ProDave

Well my (almost) museum exhibit spinning disc dual rate electricity meter arrived yesterday, and this afternoon I got it connected. I have confirmed it is working and recording space heating consumption on the "normal" dial and DHW consumption on the "off peak" dial I will be taking weekly readings of both now to really see what our energy use is for heating and hot water.

I would avoid Danfoss. In our last house the microswitches kept failing, some I replaced the switches, others I replaced the whole head if I could not be bothered with the fiddle. Honewell in our new house.

Just watched the Carbonlite impossible build. What can I say other than "welcome to my world" Everything was so familliar. the location, the landscape, the company and people that built it, some of the build process and materials used. Matt is an incredable guy, not only the brains and boss of the company, but a hands on guy present at most site assembly periods. And he lives a mile from me. Interesting that the build company , it's name and location is so prominent in the program. Most of these programs seem to want to hide the name of the builder or arcuitect. I wonder which way money changed hands to facilitate that? In case some of you have not made the connection, we talked to Carbonlite about building our house, but being a more conventional 2 storey house they could not see a way to fit in with their modular build, so they proposed a compromise that they design and detail it and employ some of there techniques (e.g the wood fibre board etc) but it would be built as more of a conventional timber frame kit house by a local firm of builders who have worked with them before (and as it happens I have worked for so I knew them) The other thing that stood out though is what I have said about our build and am working damned hard to avoid. At £65K for the plot, and £350K build cost, they have a house that has cost them way more than the market value of a 2 bedroom house in this part of the world, even with the stunning location and view (the 50 mile trip to get to a shop, lack of broadband etc is not so stunning) And the sad ending. If I read it right at the end, no sooner was his house finished, and the poor bugger fell off his perch.

Tower seem to be a Honewell clone, very similar pattern.

Are you on the route for Runway 3? If so compulsory purchase might be the "solution"?

I would just be cautious and not actually sign the wayleave agreement until you have a definite timescale and know exactly what alterations they are making.

They have grown very rapidly and taken on a lot more staff and contractors in the process.

Dripping underneath I assume is the problem? Those copper tails screw into the tap and seal with an O ring. Shut off water and open hot tap to releive pressure, slacken the compression joint at the bottom. See if you can screw the tail a bit tighter into the tap body, then re tighten compression fitting.

Don't buy too much in advance. It was 11 months between my buying my ASHP (a different make to this thread) and me trying it in anger, only to find it did not work. I had a battle to get it resolved. That may have been an even harder battle that I may not have won if it had been over a year.

For bleeding the floor loops you are best using a hose and bleeding each floor loop one at a time, with the valves to the rest of the system shut off.

I would guess they intend the "summer / winter" switch to connect to the "heat" and "cool" terminals. But there is no explanation of the control algorithm to open and close the bypass flap, and I dislike not knowing how things work.

Out of interest how much was that controller? Is it literally just a 4 position switch or are there any electronics associated with it? Can I see the business end of it (i.e the wiring on the back of it)?

Do you have a UFH manifold controller of any sort? And are you heating it all as just one zone or a separate zone for each room? I have opted for the conventional approach of one zone per room so each room has it's own thermostat, that is only 3 rooms in our case. the UFH manifold controller starts the UFH pump when any one or more rooms calls for heat. To me the logical control would be the same as you would have with a thermal store. Keep the "heat in" and "heat out" as separate functions. So "heat in" the ASHP will heat the buffer at any time until the buffer reaches it's set temperature. That's all it has to do. You can set on and off times using the heat pump's own controller if you don't want it on all the time. (no point in it being on and heating the buffer is say the UFH is off overnight) "heat out" the UFH will run and draw heat out of the buffer at any time any room (may only be 1 "room") calls for heat. You can use conventional time clocks for this function.

That's them. I don't know why the change of name. Like just about every tradesman in the area, I did some work for them in the past, wired about 8 or 9 of their houses. I was offered a full time post but didn't want to give up the flexibility of self employment.

What was probably happening is you had what we have come to know as a "plasterboard tent" where the gap behind the plasterboard is often through poor or no detail,. open to somewhere cold like a roof space. Removing that and sealing the holes in the wall is a good move. Now put the plasterboard back but seal up all perimiter gaps so there is no rout for cold air from anywhere to get behind the plasterboard.

