ChrisSig

Thanks for the replies. In terms of planning/permitted development, we're not in a conservation area and our plans (which were approved) include solar panels on the roof. I will be looking to install this myself so the professional install costs don't factor. I'm guessing the system cost will be of the order ~£3k. One of the first suppliers that comes up in a search is Joule - their tubes are heat pipes (which I'm led to believe is the way to go rather than having direct flow through the tubes) so I may check them out. Consolar are also just down the road from me in Stroud so should probably speak to them. I'll check out eBay too - I think there's lots of Navitron stuff on there? I appreciate due to panel costs plummeting solar PV is the economic way to go for most people these days, but I have my reasons for resisting that. I guess mainly as an engineer who likes this sort of thing, it's a whole lot more interesting than a few inverters and cables with no moving parts! I also have my doubts that it's really a very suitable system for generating that much of our capacity in the UK, though the economics for the consumer are attractive for another host of reasons I don't agree with.

Hello everyone, I am in the process of planning an extension to my home next year, and I have an ambition to install solar thermal. The property is a 4 bed and I already have a 350L Gledhill thermal store with an unused solar coil. The tank is currently heated by a mixture of an oil boiler and a wood boiler stove. My roof is all north-facing, but the extension will provide east-west pitched roof surface (34 degrees) which is my planned siting of the panels for a dual orientation system. I am looking to go solar thermal rather than PV for a few reasons, one being that limited roof area means I can gain more output from this type of system. I'm looking for feedback from people who have installed an evacuated tube system for recommended suppliers and manufacturers. One thing that nags at me is the potential need for future tube replacements and therefore the perceived longevity of the manufacturer/supplier - is this something others have considered?

Hello everyone, I'm looking for some advice on a boiler stove installation which I have recently completed. The part of the system I need help with comprises a boiler stove and thermal store, both on the ground floor, a Laddomat and pipework connecting the two, plus a heat leak radiator gravity circuit on the first floor. Due to constraints in the property, the Laddomat and tank-stove piping are routed in the void between the ground and first floors. The thermal store is open vented to the F&E tank. In order to provide a continuously rising vent to the stove, I have installed a tee on the gravity circuit. The thermal store also has a continuously rising vent to the F&E tank. The feed from the F&E tank is connected to the thermal store, making this the neutral point of the system. My issue is that when the Laddomat pump is running, the system pumps over through the vent on the gravity circuit. I had feared that this might happen due to the pump head, which by design is making the stove and gravity circuit a high pressure point in the system. I can't see a good way to rectify this however: I can relocate the vent on the stove circuit to the pumped flow between the boiler and the tank, however due to the way the pipes have to run because of changing floor levels on the first floor I can't get this very close to the tank. So the pressure in the stove vent pipe will still be quite a bit higher than at the tank. I don't think I have enough headroom in the loft to raise the vent pipe high enough to overcome the static head, though I wouldn't know for sure except by redoing this part of the system; I can relocate the vent on the stove circuit to the pumped return before the Laddomat. This will be at a suitably low pressure to avoid pumping over, but I don't think this provides a suitable vent path as this is then routed through the Laddomat pump and valve, which is normally closed except when at temperature I can remove the second vent to the boiler stove completely. The system has no possibility of over-pressurising in reality since the stove is hydraulically connected to the vented thermal store with no valves etc via the pumped flow connection, but this vent route is not continuously rising. Initial air removal can still be achieved via bleeding the heat leak radiator. This would be my preferred option, but I don't know if it is regulation compliant (I fear not). I can't find anything in the Building Regulations that explicitly addresses this and as far as I can tell all the relevant guidance is in Hetas and British Standards documents which are not accessible to mere mortals. I have included a crude system diagram to illustrate the current installation. Any guidance gratefully received. I'm sure plenty of pumped stove installations must get around this issue, but I have not found any information on how to achieve this. I

Wow, thanks all for responding so quickly! I shall get started investigating existing discharge rights and think about where to go from there. @Temp, I agree the general binding rules are a bit ambiguous here. The guidance is written assuming you have one of two discharge arrangements, offering no advice for those who have neither. I infer from reading the Building Regulations etc that our setup is definitely not compliant with modern regulations and nor is it compliant with the General Binding Rules, hence my uneasiness about our installation. @ProDave and @AnonymousBosch, I haven't looked around the edges of the field to see what options we might have going further from the existing discharge point. The field is a fairly sizeable and well established orchard, so digging across it will be a bit challenging if that's what it comes to. Will try and walk the boundary at the weekend and see what options I have there.

Good afternoon all. I've had a search through on related topics and decided it would be best to start a new topic rather than hijack an existing one; apologies if this has been covered elsewhere and my search skills aren't what they should be. Our situation - we bought our property in 2013. It was built sometime in the mid 19th century and has a septic tank system which I presume was installed well before the introduction of British Standards in 1983. Our tank is shared with our neighbour; there is another septic tank shared between two other houses in our development. Both of these tanks then share a common discharge (so four houses into two tanks into one discharge). The problem we are faced with is that the existing discharge for all four properties just runs to the edge of a neighbouring field and then discharges to open ground at surface level (the field is sloping; it's basically embedded in a bank at the top of the field). As I understand it from reading the general binding rules, there are two types of discharge - to surface water (which must be continuously running) or to ground (a drainage field or similar). What we have doesn't seem to fit into either category. My concerns with the existing system are firstly that I don't think it's compliant with the general binding rules (which as I understand it is a legal problem from January of next year) and secondly that the discharge pipe itself may be failing - it's a clay pipe which has already suffered a localised collapse. The farmer who rents the field is also unhappy about the boggy conditions near the outlet. Looking into options for remediation, there doesn't seem to be a straightforward route available. Our subsoil has a thick yellow clay layer below the top 1' of topsoil and I am quite convinced based on experience of digging holes in the garden it's too impermeable for a drainage field (which in any case would require installation on land that none of us own). We're a long way from a mains sewer. There are no flowing water courses nearby. A rebuild project down the road from us has been faced with this issue and wasn't given permission for a borehole when they enquired with the EA - work seems to have stopped whilst they find a solution. We appear to be in a position where we don't have the ability to make use of surface or ground discharges, but equally we don't appear to be able to do nothing about it. I have looked into drainage mounds, but as we don't own the land they would need to go on again that seems like a non-starter to me. Based on the topography of the site, I think it may be possible to install a reed bed in a small corner of the field which given the much smaller area may be more negotiable with the land owner - however I'm not clear on whether the water coming out of a reed bed can then just be discharged as surface water or if that's not permissible either? I'm quite prepared to go down the route of changing the septic tank for a treatment plant if needs be, but from my current position I don't see how that will help me given the effluent from a treatment plant still needs a discharge route that I don't have available. I recognise I am in a position where I need to seek some authoritative advice. There seems to be a lot of conflicting advice between different professional companies however - some seem to be doing their best to sell you the earth, some seem to be giving more helpful advice and there are some who seem to be offering only the bare minimum they can get away with, if that. So I want to be able to have an informed discussion to make sure I'm not being mis-sold anything. I'm also loathe to start engaging with the local authorities and the EA at least until I have a better understanding of my options and how I could proceed - the last thing I want is to fall out with the neighbours over being the cause of enforcement action. I'm sure this isn't a unique problem as I have heard a lot of anecdotal evidence of others locally with similar systems so I'm hoping that someone may be able to offer information and solutions. Thanks in anticipation, Chris