Nick Laslett

When I enquired with Paul Heat Recovery about the Zehnder ComfoClime, they actually recommended the ComfoPost as a better solution. They are both quite pricey, but the ComfoPost is a bit simpler and cheaper than the ComfoClime. General consensus here is that these solutions are not that effective at providing any real cooling. We have the ComfoPost, but it is not commissioned yet. I’m happy if it only takes 2°C off the room temps in summer. The ASHP is doing the heavy lifting in my cooling approach.

I wonder what wild life a steady supply of cooking grease would create in a warmish, sheltered vented space like this? You could develop quite an ecosystem after a few years. Makes me think of the warm water outflows at a Nuclear power station, and how it attracts massive amounts of marine life. Perhaps it is a situation to try and avoid.

I ordered my Newel Posts from Pears. Happy with the service and the quality of the product.

Here are the bookmarked threads I have on this topic. We have Suncool SN70/35 coated glass, which still lets in some heat. Visually on the inside it has no impact.

@Mattg4321, I did link to the iPad/iphone spectrum analysis tool I use earlier in this thread.

I’m sorry, I’m just an amateur. You’ve probably already seen this, but this is what Google Gemini says: For me, thinner paint and getting the pressure right had the biggest effect. Distance from surface and movement speed came next. I’d also heard about the “warming the paint technique”. Buy a different brand of paint, see if it is still a problem. I’ve only sprayed Benjamin Moore ceiling paint, Benjamin Moore Scuff-X Matt, and Valspar Premium Walls & Ceilings Matt. They all sprayed differently. I have a Graco sprayer, so I don’t know anything about Wagner sprayers. For ceilings I used FFLP514 spray tip. Google Gemini says this about tips:

Usually 70/30, but I tend to do a test batch.

@kentar, a lot of variables in airless spraying. I find this YouTube channel is a great source of information. https://www.youtube.com/@PaintHQ In my experience you need to thin the paint a lot more than you’d expect. Keep the spray gun, perpendicular to the surface. The spray nozzle sets particle size and fan angle, this has a big impact on the finish and distance needed from surface to prevent running and orange peel effect.

@Mr Blobby, talked about it in this thread. A couple of us used this product. This link is in the thread above, to a blog with video discussing the render reveal bead. https://www.beconstructiveltd.com/why-use-external-wall-insulation-reveal-bead/

Just a note for anyone looking at the BES flexible hoses for ASHP. Part Number: 25287, Manufacturer's Part Number: FH-500-28F https://www.bes.co.uk/flexible-hose-1-bsp-f-swivel-x-28mm-x-500mm-pair-25287/ For some reason they list them as having a 28mm bore, not sure why? This is just the outer bore, so how useful is that? On the manufacture’s spec sheet they are DN25, e.g. 25mm inner diameter. https://diversitech.global/storage/app/media/DataSheets/Technical Data Sheets/HOSES/H-FLEXIBLE HOSE-TDS.pdf They also have a DN32 flexible hose, this seems harder to find. Not really that important, but when I was getting the flexible hoses for my ASHP install, it was frustrating that the inner diameter information wasn’t easier to find.

Too much glycol?

The main issue my ground workers had, was very high water table, and sandy/gravely soil. The site is a former gravel pit. We have the same STP as @ProDave. They were worried about the unit popping out of the ground. They took the concrete from the back of the mixer into the digger bucket.

What kind of soil do you have? My ground workers first install attempt failed, when the hole collapsed. They abandoned that hole and started in another location. We needed expensive shuttering and bracing to support the install. Special attachment on the digger, rams the shutters into the ground.

I don’t believe you need the dual temperatures. Supply water just above the dew point and I expect you will get the house cool enough with UFH and Fancoils running at those temps. Plenty of anecdotal comments here about Fancoils delivering at temps above dew point. The trick is to never let the house overheat in the first place. The ASHP weather compensation will supply the cooling before the house ever gets really hot. You can use Home Assistant connected to a dew point sensor to control the Panasonic ASHP flow temp. @Dave Jones

Not sure how the ‘M’ is different to the ‘J’? Here are the pages from the installation set-up for the ‘J’ ashp about 2 zones, different temps. https://www.panasonicproclub.com/uploads/GB/catalogues/2023/UK_INSTALLATION_MANUAL_H 2023v3.pdf

Here is the link to the Installation Manual for the Aquarea P-FMM units: https://www.library.aircon.panasonic.eu/GB_en/doc/rUbm7oIgxvs=/ Google is so useless, now. I switched to DuckDuckGo and it was the first link. 16mm diameter condensate connection on the P-FMM15 model.

I would think the P-FMM15 will also have a 14mm condensate pipe. You can always speak to the technical dept of the supplier, they will give their take on how best to plumb the condensate pipe.

