Extension- Last Stuff.

[zoothorn]

25 minutes ago, Declan52 said:

But they aren't installing it for your benefit. They are getting plenty from the rhi scheme so they don't really care as much as they would if you had of paid for it yourself. If it didn't work you wouldn't pay for it. They get their money no matter what.

 

I understand. Its very tricky knowing how to deal with this noise issue (overnight box unit thing noise: the house cold can be put aside for now, this is MASSIVELY more the pressing issue) with installers not answering/ refusing contact, & my only option Vaillant.. whom thank GOD I know I have a guarantee with, hence going to them, and hence the numerous visits.

 

If we can put aside the house cold factor, and if the sole emphasis could please be on the possible reason for this wretched box unit thing coming active overnight.. I just feel Ive got one last chance/ one last visit friday to try tackle it, & even a token gesture of a completely unrelated 'easy fix' noise issue they're gonna go with to appease me., then its drawbridge up from Vaillant.  I just know it.

 

I cannot/ will not accept this as any 'solution'. I just want the overnight box unit coming on.. to stop. Nothing else right now. Its such a small ask, but means a huge ammount. Ive emailed them exactly this reply, basically, but pretty firmly.

[PeterW]

24 minutes ago, zoothorn said:

If we can put aside the house cold factor, and if the sole emphasis could please be on the possible reason for this wretched box unit thing coming active overnight.. I just feel Ive got one last chance/ one last visit friday to try tackle it, & even a token gesture of a completely unrelated 'easy fix' noise issue they're gonna go with to appease me., then its drawbridge up from Vaillant.  I just know it.

Big Boy pants needed on Friday, and tbh if it wasn’t a 300 mile round trip I would actually offer to be there when they are there if that would help. 
 

it isn’t drawbridge up from anyone, you legally don’t have to accept this and they have to put it right or put back what was there. In reality, they will leave the cylinder and rads and remove and make good where the pipework comes through the wall. From then on, you could actually go with pretty much anything on the outside wall, oil or even another monoblock ASHP. 
 

I’ve read the manual for the heat pump - yes I have nothing better to do - and there are a lot of controls you can change. It would take a half day of tinkering with it but the limiting factor is that it’s only 7.5kW.  At a CoP of 2.5, it’s the equivalent of a 3kW electric fan heater on all the time so your running costs shouldn’t be too much more. But .. and a big but... I don’t think 7.5kW is enough input heat and that is where the big problems start. And without seeing the calculations I can’t see how they came up with that size in the first place. 

[SteamyTea]

55 minutes ago, zoothorn said:

Where is the pipe insulation.

 

And To the rest, any incorrectly sized heating system will fail.

 

@zoothorn You are going to have problems claiming it is not fit for purpose if you keep refusing to let it run 24/7.  What you are doing is, using a car analogy again,  buying a new car, sticking it in third gear, and saying that it makes a lot of noise and has limited performance, and costs a lot to run.

 

Edited December 1, 2020 by SteamyTea

[joe90]

19 minutes ago, PeterW said:

And without seeing the calculations I can’t see how they came up with that size in the first place. 

!!!!’

[zoothorn]

17 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Where is the pipe insulation.

 

And To the rest, any incorrectly sized heating system will fail.

 

@zoothorn You are going to have problems claiming it is not fit for purpose if you keep refusing to let it run 24/7.  What you are doing is, using a car analogy again,  buying a new car, sticking it in third gear, and saying that it makes a lot of noise and has limited performance, and costs a lot to run.

 

 

Yes thanks ST. The Vaillant engineer did the same analogy.. & got it to sink in & mulled it over. It seems counter-intuititve to go 24/7, from an eco & cost pov, but I can appreciate it a bit more: the only thing I dont get is running rads at night: still dont understand this, not used to, I like a cold (bit of air) room with huge duvet.. feels healthy to me, having rads on & opening windows.. well that is wasteful isn't it. So cant quite get the full picture yet with this approach.

