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Hi All, We are embarking on a self-build and the ASHP was installed yesterday and we are awaiting the commissioning engineer tomorrow to turn on and start heating. I was a little alarmed by the our ASHP supplier planning to just operate the ASHP at its standard operation rather then operating a thermal cycle. From what I have read on line this is important for the concrete screed performance and any floor finishes installed later. I spoke with our tile installer and tile adhesive supplier and they have recommended the following regime which is more or less a 14 day cycle that involves, 5 days of gradual heat increase (2-3C per day) , maintain at expected operating temp for a further 4 days, before a 5 day gradual decrease in temperature. My question is with regard to the expected operating temperature, which I presume is the outflow temperature of the ASHP (45 degree), that the underfloor heating pipework's will be supplying to the screed for these 4 days. My understanding is that the thermostats will be overridden temporarily for the commissioning and the slab will be consistently heated with this 45 degree water - am I correct? If this is so then theoretically will the house be extremely warm for a few days as the slab should come close to the 45 degree temperature?

Hello. Our gas boiler insurer no longer covers our terraced home heating system because the gas pipe running from our meter to the kitchen is steel. It runs under our wooden ground floor and its length is about 15 feet with another couple of feet for the angled bits around the meter. Would having this steel pipework replaced with copper be very expensive? Our house is a 1930s terraced build. Please see the pictures. The last picture shows the gas pioework where it enters the kitchen and splits to the gas hob and the boiler. We have an option not to replace the pipe and get insurance with another insurer who dosent exclude steel pipework. The difference between the 2 insurers policies is £170 and £565. Any thoughts are very welcome. Thanks David

Hello, I’m living in a new build, approx 6 years old, with underfloor heating. Up to about a month ago everything was working well, and the house was toasty. Over the last month, the downstairs floors are failing to heat up. When I look at the manifold, there is hot water at 50 degrees coming from the boiler, but all the return flows for all circuits are cold. All of the circuits are calling for heat and never get up to temperature. I got a plumber out, he replaced the pump on th manifold, that has made no difference at all. Next I flushed all of the circuits to remove any air, again this has made no difference. As a final test, I have closed all but one circuit and am waiting to see if that heats up. Failing that I am at a loss as to what the problem could be and am looking for some advice. regards, matthew

While tinkering with the flow meters on my ground floor UFH manifold today the hot water came on. I've heard of hot water priority and I think this is how my system is set up. I noticed, however, that the manifold pump was still running, the actuators were all energised but the flow meters all showed no flow. At this point the manifold pressure was higher than normal too. This seems wrong to me as the pump is working but unable to circulate water through the system as the heating zone valve is closed (as it should be in). The micro switch on the heating zone valve seems to be working as the pumps in the heating and hot water tank cupboard come on when it energises - as an additional point i'm curious about, there are two red Grundfos pumps in that cupboard and they both come on when the hot water or heating are on - is this correct? I've always assumed that one was for the hot water system (indirect unvented cylinder heated by ASHP) and the other for the heating (all UFH heated by ASHP) but maybe they are meant to be on at the same time? Perhaps one is a send pump, one a return pump? I've attached a photo in case anyone is kind enough to take a look. So, in summary should the UFH manifold pump and actuators be de-energised if the heating zone valve is closed due to the hot water priority? And should both grundfos pumps be running at the same time when the hot water or heating are running? Thanks for any help anyone can give me.

Hello We are about to start a self build project to build our new home on the Isle of Islay. It is a bit daunting but we have the opportunity to fulfil our dream of living and working on the island. A lot of work to do and hopefully a lot of experience and knowledge to tap into. Ian

I'm endeavouring to build a new build SIPS home for my family in West Bridgford. We decided after some time to knock dowmn the old house and to place an eco home on here that we'd both not compromise on and enjoy with our family. I've never project managed such a large project before and there's a lot of learning on the job. So far we've gained PP / moved into a static caravan on site / demolished the old house / dug foundations / poured and completed ground work (block and beam). The SIPS building from Glosfords arrives on the 18th October 2021. Starting to get nervous now.............. 1676L2114 revD.pdf

Hello, found my way here after searching for info on upgrading water mains as part of a family home renovation. I find it difficult to get builders/trade around for quotes and when they do turn up, they don't bother doing the quote. In 5 weeks I've had 1 quote, from the first builder that turned up, it's like pulling teeth, many can't be bothered. Not sure why. I've got planning permission, I've got drawings, I know what I want for most things. I've got a garage conversion, kitchen and bathroom refit. I'll probably have the heating upgraded too. Much be some profit there for someone. Anyway, this isn't supposed to be a rant.

