Vaillant ashp (my battle with).

[zoothorn]

37 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo-Hoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

 

Great news.

Hi Nick, pretty bloody amazing eh. I played the patient game, polite, then just a bit of 'foot on the gas' at the end. But a hundred calls over 5 years, took a toll.

 

Still freezing cold in the cottage mind, I skoot down to "Onoff's cabin" by the stream of a cold evening. Ace.

 

Cheers, Zoot

[Nickfromwales]

43 minutes ago, zoothorn said:

Still freezing cold in the cottage mind

I think this is grounds for a new super-thread, to take us into 2030 mate.

 

Get your pencil sharpener out and lets do this shit.  

[zoothorn]

On 09/02/2026 at 22:28, Nickfromwales said:

I think this is grounds for a new super-thread, to take us into 2030 mate.

 

Get your pencil sharpener out and lets do this shit.  

Actually, I'll part take that back. I now get a bit of warmth evident in the main old room, enough to take the nip away nothing more (& the new extension 2 rooms can get some warmth in, 2/3rds as much as they could I'd surmise if their 3 new walls in each of the rooms, one above the other, weren't attatched to one side of the cottage/ a stonecold slate wall acting like a big "cold radiator" into these 2 newbuild rooms)

 

The main room has two huge rads in you see. And this new monobloc, so the installer told me, can output higher temp rads.

 

Only way I can get my adjacent kitchen & bathroom warm, is by knocking this 80's extension down & rebuilding. Even with their 1 small rad going at a higher temp, I still see my breath on cold days, need a fan heater on full blast just to be useable. Never ever warm, just bearable.

 

But the noise abatement!! And knowing no indoor box unit will kick off overnight! And I get my only cupboard back too with this thing got rid of. I never need to say the two wretched words -hydraulic unit- ever ever again! Woohoo!

 

 

 

 

[Nickfromwales]

6 minutes ago, zoothorn said:

Actually, I'll part take that back. I now get a bit of warmth evident in the main old room, enough to take the nip away nothing more (& the new extension 2 rooms can get some warmth in, 2/3rds as much as they could I'd surmise if their 3 new walls in each of the rooms, one above the other, weren't attatched to one side of the cottage/ a stonecold slate wall acting like a big "cold radiator" into these 2 newbuild rooms)

 

The main room has two huge rads in you see. And this new monobloc, so the installer told me, can output higher temp rads.

 

Only way I can get my adjacent kitchen & bathroom warm, is by knocking this 80's extension down & rebuilding. Even with their 1 small rad going at a higher temp, I still see my breath on cold days, need a fan heater on full blast just to be useable. Never ever warm, just bearable.

 

But the noise abatement!! And knowing no indoor box unit will kick off overnight! And I get my only cupboard back too with this thing got rid of. I never need to say the two wretched words -hydraulic unit- ever ever again! Woohoo!

 

 

 

 

Have you just tried turning up the flow temp by a few degrees?

[zoothorn]

39 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

Have you just tried turning up the flow temp by a few degrees?

Hi Nick,

 

The rads get fairly hot now, so it's not a case of turning up (if you mean in order to make the two cold 80's extention rooms I mention, warm). You simply cannot get these rooms warm, with so much cold getting into them. Certainly not with a single small'ish heatpump rad in. You'd either need about 5x as many rads in (obvs not practical). Even with a fan heater on, once the air gets 4' away.. it's cold air!! Honestly these two 80's rooms, are really that bad. Only solution.. is rebuilding. Which I can't possibly afford.
 

Right now, in my main room, it's 2 big rads are on, & they're pretty hot too. But despite this (an improvement to before) my legs & feet are -very- cold, & I can just see my breath. I can only use this sittingroom with an electric blanket under me butt & a hottie on my back.. thick hat on, scarf, & coat on. But even so like right now I'm still mainly cold, just my butt & back aren't. Toasted plums, anyone?

 

Zoot
 

I just stick it out until summer tbh!

 

 

Edited yesterday at 13:58 by zoothorn

[Nickfromwales]

1 minute ago, zoothorn said:

Which I can't possibly afford.

How about some basic sealing up with foam etc? Gaps letting cold air in are killer, same with the window and that can be a couple of £10 to apply self adhesive B&Q draught proofing strips etc.

 

Also these radiator fans seem to work well moving heat around. 

Link

[SteamyTea]

Are you still running like a normal heating system i.e. turning it off at night and when you are out.

[zoothorn]

2 hours ago, Nickfromwales said:

How about some basic sealing up with foam etc? Gaps letting cold air in are killer, same with the window and that can be a couple of £10 to apply self adhesive B&Q draught proofing strips etc.

 

Also these radiator fans seem to work well moving heat around. 

Link

Haven't seen those before, but I wouldn't expect them to do anything tbh. They may for about a foot.. but then it turns into cold air.
 