 

But look I am prohibited from running like this anyway, because it'll keep me awake all night. If it was quiet.. then I could try. But its not.. so I can only run it as I am > meaning cold rads am/ cold house. This is my second reason, I say it is unfit for purpose. First reason: the overnight (other) noise unrelated to the heating/ rads.

 

 

[zoothorn]

@SteamyTea the white stuff is pipe insulation: inside is like 12mm HD copper pipe. It is correctly sized, that's been established, nothing to suggest it isn't afaict. If I turn off 3x rads anyway, then its actually oversized if anything. They went slightly over anyway, they said to be safe, & with the 2 extra rads (survey took before extention went up, so a whole new wing had appeared on install day!) it'll mean ~spot-on size.

[Declan52]

13 minutes ago, zoothorn said:

 

Yes thanks ST. The Vaillant engineer did the same analogy.. & got it to sink in & mulled it over. It seems counter-intuititve to go 24/7, from an eco & cost pov, but I can appreciate it a bit more: the only thing I dont get is running rads at night: still dont understand this, not used to, I like a cold (bit of air) room with huge duvet.. feels healthy to me, having rads on & opening windows.. well that is wasteful isn't it. So cant quite get the full picture yet with this approach.

 

But look I am prohibited from running like this anyway, because it'll keep me awake all night. If it was quiet.. then I could try. But its not.. so I can only run it as I am > meaning cold rads am/ cold house. This is my second reason, I say it is unfit for purpose. First reason: the overnight (other) noise unrelated to the heating/ rads.

 

 

But you haven't tried to run it all day so it might make the loud noise or it might not. Another option to try. If it does work great if not then that's another thing to add to the list of attempts. If they ask on Fri about it then you can say tried it and it still didn't get the house warm enough plus the noise occurred at X pm and y am.

[zoothorn]

@PeterW that's such a great post- appreciated Peter. Lordy if I could hire you.. what I plan to do is be pretty firm saying Im working and then f-off, avoid any them vs me (innevitable tho).. so long as noise has been fixed I'll say/ its under guarantee so will have to be fixed eventually I'll say putting that point flat & nothing needs saying more than its been fixed yes? at the end. Bye.

 

Trouble is it won't have been. No-one knows what its doing. No-one knows how to tweak it to stop. Or add anything to stop it. Theyre only coming to give me a token gesture, unrelated addition to solving it: you can tell. Snr and next-snr UK engineers, bristol & york theyre both coming from. 2nd time, each. I mean ffs.

 

I cant seem to be ungrateful, but I will be if the noise hasn't been fixed: I'll be a bit depressed & anxious as to what next, knowing they've decided this as final 'token-gesture' visit/ last gasp. Then I have to get bboy pants out. I cant do it with these guys tho: big f-off bristol baldie told me off last time in my own house! (I was getting a bit stressed having had no sleep, again, so with good reason), not good at all tbh, but I took it on the chin & apologised to the ape. Snr guy like a schoolmaster. Me vs these two spieling tech excuses at me-? no chance, even with my biggest, badass bboy pants on gleaming white from your Vanish dual action skidmark remover. Urgh dreading it.

[PeterW]

17 minutes ago, zoothorn said:

@SteamyTea the white stuff is pipe insulation: inside is like 12mm HD copper pipe. It is correctly sized, that's been established, nothing to suggest it isn't afaict. If I turn off 3x rads anyway, then its actually oversized if anything. They went slightly over anyway, they said to be safe, & with the 2 extra rads (survey took before extention went up, so a whole new wing had appeared on install day!) it'll mean ~spot-on size.

Its not spot on by any stretch of the imagination ..!! And I’ve just done a quick calculation knowing what you’ve said about the house and I’m heading to around 9-11kW minimum heat requirement which you just don’t have, so please don’t defend the surveyor ..! I think without your extension it was borderline but they didn’t include that in the calculations. 
 

