Ultima357

Yes it is a pole transformer serving around 18 properties. I've since emailed UKPN but they have not responded. May do some more tests now I have a bit of time in hand and just meter out the incomer into the house to check there's no issue on my side, but the voltage doesn't uniformly track the load, so I'm fairly sure that it is external bolt drop.

Following a call to CVC, the company that originally supplied the unit, and after discussing the problem, the tech support team suggested a firmware flash and emailed me the files. Simple to apply via plug in USB slot. Update was automatically applied and the problem cured. Great support from the team at CVC Systems.

Yes there are ways to do it with varying airflow but with MVHR you don't have that control. The air filtration on agricultural machinery are also equipped with vortex filters.

Hi everyone. My 4 Yr old Brink Flair 400 has just thrown up a wobbly on the bypass valve, putting up an error code and basically then not responding to my commands. The unit is doing the initialisation every so often, but then says error. Taking the exchanger out and inspecting the valve I can see no issues and it fully cycles during the initialisation. I've removed it and replaced it and can't see any damage or problems with the cabling, so a little bemused as to why I'm getting the error. I've powered down and rebooted, leaving it for a few hours in between, but still no joy. The only odd thing I can see is that during initialisation, it starts to move and then stops after the top edge has travelled around 6cm, shunts back a couple of cm then fully travels to the closed position, then returns to open. Only thing I can think is there must be a positional sensor that is not working properly. Any ideas?

They look pretty good though you'd need some adaption to match the diameter of the inlet and outlet. And of course the space needed for the length of the inline configuration. You'd possibly also need to insulate the outside depending on the location of it. Can't see any reference to backpressure, but being made by Phresh and having such a large flow rate that shouldn't be an issue. Price wise probably cheaper than mine plus box materials.

To be honest, I've never looked inside the box since I screwed the lid down. I wouldn't think it would be a problem as the filter is very large, designed for 600m3 flow rate, so pulling a steady 100m3 or even flat out 330m3 in my case, I don't think that carbon dust will be an issue. Everything is static, no vibration, etc. I'm thinking that another fine enough filter to catch those very fine particles would put too much back pressure on it.

Sketch re above looking inside box.

The baffle supports the filter which is mounted vertically, inlet at bottom and gives the airflow route. See picture. The red line is the baffle inside the box, the blue/red the filter and green represents the airflow. Basically the baffle divides the box internally to give separation of air so it has to flow through the filter. It's an L shape. The box is 600mm sq by 1000mm high. Second one shows the baffle inside in red, the dirty incoming in purple and green filtered air. Blue dashes the filter. The white dots the inside edges of the box.

Hi. My system pumps from the unit into the bottom of the box containing the filter. The filter sits above this on a baffle board, so the air pumps into the centre inlet of the filter and out the exterior of it. Then flows around the box back out to the manifold of the mvhr for house distribution. My neighbours love bonfires and this copes fine with them. Ditto the occasional smell of the countryside from muck spreading etc. So effectively I have a large box with a smaller box/baffle inside at the bottom which acts as a duct for the incoming air into the filter. If it doesn't make sense, let me know and I'll try and draw it up and post it on here.

Nope, never heard from them again. I got into 3D Printing since then and designed a vented spacer and posted on Thingverse which others have since used to overcome the problem. Nice to know that they have finally seen the error of their ways.

Hi everyone. Just wondering if anybody has experienced low grid voltage in their supply? I run a self built passive house and have ASHP, solar battery (GivEnergy AIO), car charger etc and being on Octopus Intelligent Go, I have 6 hours of cheap rate overnight electric. My problem is that I can draw as much as 16.5kw whilst on the cheap rate and recently noticed that on these cold nights, the reported grid voltage has dropped to as low as 202vac. I noticed because the car charger dropped out and complained so have been keeping an eye on the situation. UK power networks unhelpfully told me they could only look when it is happening and to call them at that time which being usually between 2 and 3 am and not every night, is completely impractical. It has for instance only occurred twice in the last 8 days. As peak power pull only occurs when everything kicks in and ASHP is on top power, I can't easily time it, particularly as Octopus control when the car charger kicks in. My concern is that the low voltage will damage the ASHP and other motors such as fridge compressor as they will pull more current to compensate I believe. Does anyone have any knowledge of this and is it likely to do damage? Any good contacts (email preferably) at UKPN?

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.