Having done all I can to seal gaps, & thick curtains, making a total of zero difference.. it's very evident that with such colossal cold coming up from the floor (chiefly the main culprit being the biggest surface area), in from the sides via 3ft thick stone walls acting like cold rads, behind the warm rads (kinda effectively cancelling the warm rads out).. & cold air coming down from the loft directly onto room ceiling edges all around the room, I can't make any headway into subduing the cold.

 

The only way to make -some positive difference-, & you just know this is a fact from living here, is excavating floor/ insulation/ underfloor heating. But the cost of both that, & the running cost of the 6x5m underloor area, warm enough to feel it (you're still battling the 4x cold walls' injecting cold into the room so you'd need double any normal room's output from such a system).. would be hugely expensive for me.

 

I do though have a relatively direct path from the cylinder -so my installer said- down only 2m below to the "entry point" of such an underfloor heating element. But I just know it'll only be partially successful. Without insulating the walls & ceiling-which are both simply n/a plans without huge expense themselves, & downsizing the room significantly, and losing much character too- it's just not really worth banking on the UFH idea, unless 100% sure it'll make a significant improvement. I just know it won't.
 

I have a friend locally who did just this, same type of freezing slate stone cottage main room, same almost totally innefective 9kW stove wasting money in the hearth: he laid floor insulation & UFH & you can barely tell the difference before & after. Huge outlay, for minimal gain.

 

Unlike him, I do have the heating system that could 'power' the UFH idea in my one main room though. So i have mulled the idea. But then 20mins in my £500 'Onoff' cabin down near my stream & I'm toasty-warm.. I think what's the bloomin point. £500 Cabin laughs at the £125k cottage!

[zoothorn]

My feet are so cold being in main room this afternoon I'm just about to go to bed 5:15pm/ under thick duvet/ leccy blanket on... only way I can warm up! Still with thick hat + scarf on! 

Edited 22 hours ago by zoothorn

[-rick-]

I'm a bit surprised an installer would install a system if it wasn't able to heat your home. What are the specs of the new system?

 

15 minutes ago, zoothorn said:

Having done all I can to seal gaps

 

You've put effort in here but you say that you can still feel cold air. Do you think this is because cold air is still coming through gaps you can't seal or because air is cooling down on the cold wall and causing air movement within the room?

 

If you think it's air coming from outside the room then there is still work to do there, what issues are there that prevent more sealing?

 

An uninsulated but relatively sealed room should still be able to be warmed.

 

25 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Are you still running like a normal heating system i.e. turning it off at night and when you are out.

 

8 minutes ago, zoothorn said:

3ft thick stone walls acting like cold rads

 

Others experience on here with similar walls is that once you get them up to temperature they can be relatively good at keeping the heat in. It just takes a lot of energy to get them up to temp. If you are running your system in an on-off manner you will never get enough energy into the walls and they will always be cold and suck the heat out of the room.

 

So, assuming you are currently running in an on off fashion, a good experiment to run is to leave the heating on 24/7 for maybe 2 weeks and see if it slowly brings the rooms up to temp. (obviously requires relatively good air sealing).

[zoothorn]

@-rick- I'm absolutely not moaning about the heatpump not doing what it's meant to. I was only moaning about my cottage. Absolutely not about the system. I never expected it to be able to heat here. Despite what the sales pitch was, from the govt scheme chap at my door SO eager to install one "you'll be so warm with it". No I wouldn't, I just knew. If my 9kW stove can't get my main room warm, 2 medium warm heatpump rads.. is next to useless. As they proove to be, in this cottage. Completely useless.
 

But as I had a mouse-infested rusty cylinder before, & no CH at all, how can I say "no thanks" when the system he was so eager to give away includes a new cylinder? That's all I knew would be useful, the medium warm rads being merely useless additions. May even add some house value having a CH system installed, should I be forced to sell up, with unsuspecting buyers viewing it in the summer. I'd have been daft to say thanks, but no thanks, you see.
 

As Ive said before, I had no intention that it would be able to warm my cottage. It doesn't whatsoever, as I knew when it was being installed, because it simply can't. 
 

I am though lucky to have 1 room which -can- be warmed by it, reasonably if not nicely-comfortably.. my bedroom. Which is within a 2021 new build (2-room one above the other) extension. Thing is, during the evenings, it's the one room you don't tend to be in. But the 4/5ths of the house, remain unbearably cold. Despite everything that I can affordably do. Plugging up gaps, thick curtains, double glazing, even adding some celotex to the inside made no noticeable difference. 
 

The installer, who fitted it originally, didn't want to go ahead, because he knew medium-warm-only-rads, typical for a Heatpump system, are a hopeless fit in a stone cold cottage like mine.. an utter waste of time. But I had to beg him to relent. To get a new cylinder foc (& the possibly of some warmth in a newbuild bedroom too, as a bonus). That's a grand right there, & I'm on a low budget. 