And @SteamyTea is referring to all the copper pipe below the unit - that should be insulated as should any pipework within 1m of the hot water tank otherwise they cannot have signed it off under BRegs. 
 

Friday you need to ask very clearly why you’re not getting warm rooms. Oh and get them to set the heating flow temperature to a minimum 40c, it’s in the installer menu.. ?

[Declan52]

17 minutes ago, zoothorn said:

@PeterW that's such a great post- appreciated Peter. Lordy if I could hire you.. what I plan to do is be pretty firm saying Im working and then f-off, avoid any them vs me (innevitable tho).. so long as noise has been fixed I'll say/ its under guarantee so will have to be fixed eventually I'll say putting that point flat & nothing needs saying more than its been fixed yes? at the end. Bye.

 

Trouble is it won't have been. No-one knows what its doing. No-one knows how to tweak it to stop. Or add anything to stop it. Theyre only coming to give me a token gesture, unrelated addition to solving it: you can tell. Snr and next-snr UK engineers, bristol & york theyre both coming from. 2nd time, each. I mean ffs.

 

I cant seem to be ungrateful, but I will be if the noise hasn't been fixed: I'll be a bit depressed & anxious as to what next, knowing they've decided this as final 'token-gesture' visit/ last gasp. Then I have to get bboy pants out. I cant do it with these guys tho: big f-off bristol baldie told me off last time in my own house! (I was getting a bit stressed having had no sleep, again, so with good reason), not good at all tbh, but I took it on the chin & apologised to the ape. Snr guy like a schoolmaster. Me vs these two spieling tech excuses at me-? no chance, even with my biggest, badass bboy pants on gleaming white from your Vanish dual action skidmark remover. Urgh dreading it.

Why are you already prejudging the guys who could possibly fix your issues. Stay calm and have all the issues on paper so you don't get in a tizxy and forget something.

Don't forget this is a government scheme so there are higher avenues to go to if needed. 

[newhome]

You have your thermometer now so record all of the room temperatures before they come, write them down and show them to the guys. Then ask why you can’t get the rooms to an acceptable temperature, in particular the new bedroom that has better insulation than the older part of the house. 
 

Ask them what grant scheme it was installed under as you believe that it may not have been sized correctly for a house of your size and construction. 
 

Maybe write down all of your issues in a bullet point list so that you can just hand them the list. Not bundles of info, just a single statement highlighting each issue. Share your list here before Friday and the tech guys on here can see whether it hits the mark. 

 

 

[Gone West]

13 hours ago, zoothorn said:

Yes but there's just 0.5* difference between a freezing cold see-your-breath-sleeping-in uninsulated room, with no rad on.. to a brand new well insulated room, with a huge rad on.

If you're confident you have plenty of loft insulation then it is a 'brand new well insulated room', although AIUI it still has a big chunk of original house wall in there. If not most of the heat will be disappearing through the ceiling.

[zoothorn]

14 hours ago, PeterStarck said:

If you're confident you have plenty of loft insulation then it is a 'brand new well insulated room', although AIUI it still has a big chunk of original house wall in there. If not most of the heat will be disappearing through the ceiling.

 

On 01/12/2020 at 21:16, PeterW said:

Its not spot on by any stretch of the imagination ..!! And I’ve just done a quick calculation knowing what you’ve said about the house and I’m heading to around 9-11kW minimum heat requirement which you just don’t have, so please don’t defend the surveyor ..! I think without your extension it was borderline but they didn’t include that in the calculations. 
 

And @SteamyTea is referring to all the copper pipe below the unit - that should be insulated as should any pipework within 1m of the hot water tank otherwise they cannot have signed it off under BRegs. 
 

Friday you need to ask very clearly why you’re not getting warm rooms. Oh and get them to set the heating flow temperature to a minimum 40c, it’s in the installer menu.. ?

