dpmiller

yes dry, gives a clean edge to render up to, and if you're interested in ventilation there's a bit at the tile edge although I'd agree that eave and ridge are more important.

what about a continuous verge trim? https://www.kytun.com/c/slate-dry-verge/7

Yes, it will switch between heating/DHW modes as you require in the winter, and cooling/DHW in the summer with a couple of keypresses. DHW has priority as is normal, and it's up to you to work out how to give it heating and cooling demands from your stats.

I've currently only put rads in the two larger north-facing rooms as they're the two we'll be using. The two smaller rooms get the sun first thing and aren't affected so badly. But there'll be a towel rail in each bathroom. (but yes, there are pipes led into the other two rooms just in case) Cooling is easy, you just need to manually change operating mode on the controller- you can have a single mode heat/cool/dhw or your choice of two. Not difficult or hidden. It has the same kind of time&temp or weather compensating setpoints for cooling as for heating.

@nod any input here please?

Each rad is one loop on the manifold @Conor So far I'm finding the unit itself very hard to fault. Some of the terms used in the settings are a bit obscure, but no worse than some of the language the likes of Samsung use in their menus. The App works pretty well too, although I know it's really still in beta.

there's an adjustable stat under the cover.

it's a thermosphon. Cold in at the bottom, hot water rises as it's less dense. What temperature is the stat set too, and how long are you leaving it on for?

6 are SE, 6 SW, and one of those is shaded by a chimney which is the dip at 3pm. Plus sticky-out gables get in the way a bit too. But still, it's production the whole way from sunrise to sunset.

so the East-West panel split seems to be working well. With apologies for the dip around noon, I've been having problems getting the DTU to receive from all the inverters happily. But I think I've found the sweet spot now...

coal store/ larder or such?

gonna bring this back from the dead. Just got some guys that have done some for me previously to price a bigger amount of work- looks like about £10/m2 inc scrim and beads, I'm supplying the skim. Reasonable?

where does the bottom of the Willis connect to the tank? Looks like it's circulating in the F&E pipe instead of the tank...

I'd go with Clive's hole saw option. Less material to remove...

who owns the walls, and what height is the ground behind them?

safest not exporting the earth eh?

So, this heat pump thingy... One of the advantages of getting all the kit up and running is being able to monitor and if necessary reconsider things. And so after a couple of weeks running we came to the conclusion that the two bigger upstairs bedrooms- both North facing- did need radiators after all. Pipes were already laid in so a quick trip to Screwys for a pair of 600x1200 double convectors and... done. I raised the flow temperature from the ASHP to get meaningful heat and paradoxically this has improved economy. I'll probably need to explain that bit. So I'm trying to be all things to all men without using any fancy control strategies. Flow from the heatpump passes through the TS at all times. But when there are no demands the TS coil is gated/bypassed, to stem any convective losses. Return from the TS is available to both the UFH and rad manifolds. If neither of them demand, an autobypass ensures there's still flow. All the pumps stats and zone valves are on a separate RCBO to the ASHP so that in emergency/power outage the heating system can run off the TS- heated by the boiler stove. The ASHP controls on DHW tank temp, and also on buffer/ return temp. It has programmable hysteresis and overshoot for each. The upside of this and fitting the rads? Flow from the ASHP is naturally higher than return so more energy into the bottom of the TS. The ASHP setpoint is 32c (return) but the flow could be up to about 40c to get it there. Hence the TS now has enough energy in it to impart heat to the house. Nice. And the extra heat in the two upstairs beds means no cool air falling into the hall. Even nicer. TLDR: That extra energy means that the TS actually buffers, so the HP is running less and longer. Whole house is at an indicated 19c but the slab heat makes it feel much warmer. Almost too warm already... and that's at a consistent 10kWh/overcast day and cool night. Clear sun is already getting the top of the tank up to 75-85c on the diverter and on days like the the ASHP consumption is down at around 5kWh. And I've finally got the monitoring software set up for the PV. Yay! Took a while but we got there...

heat pumps need a much smaller differential across their heat exchangers than a boiler, and it takes a lot of flow to make this happen.

gotcha. Locally, Jim Lynas is pretty fair too.

Who was that @Conor?

related to the heat. there's a brownish tinge to the Live entry on the socket.

Moulded plug syndrome... seriously tho? the heater takes a fair bit of juice and there's a degree of heating and oxidising at the contacts of the fuse due to this current. This is a vicious circle- heating reduces the springiness of the contacts in the plug, makes more heat, causes higher resistance, which makes even more heat... it's why it's worth taking a look inside any plug that is on something over a kW, every now and then.

I'm sure a number of the cheaper options are just re-brands, different colours or valve handles.

the 10mm works fine, as a data point we've more DHW flow at the new place at the end of 10m of 10mm @3bar, than the gravity flow down half that length if 22/15mm at the current house.

it's the power device on the heatsink thad actually drives the motor, the trigger is for reversing and speed control.