Bramco

And the flexi tails rot and slowly leak, causing the metal casing to rust and eventually to give way - result - a massive blow out. make sure you know where your stopcock is! Of course the rust could just be from condensation but either way it's a massive pain if it happens. Go copper!! Simon

Apologies if this has been asked before and if it's in the wrong category, but our M+E consultant is recommending a Vaillant ASHP which I'm fine with but when I look at the Vaillant UVCs, I'm concerned that they won't get the best out of the solar PV diversion. Most solar PV diverters have two outputs, so that once the first output has stopped accepting energy the second output is activated. So if you are doing what most people do, diverting to an immersion in the UVC for hot water, you'd ideally want to have 2 immersion heaters in the UVC, so 1st heat the top of the tank, then when that's hot start to heat the bottom of the tank. The Vaillant UVC has one immersion in the middle of the tank - so only the top half would benefit from the solar diversion. An alternative would be say the Gledhill StainlessLite Heat Pump cylinder but that only has a single immersion heater point which is at the bottom - theoretically better because on a good day you could heat all the tank but not on a marginal day as you'd only warm the whole tank up a bit. Anyone know of a cylinder suitable for ASHPs with 2 immersions - middle and bottom? Thanks in advance for any help. Simon

Depends where you are! Two pre-application advice request down and the nearest we got were some emails defending their initial position. Not a sign of any discussion and absolutely no time to meet us. I'm also guessing now that even if you are in an area where they do this properly, they won't meet you because of Covid, so the best you'll get would be a phone call. Simon

We used some with quite thin gauge galvanised wire. They are great in that the wire of the basket isn't very obtrusive but you do need to put in horizontal ties about half way up to stop them from bowing outwards. I made a jig with 4 screws, so I could bend wire to the right shape to make the ties. A flat topped 'n' shape with the legs bent back up to form hooks, then insert them from the back and hook the legs round a couple of horizontals. The width of the top of the 'n' needs to be just over the width of one square if you see what I mean. Also, if you look at some of the instructions, they'll have you spiralling wire around joints to keep them together - this is really hard and it's difficult to get a good join - things tend to be a bit sloppy. Where it didn't show I used cable ties - worked a treat and gave a much better join. We got ours from fine finish metals 6 or 7 years ago and there haven't been any issues with the cages. We have Scottish cobbles in them and they can tend to go green after some time. If you spray them with MMC Pro algae remover - it's sold in a blue 5 litre plastic flagon and works a treat for removing green algae. We also use it on areas of the render that tend to go green, i.e. behind plants etc. Magic stuff!! Simon

Anybody heard anything further about the scheme? Or was it one of those vacuous promises government seem to get away with without actually putting anything in place? Simon

Just out of interest who supplied the 3 immersion heater cylinder - we're looking for a 2 immersion heater indirect cylinder with the immersion heaters at the middle and towards the bottom, so excess solar PV can go in the middle until it is up to heat and then at the bottom. Simon

Agree - at 6 it won't 'see' what the boiler is doing which is all happening further up the tank. Also on the key, it's pretty clear - 9 is labelled boiler and 6 is labelled solar Simon

Interesting - everyone we've spoken to says you need the 18mm ply or OSB. From a lay persons perspective we couldn't really see why this was necessary - unless it is a way of trying to prevent 'oil canning'. If so it's an expensive way of doing it! Simon

So doing it right is speccing the right VCL in accordance with the level of humidity and leaving a ventilated gap? Or is there more to it? Is this an issue only with standing seam? We were looking at Prefa standing seam but have gone back to what was on our planning application which is corrugated steel for both the roof and the cladding. Mainly because of the cost of wrapping the whole thing in 18mm ply or OSB to support the standing seam. Our timber frame co will install the VCL and 25x50 counter battening. The plan is to then mount purlins and the corrugated on that - the corrugated would have the inside coated with an anti condensation coating and of course the whole gap behind the roofing and cladding would be vented (and insect and vermin proofed). Has anyone done this? Any advice? Simon

And 1TB of storage is less than £50, so file size really isn't an issue. Anyone wanting to get a handle on their consumption and generation should decide whether they are happy with low resolution data or real time data. I've found it very useful to have the real time data and have data since 2016 and the disk it is saved on is . Simon

There are versions around with and RS 485 interface which give instantaneous power. The issue with a pulse output is that you're only measuring power in chunks, a 1000th or 100th of a kWh (depending on the device) and to see things in real time you need the instantaneous power reading. Simon

If you can put a clamp next to the the one you have in the CU already then you would be fine. Gives instantaneous power consumption. Simon

