Aylesbury Buckinghamshire - help needed to find a reasonably priced non MCS installer

[Tim S]

Hi everyone. I'm finishing off a granny annexe build (anncillary building hence no ASHP grant) and having a nightmare getting the ASHP etc done. My folks are supposed to be moving in in 3 weeks! I've contacted about 30 firms. MCS ones either aren’t interested or want 15k, normal plumbers and sparkles just haven’t been returning my calls or aren’t interested.

 

If anyone can help with a non MCS installer who doesn’t want a grand a day, or an electrician who would be happy to wire in an Ecodan and FTC6 controller, I'm all ears.

 

i do have a plumber teed up for about 600 per day but that’s the non electrical work only. I can’t find a sparky to do the electrical side, and I,m pretty much at my wits end with this tbh….

if anyone can help I would be very grateful. Regards all Tim

 

 

[SteamyTea]

8 minutes ago, Tim S said:

i do have a plumber teed up for about 600 per day

WTF.

When I moved to Aylesbury it was were us poor people moved to.

I may well be up next week.

 

[Tim S]

Hi Steamy, I'm in a village about 3 miles from Aylesbury as the crow flies. I'm sure the price goes up as soon as any trades drive into the village! 

[PhilT]

13 minutes ago, Tim S said:

Hi Steamy, I'm in a village about 3 miles from Aylesbury as the crow flies. I'm sure the price goes up as soon as any trades drive into the village! 

An Ecodan plus FTC6 sounds way too much for a granny annex (I have those two items for my whole house) have you considered air to air mini split air con / heat pump? I had one installed in my annex for not a lot of money, but tapped hot water from the central system. I also live in the Aylesbury area

Edited April 13 by PhilT

[ProDave]

An ASHP is NOT rocket science.

 

All you need is a plumber, to him is is just about like a system boiler driving a heating system (hopefully under floor heating) and a hot water tank.  He just needs to be able to read a manual, and be prepared NOT to use a 3 port mid position valve.

 

And the electrics, it is close to a system boiler, but every ASHP is different in the way you connect it, and the way it interfaces to the rest of the system.  It will all be detailed in the installation manual, so all you are looking for is an electrician that is literate so can read and digest the manual, and be prepared to do something new to him following the manual.

 

It does annoy me when they say "I can't do that"

 

Also agree £600 per day for the plumber is too high, but that might be the going rate, one of the reasons I left the south, everything was just too expensive.

[JamesPa]

1 hour ago, Tim S said:

i do have a plumber teed up for about 600 per day but that’s the non electrical work only. I can’t find a sparky to do the electrical side, and I,m pretty much at my wits end with this

Maybe try breaking it down.  Get an electrician to fit the 32A (or 16A) circuit.  The rest is more complex but less dangerous and essentially suitable for DIY.

 

Or alternatively get the plumber to ask his tame sparky (every plumber that does heating knows a sparky) to do everything except the FTC6, which is hardly any different to any system boiler.

 

Or draw a diagram and tell them that's what you want (there is probably something suitable in the ecodan installation manual).

 

It's fear of the unknown and reluctance to guarantee the unknown that's the problem, so if you can find creative ways around that may help.

Edited April 13 by JamesPa

[sharpener]

57 minutes ago, JamesPa said:

Or alternatively get the plumber to ask his tame sparky (every plumber that does heating knows a sparky) to do everything except the FTC6, which is hardly any different to any system boiler.

 

Just had a read, the FTC6 manual is one of the best and most comprehensive I have seen and the diagrams for common system configurations are very easy to follow for both sparky and plumber. Should be no problem even for someone who is new to HPs.

[Tim S]

Thanks for the replies everyone.

 

The plumber's tame sparky seemed a nice enough guy, then quoted £1850! The next sparky just pulled out as he looked at the Ecodan installer manual and said it was too confusing - 'get a Mitsubishi accredited installer'! Hence my post!

 

The installation is a 5kw Ecodan with UFH in an active slab of 37 tons mass, so should be an ok buffer as is. It’s a detached 1000 sq ft building, and I’ve used the Ubakus spreadsheet to analyse the heat demand. It’s all pretty routine I would have thought. I would have had a go myself (wired a car from scratch before) but I just don’t have time.

 

Regards all

[sharpener]

15 minutes ago, Tim S said:

he looked at the Ecodan installer manual and said it was too confusing

 

Well it does cover lots of options (inc how to cascade up to 6 units!). Maybe for the next candidate you should cut and paste just the bits he will need.

