PeterW

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Air-con-Ceiling-concealed-fan-coil-unit-/191892184051?hash=item2cadaa5bf3:g:QPYAAOSw3mpXI4-f Similar bit of kit

Always wondered how this meets the regs as it recycles water in the shower - I assume it basically says that until it leaves the unit it is not "waste" water https://www.hamwells.com/e-shower

Horizontal would work better as the bulk of the water sits on the bottom of the pipe but given I could make this up for about £30 in bits it would need a lot of savings for it to pay for itself !

So in essence if you were to use a solid coil of copper at 4mm to wrap a 42mm pipe, put that inside a 50mm pipe and then put a water jacket on that, you could meet the regs... Just seems very odd..!

Thanks - I am struggling to see how the Recoup+ units work to achieve that as they definitely seem to use a "composite" pipe that has no apparent air gap, but also has no drain point to show of any leaks..? That would indicate that a mechanical linkage (ie contact) is fine, but a soldered joint is not. In reality, neither is likely to fail, and the high pressure to low pressure route is more likely to occur.

So I would look at 42mm copper pipe - you can buy it by the foot on ebay - and then braze or solder 2 pairs of 10mm pipes to the bottom of it. That will give you the flow and soldering will enable the heat transfer much better. I would go as far as to make it up with lengths of solder between the pipes and then heat the lot as it will solder the joints much better. Wrap the whole lot in insulation and you're done. It will affect the flow rate a little, but its probably quicker and much cheaper than those commercial systems that rely on immersion of a 15mm pipe in warm water.

usual way is to make a former - you can use scrap EPS - that creates a hole in the slab. When the main slab has gone off, break out the EPS and then regrade your falls into that with concrete as needed. You still need to be pretty accurate with the drains though as they need to be roughly correct as you won't have much by way of room to move

MSProject is the defacto standard sadly for most projects now - it's not great at some of the more complex stuff but good for basic project planning and tracking. If it's just for a funding app then if you have excel you can use this http://www.vertex42.com/ExcelTemplates/excel-gantt-chart.html If you want to use it for ongoing management then ganntpro or something similar is also free

Agree with what Stones says - you can't get a lot of cooling from these things which in one sense is good as it means the output you need from an ASHP is low. The upside is that you can potentially use it to heat too and bring the temperature of incoming air up by a couple of degrees but I wouldn't call it active heating as to do that you need big coils and very hot water !

This sort of thing http://www.veab.com/documents/cwk/broschyr/CWK_VEAB_Heat_Tech_GB.pdf its basically a radiator in a tin box .... I had considered making one myself but at last check these aren't overly expensive

I'd be looking more at the use of a chiller in the the MVHR feed rather than the fan coils. Commercial fan coil units are ok but they produce cold air in one place only - the water units tend not to have the ability to modulate as much so you will create a cold spot rather than cool the overall air. I don't agree with the PHPP chap either - cooling a kitchen is not something I would do to ensure that I got cold elsewhere by virtue of the MVHR heat exchange ! You would create the potential for condensation in the unit as the cold outgoing air hits the warmer incoming air. Also, most units have a summer bypass for warm days so that would be rendered useless in that scenario A simple duct cooler between the unit and the manifold if you have a radial setup would suffice - that would cool all living areas and create a flow of cooler air throughout

From what I remember the BRegs also ignore any space in a sloping room under 1m high as it is not classed as habitable. I will find the spreadsheet I did and put it on here later

OK so if I have this right : ASHP and Boiler can heat the TS directly TS feeds the UFH directly for heat ASHP can cool the MVHR via the duct cooler ASHP can cool the UFH by the Heat Exchanger..??? You would need to properly isolate the TS from cooling as I would expect the pressure differential of pushing cold through a PHE and a fan coil is much higher than the TS and the 3 way valve. Also any reason for only letting the gas hit the top section of the tank...?

Can you share who the retailer was...? May be worth a sticky thread somewhere around suppliers.. thoughts..?

Jeremy - I would have thought that parging / radius with mortar and then using GRP would be the most secure way..? Not that difficult either as it doesn't need to look pretty ..?

Welcome back ! few plots on Plotfinder in that area - depending on budget of course !

If you want low wattage per metre then buy one of the cable systems and just stick it down wider apart than the recommended width. It basically comes with a roll of 1" duct tape and you put it where you want. You can't shorten it but if you buy the shortest length it should be fine

Do not under any circumstances provide the harness and anchor to the ecologist ! If you have a RAMS statement and the contractor has a suitable method statement then the ecologist needs to do their own RA to decide if further risk mitigation is required. If you provide it, your RAMS cannot state it is optional. You also need to then either be trained in the installation and use of it, or have someone who is to ensure the ecologist doesn't slip and trap a gonad if they haven't put the harness on correctly ... You are also obliged to ask the ecologist for their RAMS statement for the removal and rehousing as you do not need someone jumping about on the roof when a lesser spotted blue pippistrelle or something else is found. They need to tell you how they will do that ...

It amuses me no end that my 17 year old son has passed his driving test and can't put anything bigger than a shopping trolley on a car, yet can comfortably handle upwards of 15 tonnes and 35 feet of tractor and trailer around some of the tightest bends - a lot of it in reverse !

The bit I always struggle with is getting the PIC programmed ..! Happy with the soldering and all the other bits and even the coding, it's the actual programming the chip that always stops me doing this sort of stuff ! Sons GCSE project had something like a 40 pin PIC in it - I could easily read his code and think they are such a great idea I'm sure there is a market in pre-coded chips and boards !

+1 to the Landy - I have a 1975 series 3..!

How much floor space / wet rooms etc are you looking at..? You may find one bigger commercial unit is quicker and cheaper especially as the Mitsubishi units come up regularly on ebay for very low prices. I will end up with a "standard" running value that is about 80% of boost (on paper) purely down to the inability for the Mitsubishi units to tune the fan speeds. I did a quick calculation though - it will use about £60 more electricity over a year so over 15 years will offset the cost.... or basically it's going in as it was £56..!

How many lights are you expecting to run from the new PSU..? Is it a one for one replacement..?

What does the price include..? If you have a price for creating levels, excavating strip foundations and muck away it is a whole world away from the cost of just the digging. A JCB around here with a decent operator is about £28 an hour - I can hire one for £350 a week, but I know he will do more in 2 days than I will in a week..! And that's before I've added in my time.

Is it worth adding anything such as a choke to the output cables on these units or are they just so poor in design that the RF is not easy to contain..?