Which is the issue with the system - as someone who has applied (at least in our area) you are only allowed 3 minutes to state your case. Objectors can also have 3 minutes. But...... The committee then debate things - and in our case, they are seriously not au fait with planning law - it's all 'well I think xyz' etc. and if the chief planning officer has recommended refusal, then he'll egg them on. If on the other hand he's recommended approval then he'll gently teach them a thing or two.... And yes the chairman has generally taken a position in some pre-meeting with the head of planning. In our case it was recommended for refusal but one quite senior councillor pointed out the stupidity of what they were saying, it ended up 5 for and 5 against and the chairman voted against - we resubmitted, our champion was on a skiing trip and the councillor who was sitting in for him was one who had voted against the previous time and someone else was back and it was a draw again - and the chairman voted against AGAIN!!! The appeal inspector was polite but essentially said - I don't know what on earth the council are on about - permission granted. There have been some twists since then - we had outline but on trying to talk to planning about what we wanted to do a contractor was assigned as planning officer who pointed out that the original application wasn't valid because the red line didn't show access from the public highway - it's on a private lane..... the law actually says that the red line 'should' show access to the public highway, not that it 'must' another few months of stress..... DON'T GIVE UP!! simon

If they are contradicting their local design guidelines they'll be toast at an appeal - it's just deeply frustrating that so many applications end up at appeal and often win because of some numpty in planning. Don't let them win!!! As a couple of other posts said - persistence, persistence and keep grinding away at them. Do you get an opportunity to speak at a planning meeting? If so, petition the planning committee members by email - simply point out how contradictory the recommendation is against the policy. And don't worry about the objections - they only have merit if they refer to planning law, i.e. overbearing, green belt issues etc. if not they are simply ignored (or should be). Simon

But modern transformers for charging our phones etc. are generally always on and if they are solid state don't really do anything until they are asked for energy - do they? It's the old style power supplies based on wound transformers that are 'always on' and losing heat. There's precious few of them around these days - silicon being cheaper than copper. Or am I mistaken? Are the transformers for LEDs still wire wound? Simon

There are several other OTS solutions with wireless switches, Philips Hue, IKEA etc. Do the regulations have anything to say about a 24V or 12V circuit? Would this be another possibility for the light switch? Switch after the LED transformer. Or do they say you can't have light switches unless they are switching mains for some reason? Simon

Sounds like the time we went away for Xmas from our terraced house in Sheffield. We only had gas fires in the downstairs rooms in those days - mid '70s. It took a good 3 days or so to get some heat back into the house. Chilly times - dressing in the morning in front of the electric fan heater.... Simon

And you won't need to heat the whole tank from 8 to 50 every day, in fact if you have PV then it may only be half the year and the other half only half the tank on average. So £1 on E7 for maybe a quarter of the time - ~£90. Even if it is £200, there's a lot of £200s in the cost of an ASHP. Obviously if you wanted to also cover UFH with a similar solution then you'd need to add in an estimate for that as well. Now you've got me thinking - do I really need that ASHP or can I manage with a simple UVC with immersion heaters and Willis heaters for the UFH as mentioned on some other threads. Simon

I knew there had to be a technical term for it!! ? Interesting point about things being upside down and the pump just forcing any bubbles back down - off to check how the one in our current house is plumbed in!! Simon

When you say drained out and refilled - is that really the case. UFH can't really be drained as a radiator system can be because you can't get low enough in the circuit. When I installed our solar thermal I had a helluva job getting the air out of the system - in this case because the top of the system was on the roof and there was no way to bleed it at the top. I ended up connecting the system to the mains and running mains pressure water through and out which successfully took all the air out. It was a fiddle to get the antifreeze back in but it worked. So the question is, when you say drained out and refilled, are you sure that any air pockets are actually driven through the system and out before it's recommissioned. Simon

Thanks for the info. Simon

Hi Tom, We'd be very interested to see what your tender looked like - we're about to write ours. Obviously there will be many differences but it would be helpful to see what level of detail you went to, over and above the drawings. Simon

Buyer beware! There are loads of fake and counterfeit DS18B20 probes around and most are sold through ebay or AliExpress etc. If you want to make sure you have a real Dallas/Maxim part, then buy through a reputable outlet RS etc. Issues include 'some of the counterfeit sensors actually do not work in parasitic power mode, have a high noise level, temperature offset outside the advertised ±0.5 °C band, do not contain an EEPROM, have bugs and unspecified failure rates, or differ in another unknown manner from the specifications in the Maxim datasheet.' This is from - 'How to tell original from fake DS18B20 temperature sensors.' at https://github.com/cpetrich/counterfeit_DS18B20 I use software from the open energy monitor crew and there has been a lot of discussion there about failure rates of the fake sensors. You may not have any issues with a fake or counterfeit part - but then again you may... Simon

which would be alright but for the need to show the rainwater design will work - we're in flood risk 1 and the culvert design needs to be done properly and OK'd by the LLFA... So we really need someone to do the proper design work and then contract a groundworks contractor to do the implementation. Simon

Hi, We seem to be having trouble getting civil engineers to engage. We've had a couple of quotes but then the companies don't get back when we have questions.... So we can tender for the groundworks for our new build, we need someone to do the drainage and foul water design, to do a design for a culvert over a small dyke for access and to do the foundation design for the garage (the foundations for the house are being done by MBC). I'm wondering if the culvert is putting people off, or is it simply that there's so much work out there, they aren't worried by a small contract like ours? Anyone used civil engineers in the East Midlands/Nottingham area they could recommend? Simon