Salus Auto Balancing Actuator Compatibility

[tw18]

Hey guys, looking to the community to help fill in the gaps re Salus auto balancing actuators with Heatmiser wiring centres and NeoStats. I’ve read the many threads on the subject, of which the majority seemingly saying yes they work more often than not, but the forums are also littered with stories of them not.

Wundatrade site and support says that they do not even when I pointed them to the following post ‘https://forum.buildhub.org.uk/topic/13229-help-with-salus-auto-balancing-actuators/?do=findComment&comment=220266’ in which another member claimed that they Wunda had a different opinion.

I’ve read that there is a newer revision that has a different IMAX that works with the Neo’s, but can find no hard evidence of this or reference to any change or different version. Is anyone able to shed any light on this?

And finally I’ve read that if the Neo’s calls are too short and frequent that they can send the ABA’s into a re-calibration mode. Is anyone able to confirm this and what cycle time / settings they’ve set on the Neo’s?

 

Any one able to offer any advice or experience on the matter?

[JohnMo]

What are you trying to do, how many UFH zones do you intend to use.  How thick is your screed?

[Dave Jones]

if your using a heat pump you want only 1 zone or your wasting efficiency.

[Fly100]

I have the Salus heads on a Heatmiser Neo stats. Issue I have had is one unit failed internal and stopped adjusting. Simply replaced it job done.

Second issue I had was one unit went out of calibration and needed re calibratibrating.

 

Hope that helps.

[tw18]

16 hours ago, JohnMo said:

What are you trying to do, how many UFH zones do you intend to use.  How thick is your screed?

 

Unfortunately, that is a good question. The house was built in 2008 and compromises of 2 manifolds (1 for each floor) running 11 loops (5 ground floor and 6 on the 1st floor). There was a fire in the garage some years back and any pipe layout details / diagrams were lost, but subsequently new manifolds, wiring centre, pumps, flow controls and actuators were fitted. I have had the original plumber around who was unable to provide any actual details and directed me to someone he claimed was the original supplier (of course they turned out not to be), I’ve spoken to the original architect practise but again given that it was 10 years plus they haven’t been able to provide any details of the floor makeup either. So I have no idea on loop lengths, pipe diameter, pipe spacing, floor makeup etc. The plumbers words were ‘back then UFH was new and we had no idea what we were doing so we were led by the manufactures, and most of what they sold us hasn’t turned out to be true’.

 

I’ve been in the house 15 months and last winter the floors never felt like they got up to temperature. The whole system is really really slow to respond. The plumber had just set all of the flow rates to 2.5 after the fire. I have looked at tweaking them, but it would appear that the ABA’s are the magic ticket to managing and potentially getting the flows right as I look to get the most out of what there is.

[JohnMo]

The other is measure the flow and return pipe temperature and adjust each loop to have the same temperature difference.  But ABAs will be easier.

 

UFH is generally slow to respond.

[James1]

Hi all, I have the salus auto balancing actuators 230v on a 12 port ufh manifold. I'm also using heatmiser neo stats for each room. I've had them installed for a while now and thought they were fit an forget. It seems they do not work as claimed. I noticed a pipe run was not  heating up where i have 4 ports on the manifold to 1 zone, 1 actimuator was randomly closing after a very short period of initial ppenening. I've also just changed another 1 as the pin was not moving far enough to close the valve. Gone and done the recalibrations many time now with limited success. Been sat watching the flow meters while it's in use and played about with it to actually check if it restricts flow when the delta in within 7°. This doesn't actually work. I took the temperature sensor from the return pipe and put it onto the flow pipe next to the other sensor to trick the thing into thinking that the flow and return temp is the same, turns out the flow rate doesn't get restricted at all. So quite pointless really and I'm contemplating changing them all back to the standard actuators and balancing every pipe run manually. Which now seems more like fit and forget. The only thing I can see they are good at is they are quicker to fully open and close than non auto actuators.

[Fly100]

Have you tried recalibrating them. I suggest they may be out of cal over the summer months as they have not been powered ?

[James1]

Yes I have. 

[tw18]

So, it is worth a follow up for research / documentation purposes. I did go ahead and put the 11 of the Salus THB23030 - Auto Balancing Actuators in. With my Heatmiser Neo setup I had set my ‘output delay’ to 5 mins to avoid them quickly switching on / off and potentially doing it within the 2 min period required to set it into the recalibration mode.

 

A year or so later and it’s an interesting story. Downstairs with the slab there definitely been a noticeable benefit. Upstairs and the jury is out. More often than not things are fine for 3 weeks that I have a zone or 2 that just kind of stalls, other zones on that manifold are flowing, but 1 or 2 will just stop and quickly reduce the flow to almost nothing and require a recalibration to kick them back into life. I also had 1 ABA that decided not to close and left the zone wide open and only noticed it when the room was too hot! That also took a recalibration to sort out. Likewise the support hasn’t been great, they are super responsive until you have a problem, then they ignore you for months, and then all they do is tell you to recalibrate it! I see they’re got a replacement ABA in the works, but it’s not available yet, so I imagine the ones I’ve got are very much a Gen1 product with the accompanied teething issues.