[Nickfromwales]

2 hours ago, Tim S said:

The plumber's tame sparky seemed a nice enough guy, then quoted £1850!

On grant work, iirc, my trades are getting around £1k per ASHP install, electrics / controls / commissioning etc. £1850 is taking the piss.

 

We're in Gravenhill atm, if you are completely stuck let me know by PM and I'll give you my guys details.

[Iceverge]

4 hours ago, Tim S said:

wired a car from scratch before) but I just don’t have time.

 

 

Having tinkered with a little auto wiring I would say absolutely nothing about house wiring is nearly as involved. 

 

Can you put in a resistive heater as a stop gap and dedicate 2 days of your holidays to this later on. You'll be well able. 

[JamesPa]

4 hours ago, Iceverge said:

 

Having tinkered with a little auto wiring I would say absolutely nothing about house wiring is nearly as involved. 

 

Can you put in a resistive heater as a stop gap and dedicate 2 days of your holidays to this later on. You'll be well able. 

Id be tempted to go that route too.  Get a sparky to put in the power feed (which involves opening up the CU) and the rest is easy and largely safe DiY.  Mine charged £180 inc parts to do the second fix power feed (ie I purchased and ran the cable in advance so he didn't have to) and fix up some poor earth bonding he noticed whilst there.  

[nod]

At £600 per day Your plumber is ripping you off 

 

[sharpener]

1 hour ago, JamesPa said:

Get a sparky to put in the power feed (which involves opening up the CU) and the rest is easy and largely safe DiY.

 

What about the sparky who has done the house wiring in yr new building, you must have a relationship there or is he one of the above?

 

Or send a Building Notice to yr LA for £200 and then DIY, they will come and inspect the work later which should keep insurers happy and might forestall any major warranty problems. The IET On-site Guide has all you need to know.

 

If the building has its own supply get the DNO to disconnect while you fit an isolator (or pay them to), then you can turn off the supply to work on it all in perfect safety.

 

Presumably If you can fix up a temp supply to immersion htr you won't need much in the way of space heating until September, for emergencies we have kept 1 x convector heater and 2x fan heaters (inherited from two sets of parents!).

[ProDave]

An Ecodan plus FTC6 is probably one of the simplest ASHP's to install from the electricians viewpoint.  The FTC6 connects to the HP just with a 2 core cable and all the user control connections are in the house in the FTC6.  In it's simplest form there is just a pair of contacts for "call for heat" which is just about exactly what you get from say an UFH system with a standard UFH manifold controller.

 

Any electrician that cannot look at a manual and connect that is not competent imho.

 

The MCS companies not wanting do do non MCS work, it probably just a thinly veiled way of saying why would they want to work at normal labour rates when they can do as much MCS work at inflated MCS prices as they want to.

[MrPotts]

The inflated MCS prices are costing us the taxpayers! The government needs to investigate why ASHP installations via an MCS installer are so expensive.

[Nickfromwales]

30 minutes ago, MrPotts said:

The inflated MCS prices are costing us the taxpayers! The government needs to investigate why ASHP installations via an MCS installer are so expensive.

Any sentence with “the government” as any part of it is fecked from definition, so don’t hold your breath. 
 

Why are FiT entitled ‘customers’ still getting FiT payments for the next 20 years or so, way beyond the capital cost of having the system installed?!?!? Yet a young couple wanting to do the right thing and ‘go green’ don’t ever see that money, which sends FiT entitled masses on holidays and the such. Ffs. 
 

“The government”……suck, at much of what they do tbf. Why should this abortion of a scheme be any different? 🤷‍♂️

 

 

[JamesPa]

1 hour ago, MrPotts said:

The inflated MCS prices are costing us the taxpayers! The government needs to investigate why ASHP installations via an MCS installer are so expensive.

Don't bother it will prove and change nothing.

 

Instead remove the requirement for MCS from the rules for permitted development rights, shift green taxes from electricity to gas and open up the eligibility for the grant to any of the other registered bodies.

 

Prices will come down and the grant can be progressively reduced or phased out.   Possibly govt needs in addition to sponsor some training in system design for retrofit available only to people who can demonstrate the ability to think.  

 

It's pointless trying to fix a private monopoly, the solution is to eliminate it's monopoly position.

