does dry out and go brittle after a while)

Well I’ve sat and thought about it for a few days and the price of I-Joists seemed to only make it viable for the centre section (so I’d end up removing quite a lot of boards) then I came across an advert for some 2840 mm by 240mm I-joists thar were surplus to requirements so I’ve bought 25 of them for £237 which seemed like a bit of a bargain I can do pretty much most of the loft area that is already boarded and maybe a couple of crawl walkways to enable me to get into the two smaller loft areas for access to wiring/poe cabling for cctv cameras which is pretty much in every corner of the house (downside of being burgled is a tendency to go way over the top with security cameras)

It’s very sad I agree

Might be X plan with NO for CH and NC for HW (two different valve bodies makes me think that as if two valves look identical I’d say both are NC type but with two different looking valve bodies I’d put a quid on them being functionally different) NO - Normally Open NC - Normally Closed

My opinion is EPC’s are a rough guide but in general they aren’t really worth the paper they are written on (if they are issued in paper still) I live on a small estate roughly 66 houses all 3 & 4 bed - the ratings vary from E to C When I talked to an assessor about getting one done (prep work for a BUS grant if I went down the ASHP route rather than replace my gas boiler) I was specific about asking if improvements I have made would result in a better rating - it was I might scrape a C but without solar no chance of a B I’ve replaced my gas boiler

Okay better than my scribbles floor plan (upstairs) Main loft area runs right to left and has the dividing wall between bedrooms at one end and and stairwell under the other end Floor plan (downstairs) All walls upstairs are basically repeated down stairs (and go right down to the concrete slab under the suspended ground floor where I spent a long time insulating between the joists in the crawl space)

OK roof trusses Boarded Loft area I want to raise up is the centre section 6.9 m length by 2.1 m width with 13 trusses roughly 60 cm spacing (two at each end are closer) Walls underneath I’m working on because the house is a weird T shape and every time I draw it out it looks wrong and the walls don’t fit right

I get that heating the water to a higher temp on E7 maximises the energy used on cheaper rate but heating to a higher temp also maximises the losses so higher levels of waste I'd be looking at it differently How much of the water do you use daily ie is tank same size as previous and did you run out of water in the day The risk of legionaires is very small if you use all the water daily As far as legionaires goes I do a hot cycle once a week to coincide with "her bath night" Rest of the time I'd be heating the water to a temp that meant the tank lasted all day under normal circumstances I only heat HW (114 Litre vented tank to 48 - 52 deg max) and that lasts the two of us all day (showers morning and evening) Having temp logging on the top and bottom of the tank the accelerated heat loss is very obvious when I heat HW to higher temperature

Very kind/generous of you sir but it's no good for me.........

Just trying to help - I'm still on Windows 8.1 and that doesn't like newer hardware

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-e&q=Z971ac

We had friends stay a couple of weekends back (they have a mains pressurised system - we have gravity and a pump on the shower) they commented how good the shower was 😉 I did raise the cold water tank a year or so back because we were borderline negative head and needing a more expensive pump that can cope

We had a local sparrowhawk or kestral do us a small favour last year - swept in grabbed a young one straight off the patio and then flew out - I know that one wasn't ringed either. The other youngster flew into a patio door and that was its last attempt at flight - also saved me a pellet

You are allowed to shoot them in order to protect crops Obviously if they are ringed you might have a problem one round us is ringed but he clearly hasn't found his way home - he's also bloody smart for a pigeon........

Any update @richo106?

I guess depends on the speed you run it thro the PIR - I didn't investigate it any further than ouch £400 that's not gonna be a cheap bit of kit for a single usage If I was doing a complete house suspended floor and warm roof I might have considered it