ProDave

Most bird watchers hate the sparrowhawks, especially when one swoops in and snatches the little bird you were watching, as they do occasionally here and take one from the bird feeders.

You only need to unscrew the white trap from the bath waste and the outgoing pipe, neither of thouse couplings need or should be siliconed. the black bath waste does not need to come off the bath. Then you can examine the small screw cap that is leaking, unscrew it, and work out why. But I don't understand why you can't unscrew it in situ? if your fingers can't reach it, a pair of gland pliers most certainly would.

What you describe is one of the many "PV diverters" not an internet linked switch. These diverters will send anything from a few watts to 3kW to the heater depending on how much surplus there is. Your simple internet switch idea would be fully on or fully off, so what do you do? Only turn it on when there is 3kW surplus? Or turn it on when there is say 1kW surplus and then 2kW will be imported. A very inefficient solution.

Take the trap off the bath then you will have all the access to unscrew the little cap and examine what is going on. Or just have another try at the shop and make sure you examine the next trap before leaving the shop.

I spent the first 25 years of my life in the 1930's family home, then later I went and bought one myself. My overriding memories of both, are being cold, even when pumping a massive amount of heat in, and high heating bills 20 years ago when energy was "cheap" I would not want to be owning or heating one now. IMHO they need some serious updating. Ours was all solid walls that would need internal or external wall insulation, and the floors were partly solid and partly suspended timber, both would need lifting and insulating properly. The timber ones would be easiest but the solid floor part would be a lot of digging up, digging down and building up again with proper insulation. I would only buy another if it was sold at a "project" price, which sadly does not seem to be the case even now.

So unscrew it, make sure it has a rubber seal washer, make sure it is all clean, no foreign objects, re fit and re tighten and try again.

Sorry you mentioned 1 year old so I made 2+2=5 and assumed you were looking at buying a second hand unit.

A double lined flue is a twin wall flue for insulation and a must when it goes through a ceiling and a room above. What you need is a "room sealed" stove that usually has an attachment on the bottom for an inlet hose, mine is 80mm diameter but others may be different and you connect that to a duct through the wall at low level behind the stove, or you can if you have a suspended floor duct it in from the ventilated under floor space. Make sure your chose stove takes both primary and secondary air from the duct, we found some that took secondary air from the room so not true room sealed.

Adding sealant is a bodge and avoiding finding the reason. Find WHICH joint is leaking, where the black joins the white? Where the outlet from the trap joins the white pipe? Or the white cap on the trap below that? Or is is still leaking where the bath waste joins the bath or where the overflow joins into the black bath waste fitting?

My first question to the seller is WHY are you selling a 1 year old ASHP? In what way has it failed to meet your expectations that you feel you need to change it?

Yes poor install detail. the extract pipe must run straight and flat with a gentle fall to where it exits the building. I bet your fan sits in a dip with the pipe risong either side of it, a perfect "sump" for the condensation to form in.

With MVHR the better air tight the better. It could be a completely hermetically sealed box and it would work well with MVHR In Scotland if your air test is 3 or less, then you must fit MVHR, below 3 and trickle vents are not adequate.

If I am reading that chart properly, you only put heat into the room for a short period and then after the heating is off the room temperature carries on rising and over shoots the set point. This means the UFH water temperature is too high. Reduce the temperature on the manifold mixing valve, it will heat with the floor at a lower temperature over a longer period and hopefully avoid the overshoot.

Earry in the build I set up my own blower door, made from an old desk fan, some OSB, some cardboard and a lot of duck tape, set up to suck air out of the house so it was easy to go around to find air blowing into the house and seal up all the leaks. Best done before the plasterboard goes on. Yes there are indeed a lot of people worrying about costs but what we don't know is how much of that cost is "because" it is an ASHP and how much of that cost would still be there if the same house was heated with a gas boiler? to counter this, there are also several of us hapilly using an ASHP up here in the far north where this last 2 weeks weather is just a normal cold spell that we get most winters. My last weeks ASHP usage for heating was 110kWh so about £33 for the weeks heating and it did not stop working when it was nearly -10. It was also not my most expensive week either, we had colder and more expensive about 2 years ago.

Door apperture was made too high or a shorter door was chosen. Personally I would have boxed in with plasterboard down to the door frame height, which is what they appear to have done the other side.

You need to pull the kick boards off and reach under to seal the PB to the floor properly. At least it does not need to be done neatly as it will not be seen. Is there not proper air tight layer behind the plasterboard?

Most ASHP's only heat DhW or heating one at a time with priority given to hot water. Once your tank is up to temperature it should then start heating the rooms. Keep us posted.

If the manifold water is not hot enough to heat the house, turn the mixing valve up. Once you know what manifold temperature you need, then turn the water leaving temperature on the ASHP down to only slightly above the required manifold temperature.

I can't speak for the English system, but in Scotland, if it takes longer than 3 years you have to pay what appears to be a discretionary amount for a discretionary period to renew it. I ended up paying £100 each time for a 1 year renewal to keep it current until I completed just over a year ago. they make it clear if you don't renew then it would have to be a new application and new regs would apply. I would not argue the fee, but would argue nobody informed you of any need to renew it to keep it going. I guess the other argument is don't bother, but if you ever try and sell it not having a completion certificate will be a problem.

That makes sense. Yes anything can go underground but it may not be cheap. A local self builder here had about a 200 metre run of 3 phase 10KV overhead buried and including his new connection for his house cost him in the region of £10K. It was a must for him as the line went right where the house was to be built.

Just reduce the "water leaving" temperature on the heat pump. No point whatsoever having it set to 50 degrees only to be mixed down to a lower temperature by the mixing valves. But no need to remove the mixing valves.

Ah, so it's a multi house development, not just a single self build. Surely then it is worth paying to have at least one span of that cable run undergrounded?

Turning the handle off should shut it off. If you don't want to tackle it yourself you just need a plumber that can follow that simple instruction, not a specialist heat pump plumber.

Yes the trap should remain full of water, that is it's purpose to stop drain smells coming up your plug hole.

We can only feel and hear the air from the vents when at boost speed. At normal speed, you would have to stand on something at get right up next to a vent to feel the gentle flow of air. If it is running too fast, then it will be wasting heat. Do you even know how to adjust the speed on yours?