Simon Brooke

My Ventaxia has a silent running mode which I have assumed means that the fans are running at minimum rates. The time period is adjustable via the touch screen.

After two years of living in our new self build we are generally very happy with our passiveish house. We have an underfloor system fitted but not really operational as the Sunamp is not man enough ( though does provide our hot water very well). We would like an ashp but only need input for a month or so and therefore reluctant to spend big money. I am now considering a second hand ashp and would really like it to be reversible so that we can cool as well as heat the slab. Getting information from dealers or manufacturers as to which model would be suitable is proving difficult. I do have access to a five year old Daikin EDHQ014 B6V3 but the online manual indicates that cooling is an option but not applicable to all models? Does anyone have a recommendation for a model / manufacturer which would easily switch from heating to cooling? Also is it sensible to think of a five year old model or should I stick to new? Any advice gratefully received.

Simplest and cheapest would be to just move it. The boiler should have a few years of life left in it. The only issue for me would be whether you are happy with water pressure for showers.

Shutting off the bedroom heating has made a big difference. Last year when we ran the underfloor heating as recommended we found that the 9kw Sunamp ran out of puff very quickly leading to cold water rather to often. As noted on other Buildhub posts the mvhr is not that efficient in redistributing heat so we have an approx. 2 degree difference in the room temps. The cooler bedrooms suit us , the only downside is that the bathrooms which are part of the bedroom loops (bungalow) are a bit chilly and definitely need the towel rail boost. I recognise that our approach is a compromise and does make proper use of the underfloor heating but the costs of an ashp ,both capital and servicing , coupled with the disruption to the finished build are putting us off that route.

We are now in our second winter with a system very similar to yours although I suspect your mbc frame will have a better airtightness rating than ours. Sunamp themselves have accepted that their spec of a 9kw battery is insufficient and are exploring ways to help which may involve a second battery and an ashp. This help does seem a long time in arriving though! In the meantime we have been experimenting with the underfloor heating using the Sunamp and believe we are quite close to a solution that will work for us. We have closed the loops that feed the bedrooms so now only have underfloor heating running in the daytime living areas. We are on economy seven and start the heating at 1.30am which gives the battery 1.5 hours of top up. The heating then continues to 4am which gives a further 3 hours to recharge the battery for the day's hot water. In addition we have two electric towel rails which are on for a total of 4 hours . Temperature in the living room is 21 degrees this morning which is fine for us. We have consistently used 19 kw of cheap rate eletricity over the past 30 days which I estimate is split roughly 50/50 hot water and heating. I am hoping we will need heating for 100 days each year but time will tell. If we do conclude that we need additional then a Willis heater seems the simplest add on with no maintenance costs. Hooe this helps.

It seems to me that bco's primary interest is to get a bit of paper on file and tick off that particular box. That said I must admit I struggled to get the system balanced and sought professional help. It turned out the planned figures calculated by the supplier were not achievable but for a couple of hundred quid I was reassured that the system was ok and the bco was also happy. In the scheme of the build I concluded the cost to be well worth it.

Yes you will need a test. But look at this as a positive. If you choose a sensible person to do the test they will do it in two steps. In our case this flagged up leaks which I had not spotted but could be fairly easily resolved before a second, final test. That being said we didn't achieve quite what we wanted.

Obviously, not knowing your personal financial any thoughts are guesses. We employed an accountant for about £500 as we planned to sell a field which would result in a capital gain mixed in with doing a barn conversion whilst living in the main house. The advice was fine but our income, due to doing the build, was very low and the cgt exemption is quite generous. You also need to guestimate how much gain there is likely to be on the existing house to be mothballed. You may conclude that in reality the gain may not be great enough to worry about. Of course , if it is greater than you think you are still ahead and paying tax is not the worst thing in the world.

Not that scary. As you say the manager is away at the moment and those present could not remember the fix and asked for details.