 

Peter but i know why im not getting warm rooms, the house is stupid cold. My bathroom reading 14.6 when thermostat room reads 22* can never be blamed on the ch system if the rads hot, constantly for 4 hours, & it cant ge5 any warmer. What do you think the ape would say on friday if i were to sort of blame the ashp for this low figure?

 

The majority of the house too..  freezing cold. I knew this. I knew any ch system wouldnt heat It. So, discount the majority of the house to guage the effectiveness of the system. The only way to guage effectiveness of the ashp, if it gets the rads hot, is not how well it heats a room as you cant expect it to be responsible for the rooms u values. It can only be responsible for the heat put into the room, not then on how well its contained.

 

 So, I only need to figure out this huge disparity between two new near identical rooms. One below is 21.8*, the one above it is 16.8*, with a radiator twice the size above, the lowe4 room below providing some level of warmth underfoot for the room above ( surely a bit). It just makes no sense to have such a huge difference. One rooms super toasty,  never cold.. the other you can barely feel any warmth in, often very cold.

 

Ive no need to wonder about the surveyor, the installation (apart from the damn leak which im told is their responsibility), the choice of size, theres nothing suggesting its underpowered. The only thing Im wondering about, is how the BCO comes to the decision that the loft fluff ive got in (being  the only different insulation factor between the two new rooms one ontop the other) is sufficient.. esp if he seems obsessed with ultra good u values etc etc asking me for 140 mm wall pir & 100mm pir under the lower room floor.. i persusded him for 50mm under lower room floor (bc build 1 foot too low so im desperate for roomH).. and the rooms super toasty.

 

It should have been 140mm rockwool -minimum- in the loft, at a guess,  plus the orange fluff ontop too ( tho afaict this stuff is useless). Now ive got to build a hatch, spend £500 and a week of work redoing it, in a very tricky area ive no experience of. Builder could have added this in a few hours. Im not happy about this at all tbh. Its got to be this the main reason as PeterS said, & just seems must be it to me: heats going up, just like kitchen and bathroom, above rad.. & dissapearing, not being radiated back down and contained in the room by a ( properly) insulated ceiling. I could be wrong after £500 and a hard week.. but ffs i hope not cos i cant do anything else in here.

[zoothorn]

15 hours ago, PeterStarck said:

If you're confident you have plenty of loft insulation then it is a 'brand new well insulated room', although AIUI it still has a big chunk of original house wall in there. If not most of the heat will be disappearing through the ceiling.

Well after your thoughts on the ceiliing loft fluff.. no im not confident its well insulated, ceiling feels the problem like you suggest. I was saying this as i just assumed the bco having told builder what to put in above me here, would equate to a well insulated room. Evidently not so.. & alarmingly by a country mile no doubt about it.
 

Surely its the job of the bco to put the things in place materialwise to mean it -is- a well insulated room. He seemed ott obsessed with big u values etc, thick pir, muttering away if asked him could i go less in the lower floor.. & known for being a stickler on this front too.

 

How do i do a u value reading in these two rooms?

[PeterW]

You size a heating system to the heat requirements, that’s why big old houses have large output boilers, and super efficient ones have small output boilers. A radiator puts in a finite amount of heat - the BTU or kW value - at a delta between room temperature and radiator temperature. A room loses heat through its walls, roof and floor and if the input exceeds the losses, the room warms up. 
 

So you do a heat loss calculation, and you size the rads according to the losses. That comes up with a kW requirement, and the boiler needs to be able to put in more than that value. And your ASHP can’t do that as it was designed wrongly. Your heat losses exceed your heat input - simple as that. Doesn’t matter if the rads get hot, you’re losing more than your gaining. 
 

The simple reason your downstairs room is warm is you taped the life out of it ..! You created a perfectly sealed roasting bag in effect and that’s why it traps heat - you have no convection losses through draughts and leaky walls. You can’t do that with the older rooms until you start stripping them back to insulate walls etc and reboard, but this is a big factor in the problem. 
 