Here is the page from the installation manual for the floor standing unit. Source: https://shop.dhps.nl/Article/DownloadAsset/Installatiehandleiding Panasonic ventilatorconvectoren P-FAL serie (Engels).pdf?documentId=assets/1043/d4cdab92f98c4a15b453b97b9addb49e Basically you route the condensate pipe to a soil vent stack. Use a waterless waste trap between the condensate pipe and the SVP connection. Like this: https://wavin.com/gb/p/c5d3a02d-0d50-4ebb-a3a7-ff44fe446e57/osma-hepvo-waste-valve-32mm-white The condensate pipe will need an adapter to convert it to 32mm for the waterless waste trap. I did find a smaller 21mm trap here. The condensate pipe diameter is 14mm. https://www.greenmillac.com/Waterless-Trap-3-4-inch In an ideal world you will be able to access the waterless trap, as eventually it will need replacing.

We have 3 pocket doors, and I spent a lot of time looking at the various options, Eclipsse is very popular and there are some good YouTube installs. Other systems I looked at were from Portman, Ermetika, and Scrigno. https://portman-pocketdoors.co.uk https://www.ermetika.com/en/sliding-doors https://www.scrigno.com/en/categoria/wooden-sliding-doors/ This was something I was going to install myself, so I spent a lot of time looking at the install guides to see which was the easiest to install. You really want a carpenter that has experience with one of these systems or a specialist that deals with these installs specifically. In the end I did a bespoke install using the sliding door product from Smart Systems Aluminium that matched our French doors. Because I was building the stud walls from scratch, it made incorporating the doors a lot easier. The various kit options do have some neat extra features. Hafele also do a kit which gets a lot of positive ratings. https://www.hafele.co.uk/INTERSHOP/web/WFS/Haefele-HUK-Site/en_GB/-/GBP/ViewParametricSearch-Browse?SearchTerm=+pocket+door&SearchParameter=%26Category%3DhmAKAOsFdfwAAAF.B87iJvmA The point of the kits is that it should remove a lot of the issues about getting everything plumb and true.

For my design I targeted 90m long loops. The piping comes 100m long reels. I went with 200mm centres which I think is the rebar grid distance. Anyway they follow the rebar grid whatever size that is. My installer fitted less pipe than on the plan, but it doesn’t seem to have affected the house. Some good discussion here.

@JohnnyB, the latest Grand Designs is a hempcrete build. Very helpful to have visited your build, before watching this episode.

@S2D2, I bought all my spiral ducting form the Duct Store, like @JohnMo. https://www.ductstore.co.uk/acatalog/Attenuators.html They have attenuators. I used the Lindab Safe Click system, which has rubber gaskets. I bought all these components direct from Lindab. Just find the nearest sales office to you. https://www.lindab.co.uk/Products/ventilation/Sound-attenuation/?sort=popularity&display=16&page=1 They have a huge choice of attenuators. If you want to be confident that you are going to cut most of the MVHR unit sounds before they hit the manifold, you need an attenuator that is 1000mm long. If you look at the spec sheet for the Lindab Attenuator, the difference between 500mm and 1000mm is significant. A semi-flexible radial system will also help mitigate the noise. Also, you don’t want your individual ducts going to a supply outlet being too short. Here is a photo from one of @Nickfromwales installs showing 500mm attenuators, foam insulated ducts and a Ubbink manifold.

I agree. It is quite confusing. @Bitpipe implies in this thread, that he got the foam inserts from BPC and used them at the plenum to reduce sound. But he might have had the old fashioned Vents with no attenuation properties.

BPC used to do foam dampers at the plenum. They have something similar here. https://bpcventilation.com/collections/acoustic-solutions/products/quiet-vent-adjustable-flow-control-damper The previous version was talked about on BuildHub, years ago. I did find these products, which I liked the look of: https://ventmann.co.uk/products/inline-foam-damper?srsltid=AfmBOoq-8qHhLQ_amR3s3V39sjjcbggu86fNVxxn-ttVyy9-eZ3zq-lI

@Mattg4321, you can buy these semi-flexible attenuators direct from Lindab. https://www.lindab.co.uk/Products/ventilation/Sound-attenuation/circular-attenuators/slfa/?sort=popularity&display=16&page=1 Unlike the BPC product, they actually have a spec sheet with the attenuators reduction for different frequencies. The BPC product might be great, but need more details. You can get an audio tools app for your iPhone/iPad, which will tell you the frequency you are trying to reduce. There maybe some free ones, but this is the one I recommend. https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/audiotools-db-sound-audio/id325307477 They have a video on their site demonstrating the FFT function. https://studiosixdigital.com/audiotools-modules-2/acoustic-analysis-modules/fft/ There are many MVHR ducting attenuators out there, but the good ones will provide the frequency attenuation charts. Good site here with multiple examples of different types. https://en.ventilatory.net/duct-elements/silencers Good BuildHub thread here about MVHR attenuators.