Thanks

SORTED! I eventually decided to call the Eddi technical line. Explained the problem and was told to go into settings and check the'hot setting delay'. That was showing zero. I was advised to increase it to about 30 minutes. This was done as an upgrade to cater for the sunamp issues. So we seem to be up and running which is great. Thanks for all the contributions. I did later speak with sunamp technical and will be sending them the info. for their files! During the conversation I pointed out what a pain it is not being able to see at what stage of charge the battery is. Apparently they have some software and a gizmo which they use for testing that would in effect show the charge level and could possibly be retro fitted. It was suggested I write to the company and request that it be released. I will do this and report back. In the meantime I have a final basic question which is, if I have a 9kw battery does it take 9kw of electrical input to fully charge?

Forgot to attach photo.

Ok definitely a finder. I have spoken to the technical director, which was good of him as he is off sick at the moment, and his initial view is that unlikely to be the battery. He has agreed I can phone him this morning with the control panel exposed and he will interpret any lights that may come on. As an aside if it proves to be the finder will a replacement 'simply' fit into the same bar?

Ok will do tomorrow am.

The brown reset button seems to be set, so that is one easy solution ticked off.

Sadly, they want the old one back. I have now taken the bottom plate off to reveal a few wires as shown.

I sent an email to sunamp technical today and chased up by phone to be advised that everyone was in a meeting. When I came in this afternoon Rosie from customer services had rung . She advised that a new battery was being sent to arrive on Wednesday. I explained that it would be very disruptive to change a battery over but she said as it was a self install that was all they could do. I then asked how they knew that it was the battery and not the control unit and explained again what seemed to have happened. She then said we had not had a dual but merely a PV. And I had to explain that the invoice said pv but was wrongly labelled. That's it for today as they have to investigate at there end and try to stop the delivery of the wrong battery! I am now going to take the access plate off and have a look for the reset button.

Thanks again. We have a passive ish house. Passive architect designed and apart from achieving only 1.3 air changes rather than 0.6 all insulation etc is up to design. We were advised that we would need no heating but this in reality seems a pipe dream. It seems we should budget for between 30 and 60 days of dull cold weather. Our current thoughts when we get the Sunamp back up and running is to power up the heating for a couple of hours pre economy 7 cut off and then recharge to full for the day and evening demand.

Thanks everyone for your responses. The sunamp was purchased June 2018 and is a UniQ eDual9. The Eddi came in June 2019 and has a model no. of 16A1P01. The underfloor has not been on when trying the boost mode. I have now noticed that there is an inspection plate at the bottom right of the box so will have a look inside tomorrow. I have a separate control box which , from memory, looks identical to photo provided by Jeremy.

Many thanks for the info and kind offer. Apart from my lack of electrical skills, I have a SMALL problem in that I have put the sunamp neatly in a left hand corner and then covered it with a lovely piece of work top! I knew I would pay for being neat. Have put on boost again with,sadly, no crisp packets and no warm water. I will see if I can get any sense out of Sunamp tomorrow before opening up the control box to see what type of switch is there. Thanks again. Simon

Hi, We are two weeks into the new house . Generally pretty happy but one or two issues arising. One is our Sunamp, a Uniq edual 9kw. This was bought to provide underfloor heating and hot water. We had hoped to use PV excess and top up with economy 7. Yesterday was very dull, though not overly cold, and we used the underfloor to raise the temp. from 16 to 19 degrees. We have the manifold mixing valve set at about 35 degrees. Basically, it struggled and eventually used all its capacity (indicated by no hot water). As an aside I really hate not being able to see what the level of capacity is. Anyway, it then spent the rest of the day clicking every couple of minutes as though it was switching on to charge. Eventually I put it on to boost for an hour but this didn't help. Overnight it seemed to charge because when I put it onto boost it (eddi) showed max temp reached which I interpret as battery at full capacity. The clicking noise is still continuing AND no hot water. Any thoughts before I try to ring Sunamp tomorrow? Many thanks, Simon

Thanks all. I am waiting for a response from the bco.

Thanks. I used the group's Testo and actually asked the bco if this would be ok. He has now changed his mind! I will follow up on your suggestion.

Hi, After an initial visit when he seemed happy with my self certified testing of the mvhr flow rates, the building inspector has now written to say he requires a specialist to perform the tests. Has anyone come across this and is there a way round it? Thanks, Simon

I liked dealing with the Green Building Store. The window frames are wood but you would think they were aluminium faced as the finish is so good. After care has been good and the prices competitive. All in all a strong recommendation.