Edited April 14 by JamesPa

[JamesPa]

1 hour ago, Nickfromwales said:

Why are FiT entitled ‘customers’ still getting FiT payments for the next 20 years or so, way beyond the capital cost of having the system installed?!?!? Yet a young couple wanting to do the right thing and ‘go green’ don’t ever see that money, which sends FiT entitled masses on holidays and the such. Ffs. 

I get FIT from panels we installed in 2010 and I agree.

 

I suppose the problem is that a contract is a contract and once you break it confidence in current incentives vanishes.

[sharpener]

1 hour ago, Nickfromwales said:

Why are FiT entitled ‘customers’ still getting FiT payments for the next 20 years or so, way beyond the capital cost of having the system installed?!?!?

 

Because as @JamesPa says that was the deal to get early adopters to invest in PV. We paid £14k in 2011 which was a lot of money and would not have done it without the incentive. The breakeven point neglecting the cost of capital was 6 years which I think is about right.

 

I worked for the DTI at one point and like many other government grant schemes this one was in part designed for political purposes and with hindsight could have been a lot better. In particular rewarding Total Generation not export has never made a lot of sense. And IMO it should never have been allowed on agricultural land when so many commercial and industrial roofs are still out there.

 

Nevertheless I think it achieved its objective in that domestic PV is now commonplace.

[twice round the block]

18 hours ago, Tim S said:

Hi Steamy, I'm in a village about 3 miles from Aylesbury as the crow flies. I'm sure the price goes up as soon as any trades drive into the village! 

You should try doing a build near Beaconsfield 💰💰💰💰

[nod]

1 hour ago, sharpener said:

 

Because as @JamesPa says that was the deal to get early adopters to invest in PV. We paid £14k in 2011 which was a lot of money and would not have done it without the incentive. The breakeven point neglecting the cost of capital was 6 years which I think is about right.

 

I worked for the DTI at one point and like many other government grant schemes this one was in part designed for political purposes and with hindsight could have been a lot better. In particular rewarding Total Generation not export has never made a lot of sense. And IMO it should never have been allowed on agricultural land when so many commercial and industrial roofs are still out there.

 

Nevertheless I think it achieved its objective in that domestic PV is now commonplace.

It is common place But the figures we where given visa Sap back in 2018 was an annual saving of £200-300 

That with a well insulated home and a gas boiler Can PV really run more than all your energy costs 

Lots of mis selling PV cases still out there 

[SteamyTea]

1 hour ago, twice round the block said:

should try doing a build near Beaconsfield

I used to live in Penn, so know it well.

 

I got a mate to text his plumber mate. His hourly rate is a lot less, but still quite a bit.

 

What is really ridiculous is that there are a couple of people in here who have recently lost their jobs, I am well under employed, and there is a fantastic knowledge base on here.

 

And at £80 an hour good money to be made.

[Mattg4321]

3 hours ago, sharpener said:

 

Because as @JamesPa says that was the deal to get early adopters to invest in PV. We paid £14k in 2011 which was a lot of money and would not have done it without the incentive. The breakeven point neglecting the cost of capital was 6 years which I think is about right.

 

I worked for the DTI at one point and like many other government grant schemes this one was in part designed for political purposes and with hindsight could have been a lot better. In particular rewarding Total Generation not export has never made a lot of sense. And IMO it should never have been allowed on agricultural land when so many commercial and industrial roofs are still out there.

 

Nevertheless I think it achieved its objective in that domestic PV is now commonplace.

But the scam that is MCS still has to be complied with to get SEG payments. 
 

As a sparks, the amount of absolutely shocking PV installs I see is frustrating. It’s not cost effective for me to go MCS for a few systems a year, however I’m just about to fit my own system (which will actually be done properly, unlike most MCS installs!), which I won’t be able to get SEG payments for. 
 

Ridiculous. 
 

 

[JamesPa]

8 minutes ago, Mattg4321 said:

But the scam that is MCS still has to be complied with to get SEG payments. 
 

As a sparks, the amount of absolutely shocking PV installs I see is frustrating. It’s not cost effective for me to go MCS for a few systems a year, however I’m just about to fit my own system (which will actually be done properly, unlike most MCS installs!), which I won’t be able to get SEG payments for. 
 

Ridiculous. 
 

 

In fairness electricity retailers are able to waive this requirement. Octopus announced thar they had waived it, but then backtracked.  Not sure what the current position is.

 

Personally I would favour the total disenfranchisement of mcs so that it has no special status at all.  However it seems to have the ear of government so that's not going to happen.

Edited April 14 by JamesPa