tadpole?

[DeeJunFan]

Hi,

 

I was chatting to an ex BioMass guy today.  talking about our heating design etc.  He brought up the tadpole said if he was doing a new build it would be a no brainer for £250

 

http://www.tadpoleenergy.com/how-it-works/

 

Anyone seen/used these?

 

Cheers

D

[ProDave]

Call me a skeptic, but it removes air from the system.  HOW will that save money on your heating bills?
 

[Crofter]

Does it improve the heat capacity of the water, therefore boosting efficiency?

[ProDave]

22 minutes ago, Crofter said:

Does it improve the heat capacity of the water, therefore boosting efficiency?

That appears to be what they claim. But the water is just a medium to transfer heat to the fabric of the dwelling, so simple conservation of energy theory says how can that save money on your heating bills?  The house will still leak the same amount of heat and still need the same heat input to maintain the temperature.
 

[Crofter]

If you take it to its logical conclusion, consider how well a heating system would work if all the water in the pipes was replaced by air. In theory energy in is energy out, but we all know that is would simply not work well at all. Efficiency matters.

[ProDave]

 

10 minutes ago, Crofter said:

If you take it to its logical conclusion, consider how well a heating system would work if all the water in the pipes was replaced by air. In theory energy in is energy out, but we all know that is would simply not work well at all. Efficiency matters.

All that would happen in that case is little energy would get transferred. your heating bill would go down but so would the temperature of the house.

 

The only way I can see a "saving" would be if you had un insulated pipes under the floor (wasted heat loss) and by making the energy transfer more efficient, you could lower the temperature, and therefore reduce the wasted heat loss.

 

[Temp]

There shouldn't really be any oxygen in a sealed heating system. There used to be a problem of oxygen continuously getting into plastic pipe UFH systems but that's largely solved by using pipes containing an oxygen barrier and pressurising the system (eg unvented). When you first fill it with fresh water there might be some dissolved oxygen in the water that might cause corrosion but corrosion inhibitors like Fernox are "oxygen scavenging". 

 

Other gasses may form in the system but I believe they are usually the result of corrosion and should be prevented by dosing the system with corrosion inhibitor rather than just letting it out as that doesn't stop the corrosion from occurring.

 

Just for info, the test report down the bottom of here..

http://www.tadpoleenergy.com/test-results/

..refers to tests conducted on an  "open Vent Gravity Fed" system.

 

 

[Temp]

The test report here has data on the dissolved oxygen levels....

 

http://www.tadpoleenergy.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Tralee-IT-Test-On-An-Open-Vent-Oil-Fired-Boiler-System-15th-June-2010.pdf

 

If I've understood correctly it appears they flushed and refilled the system with fresh water before each test and measured initial DO levels of around 7.7 PPM. In the baseline system that reduced to 1.2PPM over 19 hours. With the Tadpole installed it reduced to 0.2 PPM in the same time frame.

 

PPM = Parts per million. 1PPM = 0.0001%

 

 

 

Edited October 24, 2016 by Temp

[TerryE]

I don't have a problem with claims that it can help reduce dissolved oxygen, as can lots of other separators, but what has that to do with the price of sliced bread or claims of improving boiler efficiency and heating bills by tens of percent?

[MikeSharp01]

Maybe its just marketing to the uniniated you pick up on the bits you like and asssume the rest is good because you only understand it at the superficial level, Edward debono had a phrase for it 'porridge words' - bit like brexit.... oh no what have I started.