Hep 20 Manifold

[Nickfromwales]

Note the #2 TMV also, as the client had a son with learning difficulties, so I capped the max temp to the wash hand basins so prevent his lad inadvertently coming into contact with the water at 55oC ( preset of TMV#1 ). 

[Chanmenie]

Yeah great looking job @Nickfromwales

I don’t need any thing quite so belt and braces as there’s just me and the missus so pretty unlikely we’d have both showers running at the same time.

I assume 25mm main will be ok.

I really like the idea of single runs to each tap, toilet etc with no joins to leak, and the 10mm pipes to low flow items makes sense. 

[MortarThePoint]

Does anyone know if these Hep2o manifolds, or any other hep2o manifolds, can have an actuator attached? I'm thinking like the standard actuators that Wunda sell (link1) (link2). The knob in the photo below doesn't look promising.

 

[Nickfromwales]

21 hours ago, MortarThePoint said:

Does anyone know if these Hep2o manifolds, or any other hep2o manifolds, can have an actuator attached? I'm thinking like the standard actuators that Wunda sell (link1) (link2). The knob in the photo below doesn't look promising.

 

Nope. Those types of actuators are slow functioning and quite 'weak', which is fine as they're only ever supposed to close off a slow-flowing UFH loop, not mains water at that kind of potential.

[Hilldes]

4 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

Nope. Those types of actuators are slow functioning and quite 'weak', which is fine as they're only ever supposed to close off a slow-flowing UFH loop, not mains water at that kind of potential.

The knobs on my Hep2o brass manifolds are really sturdy 

[Nickfromwales]

1 minute ago, Hilldes said:

The knobs on my Hep2o brass manifolds are really sturdy 

Yup. Robust bits of kit. Require a high number of turns also to go from 100% open to 100% closed, and need a bit of a "pinch" at the end of the rotational operation to be sure they're fully closed, so actuators wouldn't work with them.

[TerryE]

On 21/05/2022 at 14:46, Chanmenie said:

Thanks @NickfromwalesI had not planned on installing a softener though.

Although having read your response I have done some research and might consider a non salt type.

Having lived in South Norfolk for many years and never having any problems caused by hard water, I don’t feel the need for a salt type softener. 

 

How often do you need to descale your kettle etc.?

 

We considered our water "slightly hard".  Your local water authority should publish a water hardness by geo location report, and ours was harder that I thought.  We have a Harvey Salt Ion exchange softener on all water as Nick suggests.  Absolutely no regrets, as we next get scale in our appliances, taps, shower screens, etc.  Remember that if you have any thermostatic mixers on any of your potable lines then these can fur up and fail if your water is at all hard. 

 

As Nick says, anything other than ion-exchange is just snake-eyes.

[Chanmenie]

2 hours ago, TerryE said:

 

How often do you need to descale your kettle etc.?

 

We considered our water "slightly hard".  Your local water authority should publish a water hardness by geo location report, and ours was harder that I thought.  We have a Harvey Salt Ion exchange softener on all water as Nick suggests.  Absolutely no regrets, as we next get scale in our appliances, taps, shower screens, etc.  Remember that if you have any thermostatic mixers on any of your potable lines then these can fur up and fail if your water is at all hard. 

 

As Nick says, anything other than ion-exchange is just snake-eyes.

Not sure how often we descale it to be honest never really checked.

Just had a look at the Harveys softeners and as there are only 2 of us its certainly worth considering as it wont be particularly expensive, they do look nice and easy to fill compared to the units of old. 

[TerryE]

20 hours ago, Chanmenie said:

Not sure how often we descale it to be honest never really checked.

Just had a look at the Harveys softeners and as there are only 2 of us its certainly worth considering as it wont be particularly expensive, they do look nice and easy to fill compared to the units of old. 

 

We just bulk-buy the salt block and have to remember to check the unit once a week or so and add another couple of blocks when needed.

[MortarThePoint]

When insulating 10mm pipe do you just loose fit 15mm? Looks like insulating 10mm hot is of marginal benefit. It looks to about halve the rate of heat loss but I think it will cool to near ambient in half an hour (1.9C/minute at 55C, dropping to 25C in 31minutes). 15mm pipe does better at takes over an hour to get near ambient (0.9C/minute at 55C, dropping to 25C in 71minutes).