I'm trying to shut off the hot water supply to repair the kitchen tap. Unfortunately I can't see any isolator valves near the tap, so I'm puzzling over how to shut off hot water for the whole house. I tried to do a bit of research into how our heating & hot water system works, but I may be getting this wrong, and to be honest I'm kind of tempted to just post the question "What the heck do all these pipes do?", but I shall try to be more specific. It's an F&E system with two tanks in the loft and hot water cylinder in the first floor airing cupboard, which looks like this: So according to these instructions I need to close a valve which feeds cold water into the bottom of the cylinder. "This valve should be easily recognisible as a valve with a red, wheel-shaped handle on a pipe that runs from the ceiling of the airing cupboard to the bottom of the cylinder." The valve in the top-right (just above the top shelf) seemed to fit that description, so I tried closing that. Then I noticed the valve in the bottom left could also fit that description, so I've tried closing that too (although I may be misunderstanding the direction of flow there) I notice there's three pipes leading into the bottom of the cylinder. The third one slightly higher on the left is hopefully shut off by the motorised valve (I have the heating and hot water switched off) I then try running the hot tap for a minute or two, but it's showing no signs of stopping. Do I just need to wait longer for pipes to drain out? I tried the same on the 2nd floor bathroom because I thought it might stop flowing quicker there, but ...no sign of stopping.

Hi there Just starting out on a house build and find there are A LOT of decisions. Planning permission has been granted but that's as far as I am. I would appreciate some thoughts on heating systems. Plan is a high level of insulation (eg CWI: 150mm thick Kingspan Eco Bead / Quinn lite block, Floor: 100mm foil backed polystyrene) , triple glazing (uPVC frame) UFH for downstairs and radiators upstairs. I've considered Heat Pumps but I am being recommended OFCH - specifically Grant Vortex. In looking at this option I came across Hybrids and wondered if anyone had experience of this: Grant VortexAir Range: https://www.grantuk.com/products/hybrids/? I live in NI so there are no grants available to apply for... Any advice appreciate Meabh

Hi all, I have a Danfoss 7 year old DHP AQ 13 ASHP. I am struggling to get local support. For a few years now, Danfoss have outsourced their support to Ashgrove Engineering in Ireland. There’s only so much that they can do over the phone and the problem starts when you try to get local support. My installer went bust during commissioning and my local support (about 8 miles away) withdrew from Danfoss and heating about 3 years ago. Ashgrove recommend an engineer based in Bristol which means that there is an automatic call out charge of £200 before any work has started, not to mention the added time to schedule the work at such a distance. This leaves us feeling very vulnerable indeed and actually giving serious consideration to replacing the Danfoss with something that can be supported locally. I am currently looking at a likely compressor failure (after 10,500 hours pump life) which will cost over £3000 to replace. So should I get the pump fixed and look forward to the next few years losing sleep over the possibility of breakdown (on past experience, we have had breakdowns most winters when the demand is highest), or should I put that money towards a complete replacement which can serviced locally ? BTW, does anyone know whether Danfoss is withdrawing from the UK market ? Our experience suggests that it might be. I’d welcome any thoughts on this.

Good evening everyone, My name is Vaughn and I live in Sussex. I've joined the group, both as an aspiring home builder (in the future), but also to offer advice, where I can. I specialise is heating controls (and employed by one of the world's largest heating controls manufacturers). I also ran my own plumbing and heating business in the South East for 9 years, installing gas, LPG, and biomass boilers, heat pumps, solar thermal and a little solar PV too. I have particular interest heating controls, and renewable energy sources for domestic properties. I am active on other social media platforms, mainly Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. I look forward to participating as and where I can, and learning as well as sharing knowledge within the community. Regards, Vaughn.

Having installed my elderly parents in a nearby bungalow, we are trying to sort out the heating systems and electricity costs. It is a bit of a conundrum and maybe someone has an idea what could be causing the problem. The bungalow is heated by one night storage heater in the lounge and a rather large night storage system in a central cupboard, (left photo) through which air is blown when required into all the rooms, incudling the back of the lounge. This is controled by a thermostat in the lounge. The place also has a very large hot water tank in another cupboard which is also on the Economy 7 night time tarif. The econmy 7 stuff (tank and two NSH's) is on its own fused thing in the fuse box. Before buying the place, I asked about electricity bills and was informed that the average winter bills were about £90. Hhh. Dont think so! We were taking reading of the electrcity over the course of the first couple of months as it got colder to make sure we had an idea of costs. Here is the spreadsheet. As you can see, the costs are far higher than expected. and I havent the foggiest what happened on the21st and 22nd Nov! Why did the night reading suddenly quadruple! parents assure me that nothing changed from normal. then we had two night really low! Our idea was to turn off each unit in turn to see how that effected the readings but 'something caused a major hiccup and they certainly cannot afford to have occasional costs of £12 anight. On Sunday (yesterday)after a few evenings of relative similar readings, we turned off the heater to the hot water tank. And the evening costs did drop. On feeling the tank this morning, the bottom third was cold, middle third warmish and the top hot. So we are leaving it another night before turning it back on. They dont use much water at all as they cannot get into the bath and apart from the washing machine occasionally, they use a sinkful per day washing dishes. The heating is set quite high as Dad feels the cold and the house is certainly warm when I go in but not excessively (usually around 21oC/70oF in the lounge). They turn the thermostat up for about 10 mins in the morning then a bit more in the evening when the other nsh is probably not putting as much out. Any ideas what could have caused the sudden increase the other evening? Thats a lot of electricity to use. And are we doing the right thing to try to calculate what each unit is costing to run? I think we shall seriously be looking at replacing it all with a simple gas combi boiler in the summer. There is gas in the street and we can see many similar bungalows are it connected. And if we plan it with a future kitchen extension in mind, it will save us having to do it in a few years time.

Here's what needs replacement. Just checking that there isn't some hidden gottcha about them.... Thanks Ian