ProDave

Most manifolds, the pin is spring loaded and with nothing attached the pin is up and the flow is ON Most actuators push down on the pin and thus shut the water OFF when not energised. When you energise an actuator it's pad retracts, allowing the pin to push up under it's spring tension and turn the flow ON did you buy these 2 core actuators as something special e.g normally closed or normally open?

That might be it. In 2016 it would have been about 1.3 Euro to the pound, now it's about 1.1

YES Regardless of how you heat it, it is a fixed sealed volume of water that will expand when heated so an expansion vessel is required.

We have always been running this build on a near empty pot of £££ (that seems to have just about re filled itself as we empty it so far) but an issu that caused is in 2016 when we bought the windows for the house, we did not include the sun room. they had to wait. I am now seeking prices for the sun room windows and have a price in from the same manufacturer and supplier and it has come in higher than I had hoped. So I did some comparisons. One of the sun room windows is a similar, but not identical size to one of the house windows, and is of the same style, one opening, one fixed pain. Although not identical size (one is slightly taller and thinner) they are near identical area one being 2.18 square metres and the other 2.19. So I would say they are close enough to give a ballpark comparison. What I am finding is the present quote for the sun room window is 30% higher than the near identical house window. A quick google suggests general compounded inflation for the last 5 years is more like 10% So my initial reaction that they are too much seems to stand up to a bit of scrutiny. Anyone got any other data or other reason why the supplier could justify a 30% rise in 5 years? They are EU made so no doubt the B word will be blamed as the cause, even though our trade deal should mean no tariffs.

I have seen the same with a plastic seat where the hinge pin hole is in the plastic moulding and the back feet don't touch the pan. I sometimes despair that some "designers" have absolutely no understanding of what they are designing.

Don't buy a cheap plastic submirsible pump, even if it claims to be "dirty water" I did, and found the plastic impeller fell apart when trying to pump even small stones in the dirty water. When I complained to the supplier, they replaced it free, and did not even want the old one back because it had been used with "dirty water" I later repaired it by swapping the impeller with another pump with a failed motor.

This thread is a good reason NOT to live in a conservation area.

This annoys me. Have the planners got nothing better to do? Nothing wrong with that gate. I would be inclined to do nothing and ignore it, Wait and see if they take enforcement action. If they do I would just remove it. No further action needed. No guarantee I would not put it back later. It all depends how much you want to fight over a gate.

Is that the DHW usage? If so that seems high. I used 31kWh in the last week heating HW with the ASHP.

I think there is a misconception here that a "passive house" does not need heating. I think in the UK climate most will need some form of heating, but just not very much of it.

It is trying (if implemented properly) to use the minimum temperature that works at all times. e.g with mine, I know the temperature needed for the UFH in deep winter, where we are now. At that UFH temperature it takes 3-4 hours in the morning for the UFH to make up the temperature lost over night when it has been off. When it is less cold it will make up the nights loss very much quicker. All I need is a "end of season" data point, the minimum temperature it can work at in the spring or autumn. Perhaps when spring comes before we turn the heating off, I will experiment with lower temperatures and see just how low you can go and still have UFH that works in that milder weather. With that data I could then implement a compensation curve * and try it next winter and see how much if any it reduces running costs. ^ they call it a weather compensation "curve" but it is just 2 data points and a straight line between them, nothing "curvy" about it

I don't use weather compensation on mine. I simply don't see the need. I have by experiment found the lowest flow temperature that works all year reliably and stick to that. The room thermostats turn the heating off when the rooms get to temperature, what more is actually needed. In theory I could use weather compensation to run the flow temperature to the UFH lower when it is less cold and I can see that it would work but only once set up properly, and to be honest I can see it taking a whole winter to get it right and getting a temperature curve that works at all outside temperatures. I think this is a common problem, the installer takes a bit of a wild guess at how to set the temperatures and as long as it heats up his job is done. He is not going to keep visiting and adjusting to optomise it just to make it slightly more eficcient. What is sad is there are not clear and simple instructions in the manual that would allow the user to fine tune the weather compensation themselves.

The water outlet temperature is the temperature that the heat pump will try and deliver when the heating is on. 48 is too high. The room thermostat then turns the heating on and off as needed. You want the water temperature as low as will work. If the rooms do not get hot enough it is too low. A bit of trial and error.

My understanding is if there is a fixed staircase to get to it, then it must comply with the headroom for a staircase at the "landing" We have a mezanine that does not comply with the headroom. It has no staircase, we just put a ladder up to get to it, and it is used as a storage space.

Yes the lowest temperature that works is best.

Page 8 of the manual shows you how to adjust the "water outlet" temperature.

Perhaps "ballance the system" would make more sense? It reminds me of hearing someone describe their first experience of driving an EV (they had obviously never driven an automatic car before) "What idiot designed this thing? When you want to go forwards, you push the stick back. When you want to go backwards, you push the stick forwards" He obviously never piloted a tiller steered boat either.

When I bought my first house, I was so poor (crippled with high interest rates) I had the heating on at 16 degrees. You get used to it.

I am on the much colder (but dryer ? ) side of Scotland and have no problem without a heater on the MVHR

Any idea what temperature it is running at? If you get a "proper" design for an UFH system you will be offered a manifold with a temperature blending valve and it's own pump. I am guessing this was built by a developer who thought he knew better and could save £300 by not including these "unecessary" parts? If the water is hot enough for radiators it is likely too hot for UFH and in any event because of the very different warm up times it would be preferable to have the UFH and radiators on separate time and temperature controls, which you could do with a proper system. What do you know about the house re it's construction and levels of insulation?

How old is the system? Is it actually working adequately? The usual (correct?) thing is the UFH manifold has it's own temperatuer blending valve and circulation pump. for some reason a lot of systems are coming to light recently where they rely on just one circulation pump for everything which is not ideal. Can you show a more zoomed out picture of the whole manifold?

"Total Design Heat Loss 8594W" Assuming that is how much they have calculated the heat loss of the whole building to be and assuming we are at the coldest temperature now so you will be running at that level at the moment. also assuming that is all delivered 24/7 So 8594 at a COP of 3 for the heat pump, would use 2864W of electricity. So in a week that would use 2.864 * 24 * 7 = 481kWh. Then add on hot water heating and "other stuff" and your total usage for the week does not unfortunately look unreasonable.

That's probably about right. A faster pump speed would give more if you need it but may make it noisy.

I was trying to get an idea how much you were using on electricity when it was not powering your heating (not passing judgement on what that heating was) to get an idea how much it has gone up now that it is powering the heating. Edit you just answered that. so 300 units pre renovation, 586 units now so assume other use has remained the same, that's 268 units or about £45 for a week of heating. What did the old heating system (whatever it was) burn in a cold week?

So in a week, you have used 586.2kWh Assuming 16p per unit that's £93.79 That does seem high. What electricity were you using before the renovation (when presumably you had different heating?