 

I adapted the CheGuide spreadsheet (my changes in red including on 'Properties' sheet):

Heat_Loss_Insulated_Pipe-10mm.xlsx

Edited May 26, 2022 by MortarThePoint

[Nickfromwales]

6 minutes ago, MortarThePoint said:

When insulating 10mm pipe do you just loose fit 15mm? Looks like insulating 10mm hot is of marginal benefit. It looks to about halve the rate of heat loss but I think it will cool to near ambient in half an hour (1.9C/minute at 55C, dropping to 25C in 31minutes). 15mm pipe does better at takes over an hour to get near ambient (0.9C/minute at 55C, dropping to 25C in 71minutes).

 

I adapted the CheGuide spreadsheet (my changes in red including on 'Properties' sheet):

Heat_Loss_Insulated_Pipe-10mm.xlsx 39.02 kB · 0 downloads

I wouldn’t bother insulating hot feeds tbh unless they’re on an HRC. 

[MortarThePoint]

41 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

I wouldn’t bother insulating hot feeds tbh unless they’re on an HRC. 

Cheers Nick, even 15mm ones?

 

So if not HRC do you only insulated your cold water pipes to stop condensation?

[Nickfromwales]

6 minutes ago, MortarThePoint said:

Cheers Nick, even 15mm ones?

 

So if not HRC do you only insulated your cold water pipes to stop condensation?

In a nutshell 

[Iceverge]

57 minutes ago, MortarThePoint said:

When insulating 10mm pipe do you just loose fit 15mm? Looks like insulating 10mm hot is of marginal benefit.

 

Having tried to insulate my way out of a problem with oversized pipes causing huge dead legs I can confirm that insulating radially run pipes is a complete waste of time. There's so little volume of water in 10/15mm pipes it very very quickly resorts to room temp insulation or not. 

 

The incoming mains cold is the only place worth thinking about IMO. Also go to town on all connections to and near the cylinder. 

 

[MortarThePoint]

On 26/05/2022 at 16:24, Iceverge said:

The incoming mains cold is the only place worth thinking about IMO.

 

Just to be clear, do you mean all cold pipes or just near the main feed?

[Iceverge]

I didn't bother insulating but the only bit that ever gets any condensation is the 25mm MDPE to the monoblock and the brass monoblock itself. 

 

Usually only then when you've run a bath or shower and it has taken 100-200l of water through it. 

 

The condensation never seems to get large enough to cause drips however and as the house humidity is low so it all drys quickly. 

 

Come to think of it the Hep2O pipes or fittings never seem to gather any condensation at all. Don't know why, maybe they're inherently better insulated. 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 27, 2022 by Iceverge

[MortarThePoint]

I've worked out that if I have all my outlets as independent runs from the utility cupboard, I'd have 31 runs (12no. 10mm and 19no. 15mm). It would use 108m of 10mm and 132m of 15mm and no additional fittings vs 34m of 10mm and 108mm of 15mm with a dozen or more fittings. The extra cost at the manifold likely wipes out the saving on fittings, but means if I have a leak it will most likely be either at the manifold or at the outlet itself.

 

It would involve passing 26 pipes through a blockwork wall though, rather than just 12 pipes. I haven't made provision for this, so is the simplest thing to do to core drill larger holes, passing multiple pipes through each? The cold ones would need to pass 15 pipes. Whilst that could all fit through a 70mm core drilled hole, that would be a nightmare to route or make any future changes. Below shows that you can fit 4no. 15mm pipes or 7no. 10mm pipes through a 40mm core drilled hole. Using a 50mm core drill should make it easier and might allow the holes to be lined. I'd want a good gap between the holes to ensure each behaves structurally as a single hole, guessing 100mm would do that. I'd end up with 6 such holes, spread over about a metre.

 

Does anyone know the spacing of the outlets on the brass manifolds?

 

[crispy_wafer]

Does this help at all?   