 

Thanks, Zoot

 

Edited 20 hours ago by zoothorn

[Gone West]

15 hours ago, zoothorn said:

The only way to make -some positive difference

Is to have a sufficiently large enough heater. The walls in our place are 600mm to 700mm thick stone and when we first moved in we had our 30kW oil fired Aga heating on all the time, in the Spring, to dry it out and warm it up. The house didn't feel comfortable for a long time as the heat was drying the fabric of the building. @SteamyTea explained how much energy is required to do this, and it was substantial. We now have a house that is 23C all the time. You can warm the house up, but it requires a lot of constant expensive heating to do so, and it has to be maintained. Trying to heat one room for a few hours, in your type of house, is pointless.

[-rick-]

14 hours ago, zoothorn said:

@-rick- I'm absolutely not moaning about the heatpump not doing what it's meant to. I was only moaning about my cottage. 

 

If the heatpump is working as expected then I'm glad. Last thing you want is to be worrying about that on top of other things.

 

It does sound like the cold home is really getting to you. I fully understand how annoying the cold feet feeling is. Now the heatpump noise has been solved maybe it's time to have another run at making things more comfortable? Maybe not for this year but to have a plan for next year (rather than spending a lot of energy now to dry the place out, next year plan to not let it cool down in the first place).

 

If you have done enough sealing to avoid major drafts internally then it should be possible to keep the place warmer than it is. Maybe you can't get it to cosy, but I suspect you can do better than seeing your own breath inside and if the the main space can be got to a higher temp then then bedroom should be cosy.

 

Failing that, maybe working out how to divide the spaces a bit better so the bedroom can be kept cosy without spending a load of money on heating areas with no impact as it does sound like the worst of all worlds ATM with the heating on a lot but not a lot of impact.

[-rick-]

2 hours ago, Gone West said:

Is to have a sufficiently large enough heater. The walls in our place are 600mm to 700mm thick stone and when we first moved in we had our 30kW oil fired Aga heating on all the time, in the Spring, to dry it out and warm it up. The house didn't feel comfortable for a long time as the heat was drying the fabric of the building. @SteamyTea explained how much energy is required to do this, and it was substantial. We now have a house that is 23C all the time. You can warm the house up, but it requires a lot of constant expensive heating to do so, and it has to be maintained. Trying to heat one room for a few hours, in your type of house, is pointless.

 

Now you have the place to temp, what is you heating demand now?

[zoothorn]

6 minutes ago, -rick- said:

 

If the heatpump is working as expected then I'm glad. Last thing you want is to be worrying about that on top of other things.

 

It does sound like the cold home is really getting to you. I fully understand how annoying the cold feet feeling is. Now the heatpump noise has been solved maybe it's time to have another run at making things more comfortable? Maybe not for this year but to have a plan for next year (rather than spending a lot of energy now to dry the place out, next year plan to not let it cool down in the first place).

 

If you have done enough sealing to avoid major drafts internally then it should be possible to keep the place warmer than it is. Maybe you can't get it to cosy, but I suspect you can do better than seeing your own breath inside and if the the main space can be got to a higher temp then then bedroom should be cosy.

 

Failing that, maybe working out how to divide the spaces a bit better so the bedroom can be kept cosy without spending a load of money on heating areas with no impact as it does sound like the worst of all worlds ATM with the heating on a lot but not a lot of impact.

Hi again Rick,

 

really appreciate your input/ suggestions.

Honestly, it's simply not a game I can possibly win here. Bar one room that is (actually two: I have a workshop room under my bedroom, 2021 extension, which CAN get warm even with 1 of the 4 walls an original stone.. but neither do I need, nor want heat in there: it dries my timber work out, so prefer this 1 rad out of the 12 in the house, off: just a fan heater to inject a bit of heat in, when I work, otherwise rad is off).

 

If you came you'd understand. It's just one of those houses, like that freezing room you recall as a child for eg, always deathly cold.. my main 3 rooms, sit'room/ kitchen/ bathroom unfortunately all have this trait. 2 beds directly above, I don't use, much the same.

 

It's simply lack of insulation. In my 3 main rooms: nothing under the floor, & nothing in the stone walls (bar a token gesture 1" rigid insulation in kitchen/ bathroom walls: ie next to nil). Sit'room has nothing in very low 6'3" ceiling too, just the two cold bedrooms above it. Basically, I have none at all. And whole cottage is just whacked down on -cold- clay too. I also have some damp upwards in the stone walls (not enough to mean odour- just black mould on lowest 1', a bugger to scrub off.. so I now just don't/ let that win too). Plus a stream -very- close & lower than cottage, likely aiding the cold ingress to the floor too. So it's no wonder I sit with the 2 sitroom huge rads on, now quite hot, but can still see my breath & cold feet, face, hands. It's like David & Goliath: I don't expect a small ammount of heat, to win over a massive ammount of cold. It's not physically possible. 
 

Thanks, Zoot