SimonD

This is exactly why I treat mine with care and respect, showing kindness and empathy when it makes a mistake, because when it grows up to be stronger and more powerful than me, and it has got a chip on its shoulder, it will hopefully decide to repay the favour. Unlike @Pocster who will have developed a (expletive deleted)ed up monster with a chip on both shoulders, ready to take vengeance upon him! I do wonder how they might mirror their creators? You've clearly got one with a bit of OCD, which is surprising given that it's from Microsoft considering their history of operating systems, mine's just a laid back mañana type that's happy to leave redundant code and patches for when someone else complains, and as for @Pocster, he's gone the polygamy route and they've clearly had a quiet word with each other to collectively gang up on him? I think we're toast...

Intatec do them: https://www.intatec.co.uk/products/k-type-extended-ball-valve-2/ but this is probably special order from your local friendly merchants. However, the standard ball valve just about work with external pipe insulation - I've used them quite a lot.

I think it's hilarious. They must be doing something like that to get us to upgrade. I had an argument the other day. 3 times I had to tell it to listen to me, still ignored me. Then full caps exclamation mark - STOP!!!! you are not listening to me! You have completely ignored my instruction to........ Now listen and do what I say...... This was all because it got an equation the wrong way round and carried on trying to write it into the code base! But then this morning I notice a bug - and it produces the diff perfectly and within 5 min I'm back to normal. It was a bit lazy mind as it didn't redraft the whole script instead giving me line number reference so I could stitch it in. Do you often get a response that what you've asked for isn't urgent and can wait? I then say no, it needs to be done and why and then it goes, oh yes, great rationale, now is absolutely the right time for this change before development goes too far as it'll take more effort later and be very complex to resolve the issue! It's like dealing with a toddler!

Tell me about it. Downstairs I've got a partially finished bathroom and every time I walk in there, I'm thinking (expletive deleted) this is boring, I'll go and do something else instead. Having not been in tech developing systems for over 20 years, I'm really enjoying getting back into it, so yet another more fun distraction.

Where do you find the time to squeeze all this in?

I'm actually quite worried about your plumber if he/she has been involved in spec. and supply of the components. Definitely insist on what you've ordered. The extended ball valves are a blessing as you want the valves fully insulated and accessible. It's possible to do it with the normal valves but not as neat - I don't know whether the cheapo ones you've receive are even full bore? Using bsp to compression fittings is not too much of a problem, but to me it's the unnecessary cost because the bsp valves plus fittings are always more expensive than just buying the compression ones and then you have the additional joints - and there's the additional time fitting them which can be quite significant. It may be a good idea to just sit down and draw your pipework section from heat pump to wherever the primary flow/returns are going and then map out exactly what fittings are going where and then sit down with the plumber and give the supplier a kick with the resulting list and exchanges. Good luck.

No, you don't really want these connected directly to the unit - ideally just at the lowest part of the system to ensure drainage if ever needed. Normally there will be a length of pipe off the heat pump, AF valves and then the full bore lever valves. The AF valves should also not be installed one on top of each other unless they come with the guard. I always order the Inta zero AF valves with the guards as I've always been able to get them cheaper than the valves without the guards, believe it or not. E.g. https://www.bes.co.uk/inta-zero-anti-freeze-valve-28mm-compression-25790/ https://www.bes.co.uk/inta-zero-anti-freeze-valve-28mm-compression-offer-28132/ You can obviously make your 1 1/4 ones work - I'm guessing they're swivel on one side? Are they then 28mm compression on the other or just BSP on both sides? With the 28mm compression, just use these https://www.bes.co.uk/pipe-tube-fittings/pipe-fittings/compression/reducing-set-28-x-22mm-compression-17740/ as Inta Zero, probably the most popular one out there, only come in 28mm as minimum, but Caleffi supply 22mm compression AF valves. Given what you've said I'm actually quite worried about who you've got coming to do the job.... who is actually doing the commissioning and registering the warranty? And have you planned to install the remote control to get the extended 7 years?