I have one of the Kingspan KAR-50RSDC MVHR units which is a re badgged Mitsubish Lossnay unit. I had a request for information on how I controlled it so am posting it here for all to read and share. My unit is now in use and fully functional. Here is what I did: Firstly I don't have the Mitsubishi controller, I just made my own controls based on the wiring diagram on the unit, and a bit of trial and error. Inside the unit there are 2 terminal block for controlling the unit: TM2 has 5 terminals, labelled COM, 1, 2, 3 and 4 This sets the fan speed. If none are connected, the fan does not run. Connecting COM to 4 starts the fan at it's slowest speed. Connect COM to 3 and it runs faster etc until you connect COM to 1 and it runs at full speed. What is not immediately obvious is you can connect more than one of the inputs to COM it runs at the fastest of the selected speeds. I wanted a timed boost function, and as it happens I decided I wanted the upstairs (bathroom) boost to run it at it's fastest speed, but wanted the downstairs (kitchen) boost to run it at a less fast speed. So to give a timed boost, I used 2 of this type of boost switch They have a 230V switched output so can't directly control the MVHR. So instead each one feeds the coil of a single pole changeover relay (2 relays one from each of my boost switches) So I have COM permanently linked to terminal "4" The NO relay contact from the upstairs boost connects from COM to "1" And the NO relay contact from the downstairs boost connects from COM to "2" The other user terminal is TM3 This has 3 terminals, one labelled "HEAT", one labelled "COOL" and one not labelled. I tried both HEAT connected to COM and COOL connected to COM and neither seemed to do anything. Reading a manual for a similar unit, suggested these control the bypass based on a measurement of internal and external temperature, but with no explanation of the logic used. Then I tried the unlabelled contact on TM3 connected to COM on TM2 and that immediately operates the bypass flap mechanism. Remove the link and the bypass mechanism immediately returns to it's normal position. So I have simply connected a normal switch between the unlabelled contact on TM3 and COM on TM2 and that will put the unit into bypass mode when I wish.

I said no spoilers. I know that company well and have mentioned them several times on here.

The frightening thing is the lady responsible for that now has TM by the whatsits (if she had any) and holds the slim balance of power at Westminster.

Also starting tonight on More 4 is a new series of "impossible house" Tonights one looks interesting, on a remote cliff in W Scotland at the end of an 8 mile drive. I will be watching it tomorrow so no spoilers please.

Don't see much any solder on that middle pin. As viewed, left hand pin is Vin should read in excess of 12V, middle pin (and tab) is ground, and right hand pin is Vout and should read 12V Simple checks to make. Careful not to short anything.

Yes mine is attached. If the garage is detached by >1M I don't think it has any particular requirements.

Ours is 2 layers of the pink 15mm thick fireline plasterboard, with staggered joints (i.e joints on first later are in a different place to second layer) for both walls and ceiling (plant room is above the garage) The only proper solution for the door issue I could find would be a fire rated external door. So we have compromised and used a standard FD30 internal fire door, but added extra draught proof strip around the door frame as well as the intumescent strip. Our garage walls are insulated to the same standard as the house, but the "insulated" roller door will let the insulation down seriously so it will be a cold place, but hopefully warmer than outside!!! Standard 5 lever lock. I just need to find a way to stop the draught through the key hole. We don't p;an locking it from the inside when we are in, so I will probably just block off the inside key hole.

Measure with a DC volt meter from ground (0V) to the bolt passing through that tab power device sticking up from the board. If the board has been hermetically sealed you should be able to get a connection onto that bolt.

Don't post a spoiler, I won't be watching it until tomorrow (never watch commercial tv live, I need to skip the adverts)

Well there is the obvious fuse to check towards the bottom right of the board in line with all the connectors. And a bit left of that is a tab power device that I am willing to bet is a voltage regulator, check if it is delivering the correct (or any) output. Clue, a pair of red wires to the connector "secondary" is no doubt the output from a transformer, there are 4 diodes that look like a bridge rectifier, and a big capacitor, all points to that being the DC power supply for the board.