PeterW

Anyone who has one of these and needs the manual, its here

I don’t think you’ve read my response. Accountants have been nowhere near this - it’s still a prototype and basically the scientists are still playing !! A product engineer would sort this in a matter of months - it’s not about the cost, it’s about making the thing survive the real world first ...

@Ed Davies doesn’t it miss the point though of not being able to use it to take excess PV without mucking about ..? The issue if you look through the product catalog is there are too many variants - you basically need a charge circuit and a goo box. More capacity = more goo boxes, you don’t need another charge circuit per box ...

This is where I see the flaw in their design. Whilst removing a pump (moving parts) and a heat exchanger, they have introduced an issue where they have exposed the core of the product to a heat source that can exceed 100c - a resistance heater. If they had kept the H-Ex in the design and fitted a standard Willis heater tube instead - even in the bottom of the case to allow for permanent immersion and thermosyphoning - then it would have allowed multiple different ways to warm the goo. PV, E7, ASHP, Solar Thermal - all could be pumped round the H-Ex circuit or input into the Willis, and even with the slight loss in performance it would have been fine. My view that I’ve shared with @Nickfromwales for a while is that it’s not that @scottishjohn the accountants have been at this, but the product engineers haven’t had a look in and the scientists are still experimenting ... 99% of these issues would go away with a couple of months of decent product engineering, and with probably some cost savings to be made too.

Mortar, foam, silicone... doesn’t matter what you squidge through the scourer reinforcing ....

Mice can eat their way through pretty much anything - plasterboard included. The only way to stop them is using mesh. Embedding stainless mesh into foam works well - cheap dish scouring pads work and just fluff them up a bit before you do.

Move the wall in by 120mm.?? Or are they out by more than that ..?? If it’s a tray going in there they are standard sizes but a wet room you wouldn’t notice.

Seriously ...?????!! They won’t be interested in getting through as they will find warmth elsewhere ... @zoothorn again, cracking job and as discussed so spot on that man ..!

The old controller didn’t have a limit before excess PV was utilised so if then Sunamp was 10% discharged and there was PV available it would use it until it reached 100%. Now the controller checks and won’t allow and input power until 50% discharged or 90% discharged depending on a setting in the control box. This means if it gets to the end of the PV day and is 45% discharged you need to use grid power to top it up - at 3-4 times the cost of the PV you’ve exported ..!

Intermediates and second switches are a thing of the past with Quinetic switches ..!

@zoothorn did you say there was a chimney breast behind one of these plasterboard walls..? Daft as it sounds, may be worth exposing this as the old masonry chimneys do absorb and release a lot of heat. Currently it sounds like its behind the PB "tent" so isn't warming anything ...

Tape it to a bit of twin and earth and will stay fairly straight

Wrap some plastic around them and then foam it up. You can make the frame in sections to fit round it - doesn’t need to be pretty !

You can get smaller boards but not in taper edge. They are called repair or handy boards (1200x600) or you can get 1800x900 boards too

I’d be asking the neighbour who his insurer is at this point ....

Hmmm... crap supplier answer, sorry ..!! That’s like Worcester Bosch [other boiler makes are available] saying there is no point outputting the error codes to the LCD as “customers won’t know what they are”... Diagnostics are useful, as are basics such as indicator lights ...! Sounds like a number of people on here have purchased them (PV models especially) and find they don’t actually do what they say on the tin. I also find the 3kw immersion thing very “binary” and they should have thought this through better. Units with a series of 1kw immersion’s, each with a controller, would be better as a failure becomes less of a problem as you retain redundancy.

That’s what made the BSI Report for those IVT units quite interesting reading @JSHarris as they did a wide range of tests and you get a real world example - or as far as you can in a lab. IVT / Mitsubishi V90 They were getting sub 2 scores on CoP in tests 19 & 20 which are the near freezing and high output tests, but that is still double the CoP of direct electric. What is also nice is they explain the full calculation for CoP at the beginning ..!

Also have a look at the models and it may pay to have two different one as the space between drawers can be different. I know someone who has one for glassware and one for plates..!

Aico do a test and silence switch for their smoke alarms. So much better than going round with a tea towel to silence one and makes testing them very simple.

True but still a bargain. Those IVT ones are bizarre though as 18 months ago they were less than £600...

17kw ASHP for change of £2500....

Is that a moving water course or a lake ..?? If it’s moving you will need to go with piles or similar as you will need to ensure the water can’t erode the bank. I’d be inclined to use shuttering piles to create the retaining wall and put the slab on top and you can go pretty much to the waters edge.

Could build a retaining wall of gabions down toward the watercourse and then backfill for the slab - won’t go anywhere and it’s used fairly widely as a retaining section.

From the digging I’ve done, these were designed to be run as the outside unit for a prepackaged tank and heat pump system by IVT for use in Nordic countries. I expect that the units have a pre-set curve for this sort of climate so will be slightly low for this sort of region. Its been around 5-6c around here this afternoon and driving the unit at 88% it did defrost once however it seems to slow down a little but not really that much. Time will tell on reliability however they seem pretty good units.

I would be very wary of that as you could inadvertently create a large PV kite .... with slots through the wind lift shouldn’t be as high.