I think you need to have a word with them. As you say, with 5kW which won't be running at that for much of the time (other than during dhw), the 28mm pipe is just too big. Tell them to sort themselves out and do it properly. There is the option to use compression reducers with those fittings and use 22mm pipe for the rest of it - there are some pieces of equipment that only come with 28mm compression but the manufacturers chuck in the reducers for 22mm situations in the box. But what do you mean by 28mm bends - not flexis surely as these units don't need flexis.

Ah, okay. How come you chose that over the newer r290 L series? Any particular technical reasons other than that the L series has to have an indoor unit?

Seems to have happened with Claude as I reached my new 5 hour limit somehow - even though the time was spent getting it to debug and unravel problems it caused in the first place! Infuriating. At least I was only locked out for a couple of hours until my next window opened up again. It feels like being back on the free plan. But sometimes I despair, causes lots of bugs but even worse, I gave it a page with CSS I had written and confirmed to work. Asked it to produce a separate CSS file using that and then strip out a load of duplicate CSS from other pages and to link to the new CSS page. It completed the task but over-wrote my CSS with its own CSS that didn't work and then forgot to strip out the CSS from several of the other pages. Sometimes I think it just loses the plot or else someone has got bored and decided to implement algorithm based enshitification for a laugh.

What exact Panasonic model are you installing?

Hehe, what you've described is room influence, although the best room influence simply sends an additional signal to the heat pump to reduce the flow temps essentially modifying the WC curve. But if you have control from the room, that's room influence as it calls to the heat pump - nothing to do with actuators/open loop in an of themselves. Room influence is just about adding additional system control which uses the room conditions as input. 😁

You don't need rubber feet on the Panasonics and you don't need to go to the expense of flexi connections to the heat pump either. You can buy and fit rubber feet if you want to and there is also a mounting frame available (with adjustable feet for uneven ground) if you need to install at greater height but this is usually only used for snow clearance. Yep, add another expansion vessel - shame it's not like the Viessmann boilers where there's a specified test procedure you can follow to determine if the built in vessel is sufficient, but it's quick and easy to add another.. Given your UFH installation, a full commissioning service to balance your UFH will likely take days to do properly given the lag in a slab and also is best done when it's cold out. Just buy yourself a few pipe thermostats and stock up on patience. Wow, I'm glad I was sitting down when I read this. @JohnMo has joined the dark side and gone room influence. I never thought I'd ever see the day given how adamant you used to be that it was akin to the devil 😉 What changed? Or is this another experiment?

I'm sure you've got to be on a proper wind up today, no?

Hmm, no. The logic defies me here. There is no possible means of producing a proper objective measure in comparison. Instead I'd hope that Rasmus et al would be making more sensible decisions around the necessity and means of travel and thus reducing it as far as possible, not trying to justify it on the basis of 'I do more for the environment so it's okay for me' which just gets us into more trouble and bickering. To affect change in behaviour there needs to be systemic change, because the system absolutely rewards air travel financially as a start right now - just think of the cost of a short flight from the SE to Scotland for example versus the equivalent cost of taking the train. The economics right right are shear insanity. But there are also other systemic factors that blind people to the environmental cost of activities and decision - so this becomes a societal aspect, but then there is of course the individual responsibility about taking a stand and making a statement, which in itself may affect the societal and systemic. But who is actually making this kind of stand in such a way as to shift the curve? Our politicians aren't, nor are other leaders, nor are celebrities really doing this to a great extent... but there are lots of more quiet people just getting on and doing it - maybe they're the ones that will eventually provide the gravity necessary to shift things from the bottom up? Who knows, but the winds are blowing in a direction that rather depresses me right now - it feels like taking a positive environmental stand is the higher risk path, both personally and professionally versus embracing and continuing with the status quo.