Edited June 9, 2022 by crispy_wafer

[MortarThePoint]

17 hours ago, crispy_wafer said:

Does this help at all?   

 

I don't know unfortunately as the link is broken 🙂

 

[crispy_wafer]

Oh, twas a picture, I'll have another go

 

Edited June 10, 2022 by crispy_wafer

[MortarThePoint]

14 hours ago, crispy_wafer said:

Oh, twas a picture, I'll have another go

 

 

Perfect, thank you. Looks like 40mm spacing.

[Thorfun]

On 09/06/2022 at 11:48, MortarThePoint said:

I've worked out that if I have all my outlets as independent runs from the utility cupboard, I'd have 31 runs (12no. 10mm and 19no. 15mm). It would use 108m of 10mm and 132m of 15mm and no additional fittings vs 34m of 10mm and 108mm of 15mm with a dozen or more fittings. The extra cost at the manifold likely wipes out the saving on fittings, but means if I have a leak it will most likely be either at the manifold or at the outlet itself.

 

It would involve passing 26 pipes through a blockwork wall though, rather than just 12 pipes. I haven't made provision for this, so is the simplest thing to do to core drill larger holes, passing multiple pipes through each? The cold ones would need to pass 15 pipes. Whilst that could all fit through a 70mm core drilled hole, that would be a nightmare to route or make any future changes. Below shows that you can fit 4no. 15mm pipes or 7no. 10mm pipes through a 40mm core drilled hole. Using a 50mm core drill should make it easier and might allow the holes to be lined. I'd want a good gap between the holes to ensure each behaves structurally as a single hole, guessing 100mm would do that. I'd end up with 6 such holes, spread over about a metre.

 

Does anyone know the spacing of the outlets on the brass manifolds?

 

rather than individual pipes to each outlet could you not do a half-way solution with single pipes to a room and then branch from there? so rather than a bathroom having hot and cold to bath, shower, toilet, basin(s) (7 pipes minimum) you could run a hot/cold/hrc and then radial to the outlets from those pipes? reduced the 7 pipes to 3.

 

caveat, I'm not a plumber and don't know if that's feasible but it seems logical.

[MortarThePoint]

22 minutes ago, Thorfun said:

rather than individual pipes to each outlet could you not do a half-way solution with single pipes to a room and then branch from there? so rather than a bathroom having hot and cold to bath, shower, toilet, basin(s) (7 pipes minimum) you could run a hot/cold/hrc and then radial to the outlets from those pipes? reduced the 7 pipes to 3.

 

caveat, I'm not a plumber and don't know if that's feasible but it seems logical.

 

I'm starting to lean in that direction. 4no. direct pipes to taps would have 8 joints (4 at manifold, 4 at taps) where as 1 pipe branching at a sub manifold would have 10 joints (1 at main manifold, 5 at sub manifold and 4 at taps). If each joint is a worry, I 'only' increase the worry by 25% but massively reducing the routing headaches. If I'm worried enough, I could always put the sub manifold into some form of draining sump. Their plastic manifolds are all 22mm in though and only up to 3no. 15mm out.

 

[MortarThePoint]

A 10m run of 22mm pipe has a dead volume of about 2.5litres so a 10l/min shower would take 15seconds to heat up, presuming the thermostatic valve runs pure 'hot' until actually hot water arrives. 23 seconds for 15m. It's a waste if water, but not too much time. It feels like under 10s is awesome, under 20s, desirable and under 30s acceptable.

 

I've no idea what an pleasant shower flow rate is, but have read figures like 12l/min down to 6l/min for Part G.

 

According to this calculator, 15m of 15mm OD 11mm ID pipe needs 3bar pressure to supply 5l/min which if the shower is running at 50/50 is at total 10l/min. A 22mm OD 17.7mm ID pipe needs under 0.2bar.

 

Can anyone report good results having run over 15m of 15mm pipe to a shower?

Edited June 12, 2022 by MortarThePoint

[MikeSharp01]

On 24/05/2022 at 12:08, TerryE said:

We just bulk-buy the salt block and have to remember to check the unit once a week or so and add another couple of blocks when needed.

Is that on everything except drinking water and what do you think the annual running cost is for your usage?