Ultima357

Just be aware that my original design using the smaller filter did result in the fan working harder to maintain the flow rate, but if that's all the room you have, then it's a worthwhile upgrade. My second much larger design, I mounted the filter vertically so the actual floor space wasn't much different but it was around 1200mm tall. This gives very little back pressure and the fans hardly know it's there. Plus it should have around a 10 year life.

For anyone interested, my post linked above has been running for 3 years now in one form or the other after the upgrade to a much larger filter than the first trial one. My neighbours seem to love bonfires but absolutely zero smell in my house now. Well worth the effort and cost of putting it in. Can't really understand why the MVHR companies don't do it as a standard module.

Well after research, the power module and heater are common across Bosch, Siemens and Neff. As the main oven was sitting on top of it I needed as quick a fix as possible once it was out and eventually found a new slim one that was left over from a job on ebay, so bought it for not much more than the cost of the power module and canabalised it for the faulty part. Which was the power module. Stuck it up in the loft for now but if I can find a new power module for a sensible price I'd repair it and resell. As usual, the price for the official spare is ludicrous at circa £180 for a small board that I reckon has an ex factory cost of less than £20.

Did you ever do it and did it work? Just been researching them but they don't seem to be worth the outlay. Most seem to recommend separate inverter for grid tied systems.

Well we use ours regularly and our previous one was still going strong after 8 years when we sold the house. I'll add that the internals appear to be the same for Neff and Bosch, so any fault will be the same.

Hi. I have a Siemens Warming drawer that has just died despite being only 3 years old. Looking around it seems that there is only 3 key parts, the power module, the heater and the "connector". The first two are quite obvious in the function of things but the so called connector is a bit vague. I'm guessing that this is a simple push to make, push to break switch that switches things on and off as you close/open the drawer and an obvious candidate for a fault. Unit powers on, relay can be heard clicking in and led glows but no heat. In terms of spare parts, the power module is £200, the heater £160 and the connector £38. Big pain is that the oven sits on it so major operation to pull out and test individual components. So wondering if anyone has any insight or practical experience in these? Part number B1630DNS1B, 29cm iQ700 series.

No I've not plotted those but have all the data. I didn't do the full passive certification when we built as didn't think it was worth it. To be honest, the solar gain was expected and probably needs a bit more exterior shading but awnings don't fit easily to a Cedral clad exterior on a timber frame. But there's also not that many days when you can't cool down in the evening simply by opening a window or door, it's just adds to the household dust load though! Solar film is possible but then reduces the advantages in the winter sun when we can get nicely warmed without any other input.

Thanks for that. Your experience indicates my thoughts are along the right lines. Good tip re mvhr too!

Now nearly three years in our new house and very happy with it's performance. However, we get plenty of solar gain and are considering putting in some aircon to three main rooms including the master bedroom. I've had one quote in but not convinced that they appreciate the passive side of things and to cool three rooms are recommending 10kw main unit with three indoor units. Given we heat the entire house with just a 12kw ashp to 22 to 23 deg and in three years have consumed only 7500kwh, a 10kw aircon seems excessive. Only info of passive house cooling I've found to date comes from Perth, Australia where they recommend circa 20w/m2 giving 6kw for a 200m2 property. This compared to 15 to 18kw for a standard build. Anyone had any experience or recommendation on this? NB the three rooms are 35m2, 34m2 and 24m2, the two largest facing south.

Thanks for the replies so far. Today I came across the VSSL A1 which looks pretty interesting but is a tad expensive at circa £560. The chrome cast idea is a great thought although I don't have a spare decent amplifier. But I have a chrome cast dongle somewhere and an old cheapo amp so will experiment once the temperatures return to sane levels.

No unfortunately I built it in a hurry and didn't take photos and it's a bit too warm to go up the attic at the moment. The filter I bought from Future Gardens https://www.futuregarden.co.uk/phresh-premium-filters. It's the 600 x 315 @£188. The cabinet housing I used 15mm mdf and used one and a half sheets. The two sheets cost just under £80 these days with cuts as required so I could get it all in my car. Fortunately I have a CNC router table so able to accurately cut out the required holes and rebates for jointing, so all in around £250. The filter is quite a beast as the 315 refers to the inlet diameter and its around 440mm diameter overall and weighs in at around 18kg if I remember correctly. Basically it's a big box with raised plinth inside across 2/3rds of the depth to hold the filter and provide the appropriate airway flow. Mounted it vertically as that was all I had space for.

Update to this filter. After proof of concept with the low cost and relatively low volume flow filter, I have now rebuilt the whole unit using a much larger filter rated at 2400cu m/hr. The reduced back pressure means the fan works at lower rpm whilst maintaining the throughput and at maximum 330cu m/hr of the MVHR there is very little difference between the in and out fans rpm wise. Given the flow rating of the filter (Phresh 600 x 300), I'm expecting a lot of years service before any need to replace it.

Hi everyone. I'm researching for a WiFi and Bluetooth audio amplifier in order to stream to it from my mobile phone and play my music through a couple of Kef speakers I already have. Be ideal if it supported multiple input devices, had remote on/off via wifi too as I plan to just put it out of the way either in a cupboard or loft space. Speakers will be wall mounted. There are more of these devices than you can shake a stick at so wondering if anyone has good/bad experience or recommendations. I run Poweramp on my mobile with high quality FLAC compressed music. I don't really want to re rip my CD collection into a new device as it's fairly extensive. Happy to switch the amp on/off by smart plug if necessary, preferably without a power on thump through the speakers.

Final comment. Having lived with it for several weeks I can now say it works fantastically well. Yesterday, someone close by was burning rubbish including rubber by the smell of it. Quickly closed doors and windows (it was a nice warm sunny day) and result, absolutely no smell inside. Outside was purgatory! So if you're considering this, based on my experience I'd unreservedly recommend doing it.

Smoke is a very difficult thing to track down sometimes. Tonight we have a countryside scent outside, local pig farm by the smell, thankfully the filter is doing the job!