In the attic above the bedroom ceiling should be 3-400mm of insulation at least. If you can get a hatch mid point in the ceiling you can add it in both sides - it’s not expensive to get either as a lot of places have it on offer and you won’t need much more than 2 or 3 big rolls as they do about 8sqm each. Also get an insulated loft hatch that seals properly - stop the draughts...!

[PeterW]

8 minutes ago, zoothorn said:

How do i do a u value reading in these two rooms?

uValue is calculated by taking all the materials and their thicknesses and calculating their heat loss values. It’s not something you can “measure” with a meter or tool. 

[SteamyTea]

If we knew the size of all the radiators, we could make a pretty good estimate of the heat input.

Then if we know the floor area of the house (length and breadth), we could make a pretty good stab at the thermal losses.

Edited December 3, 2020 by SteamyTea

[Gone West]

8 hours ago, zoothorn said:

The majority of the house too..  freezing cold. I knew this. I knew any ch system wouldnt heat It.

That isn't correct. If you put enough heat into your house it will get warm. The radiators have to be big enough, have a large enough surface area to transfer heat to the air, to more than match what is being lost through the walls etc. The boiler/ASHP also has to be large enough to provide that heat.

[zoothorn]

2 hours ago, PeterStarck said:

That isn't correct. If you put enough heat into your house it will get warm. The radiators have to be big enough, have a large enough surface area to transfer heat to the air, to more than match what is being lost through the walls etc. The boiler/ASHP also has to be large enough to provide that heat.

 

Thanks alot chaps btw. Reading & taking in all the info.

 

Yes Peter I can see your point clearly: i -can- in fact get the big old main room warm, & some heat radiates onwards to kitchen, even upstairs some goes too.. but with such enormous effort on the log burner front (I mean constantly for many hours @ 380* to 400* if I can get it to, IE stuffing it to its gills) Ive actually bent some bits inside from needing running it so high, so contuinually. Quite exhausting re. logs as I'm gathering/ chopping.. so I often just go to bed 9pm in deep winter/ hunker down.

 

So yes I could whack in 3x stoves & get the place very warm. What I meant was, a normally large enough (not some huge behemoth excessive thing) ch system, alone without the log burner aiding it.. will not be able to heat this house. Never. I promise you. The insulation or total lack of it (plus my anomally new room which seems worse, unfathomably, even than adjacent bedroom) is just FAR too much.

[zoothorn]

10 hours ago, PeterW said:

You size a heating system to the heat requirements, that’s why big old houses have large output boilers, and super efficient ones have small output boilers. A radiator puts in a finite amount of heat - the BTU or kW value - at a delta between room temperature and radiator temperature. A room loses heat through its walls, roof and floor and if the input exceeds the losses, the room warms up. 
 

So you do a heat loss calculation, and you size the rads according to the losses. That comes up with a kW requirement, and the boiler needs to be able to put in more than that value. And your ASHP can’t do that as it was designed wrongly. Your heat losses exceed your heat input - simple as that. Doesn’t matter if the rads get hot, you’re losing more than your gaining. 
 

The simple reason your downstairs room is warm is you taped the life out of it ..! You created a perfectly sealed roasting bag in effect and that’s why it traps heat - you have no convection losses through draughts and leaky walls. You can’t do that with the older rooms until you start stripping them back to insulate walls etc and reboard, but this is a big factor in the problem. 
 

In the attic above the bedroom ceiling should be 3-400mm of insulation at least. If you can get a hatch mid point in the ceiling you can add it in both sides - it’s not expensive to get either as a lot of places have it on offer and you won’t need much more than 2 or 3 big rolls as they do about 8sqm each. Also get an insulated loft hatch that seals properly - stop the draughts...!

