UFH Swansea

[valmiki]

Hello everyone,

 

I have a Giacomini ufh system installed in my home (happy to post some pics if anyone’s interested). No radiators at all, ground floor is screed, first and second floors aluminium spreader plates. Each floor has its own manifold. The kit was installed about 18 months ago by the builder whilst refurbishing the entire house (1930s detached). We only moved in the end of last year. Now that I’m finding my feet, I feel the need to get it working at its best. 

The builder fitted the biggest boiler that he could find - a WB Highflow 550cdi. A huge beast, that took up the space I needed for a dryer (but that’s a different story). Great for DHW flow, but not so great on the ufh side of things. I’m finding that on occasions when just one or two zones are calling for heat, they never seem to get to the required temp. Wait - what’s that, short-cycling? I think I desperately need a buffer tank!

 

I also feel that the whole system overall could also do with a knowledgeable pair of eyes to give it a once over, and the odd tweak here and there.

 

So, what I’m really asking for is help to find someone trustworthy that could do the two things above. My regular gas man knows next to nothing about ufh and won’t touch it, and I don’t know anyone else who has it installed!

 

If you know anybody in the Swansea area please let me know (NickfromWales?), I live in Ynystawe.

 

Thanks in advance 

valmiki

 

 

 

 

[Nickfromwales]

7 hours ago, valmiki said:

Hello everyone,

 

I have a Giacomini ufh system installed in my home (happy to post some pics if anyone’s interested). No radiators at all, ground floor is screed, first and second floors aluminium spreader plates. Each floor has its own manifold. The kit was installed about 18 months ago by the builder whilst refurbishing the entire house (1930s detached). We only moved in the end of last year. Now that I’m finding my feet, I feel the need to get it working at its best. 

The builder fitted the biggest boiler that he could find - a WB Highflow 550cdi. A huge beast, that took up the space I needed for a dryer (but that’s a different story). Great for DHW flow, but not so great on the ufh side of things. I’m finding that on occasions when just one or two zones are calling for heat, they never seem to get to the required temp. Wait - what’s that, short-cycling? I think I desperately need a buffer tank!

 

I also feel that the whole system overall could also do with a knowledgeable pair of eyes to give it a once over, and the odd tweak here and there.

 

So, what I’m really asking for is help to find someone trustworthy that could do the two things above. My regular gas man knows next to nothing about ufh and won’t touch it, and I don’t know anyone else who has it installed!

 

If you know anybody in the Swansea area please let me know (NickfromWales?), I live in Ynystawe.

 

Thanks in advance 

valmiki  

3 mins down the road from me lol. 
Sounds deffo like a small buffer would sort it, just down to having some ( more ) room to fit it. You may be able to get away with just a low loss header if the lowest base loads aren’t a million miles away from the lowest burner setting for heating. I’ll ask my mate ( who loves everything WB ) if that can be dialled down on that boiler. Maybe a call to WB tech support would get an answer quicker.   

[ProDave]

Having lived in a 1930's house I know how much heat it needed thrown into it to keep it warm.  What upgrades have you done to the walls and floor to improve it's thermal performance?

[valmiki]

Thanks guys. The refurb stripped back the house to the walls and added everything back in, plus added a new extension and raised the height (new roof) to add an attic floor. The screed had 120mm celotex below, new extension was timber frame (140mm celotex) and what was left had 50mm celotex + 12.5 plasterboard lining the inside of the outer walls. These numbers I've just pulled quickly from the BoQ so don't quote me but the house does feel warm enough.

 

The upper floors have 14mm engineered wood + 2mm ufh-compatible underlay, on a deck of 22mm weyroc screwed on top of aluminium spreader plates across joists, earthwool loft roll 44 in-between the floors. The ground floor front of the house has the same wood flooring, the rear is open plan which has 10mm porcelain tiles which works really well but that's to be expected.

 

Nick, I did find an installer setting (in the service booklet) to dial down the heating output of the boiler, but I don't think it will take it below the min rated output which is approx. 10kw, if you can find out anything else I'd appreciate it.

 

Because the house is relatively well-insulated after a while it's just the odd zones that come on and off, in these instances the temp at the manifold never seems to get hot enough and (I'm no heating engineer) it looks like the boiler is short-cycling constantly.

 

With hindsight I would have a smaller, wall-hung boiler and a tank rather than the 550cdi beast but I didn't have much of a say at the time, and now that the house is plastered and painted the thought of fitting a tank in somewhere...! I'm stuck with it for a few years now until it's time to fit a new one, but I think I have room for a buffer tank.

 

 

 

 

[Nickfromwales]

26 minutes ago, valmiki said:

but I think I have room for a buffer tank.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/STAINLESS-STEEL-LOW-LOSS-HEADER-HYDRAULIC-BALANCER-25kW-1-INSULATED/293485375133?hash=item4455176e9d:g:5WAAAOSwmfhX4qyi

 

Something like this. 

[valmiki]

Thanks Nick,  I can see from other threads it's not one size fits all. Do you know anyone that can advise me and fit one? Thanks again

[valmiki]

Managed to get the cat off the boiler, so here's the space above it (it's quite high ceiling), and I've taken one of the downstairs manifold.

 

I've been looking into Salus self-balancing actuators , as Giacomini use their own thread sizes they won't fit straight on. I did hear that you can use adapters, but not heard anything more. I'll just have to wait for now. I'm not a fan of the mixer valve that's being used, the scale on it is 1-8, ranging from 30-60c but even on 5 as shown above the flow temp is still quite high. Not sure why that is. The boiler is set to flow at 65c.

 

[Nickfromwales]

It could go above I think. Does that pipework head upwards to the manifold? 

[valmiki]

The pipework goes up for the manifolds on the upper floors. The ground floor manifold is installed on the wall opposite (in the utility). I can't be 100% but I think it does come down from above. The cabinet on the left contains the manifold.

. 

[Nickfromwales]

Ok. Will need the LLH and another pump to circulate LLH > manifold. 

[valmiki]

Thank you Nick, I appreciate the help ? Do you need any other information?