 

Hi Peter, but I taped both rooms exactly same. Lower room is far from a sealed bag: has the cheapest pine door, its frame a piddling bit of wood between inside & outside: I did put some 25mm PIR in between door's back diagonal braces (but cant be doing much). The door isn't even airtight either, and, often open/ closed (during the day) I go in/out alot often leaving door open 5mins. But, its still  beautifully evenly warm in here even so.

 

Had another awful night, woke 5.30am by cold, spine back thing: so I put leccy blanket on full, then hot bath.. but I could still feel it in back & legs, even now just 'there' still a dull ache. Ive never known anything like it even camping, Im even concerned about pneumonia so deep it is in my back. Never even in adjacent terribly cold bedroom, seeing my breath sleeping in deep winter (so must have been maybe 3* or lower), same mattress, same thick duvet.. I never had this. It was 12.5* in here at 5.30am too (outside 5*). Makes no sense.

 

I'm wondering if its partly a wet-cold thing. What I mean is, Ive noticed in this house if its wet outside & temp say 3* it feels colder than if its a dry period and 0*. I wonder if my two bad nights so far, coincide with fairly-low-but-wet outside conditions. How the physics of this might work, if I'm right Ive no idea. Its defo not a psycho-sematic thing (or wtf the word is), Im not thinking it. I'm warm in bed with thick duvet lying on my back, so Im all warm.. but lying on a cold surface, so my back's cold same time. Put leccy blanket on full pelt & I can feel the heat of course, but feel my back remains cold at same time bc its so deeply set in. Its peculiar, & leaves me with an ache for a few days.

[ProDave]

31 minutes ago, zoothorn said:

 

Thanks alot chaps btw. Reading & taking in all the info.

 

Yes Peter I can see your point clearly: i -can- in fact get the big old main room warm, & some heat radiates onwards to kitchen, even upstairs some goes too.. but with such enormous effort on the log burner front (I mean constantly for many hours @ 380* to 400* if I can get it to, IE stuffing it to its gills) Ive actually bent some bits inside from needing running it so high, so contuinually. Quite exhausting re. logs as I'm gathering/ chopping.. so I often just go to bed 9pm in deep winter/ hunker down.

 

So yes I could whack in 3x stoves & get the place very warm. What I meant was, a normally large enough (not some huge behemoth excessive thing) ch system, alone without the log burner aiding it.. will not be able to heat this house. Never. I promise you. The insulation or total lack of it (plus my anomally new room which seems worse, unfathomably, even than adjacent bedroom) is just FAR too much.

I don't know the size of your stove but even assuming it is a small 5kW one, then if that struggles to heat ONE room, then there is no way a 7kW ASHP is going to heat the whole house.

 

As has been said many times, this heating system is not correct to heat this particular house, the installer who "designed" it has failed.

 

Probably all you can do now is regard it as background heating with something else to make up the short fall.  I don't envy you your heating bills but this is what you get with an old cottage.

[joe90]

2 minutes ago, ProDave said:

the installer who "designed" it has failed.

thats wot I said.  Not fit fir purpose.

 

@zoothorn, how did you heat the house before this was fitted? We’re you that cold before?

[SteamyTea]

Yhe cold, or relative humidity will nit give you pneumonia, that is an infection. So dont woery about that.

 

There is a correlation between temperature, humidity and feeling overly hot or cold.

 

As you are not a good sleeper anyway, try keeping the heating on permanently for a couple of nights. You will be no worse off, and you may be warmer.

Edited December 3, 2020 by SteamyTea

[Gone West]

@zoothorn I would take Steamy up on his offer and get an idea of how much heat you need to keep it warm.

 

4 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

If we knew the size of all the radiators, we could make a pretty good estimate of the heat input.

Then if we know the floor area of the house (length and breadth), we could make a pretty good stab at the thermal losses.

 

[SteamyTea]

9 minutes ago, PeterStarck said:

I would take Steamy up on his offer and get an idea of how much heat you need to keep it warm.

I am not offering to warm the bed up.

Just breath heavily.