More Renewable Shenanigans at Nowty Towers

[nowty]

Planed a bit off the lower insulated square which was used for the balanced flue of the old gas stove heater, so managed to get the soundbar fitted today. The last once had a fibre optic connector, but the new one recommends a HDMI ARC connector which seems to be the new thing.


Another job done.

Still working on the final electrical connection solution of the aircon unit as I need to do some under the floor exploration of my earlier work, where I can't remember which wire goes where.

And then there's the heat recovery ventilation unit which is going where the balanced flue hole is.
Estimated completion date of that, before winter.

[chris_n]

Where the pipes go through the wall what have you done to seal the hole, squirty foam?

[nowty]

Where the pipes go through the wall what have you done to seal the hole, squirty foam?

If I used that, the indoor unit would be fixed for good.

I've used nothing so far, its a fairly snug fit, but I will probably stuff some easy removeable insulation in any gaps from the outside.

I've left the hole for the power cord as that goes into a chimney cavity which is blocked off with insulation both top in the loft and and bottom where it now goes under the floor. I use the old chimney channel as internal wall cable trunking.

[Mr Gus]

Nice one, it will be interesting to see how well it copes with the winter load, I trust you will keep a record.

if only out GOVT could recognise the merits of a hybrid type system for heating and hot water instead of slavishly sticking to HP only.

Desp

I'm not expecting to use it in mid winter, as that's what my GSHP and storage heaters are for, but there are many milder days in winter when it might be tactically used.

A simple change to planning law like allowing more than one unit on your house without planning consent. Your allowed one up to 0.6 meter cube which is huge as mine is little over 0.1 meter cube. So why not allow several up to an aggregate volume so you could have 2 or 3.

Oh and according to having it as permitted development, its only allowed to be used for heating. So to use it in cooling mode, I need to apply for planning permission. I can understand the reasoning about increasing power use, but in my case for cooling its all solar powered anyway.

I noticed that bit-o-stupid too Nowty, ..it is unlikely to ever be followed up unless there is a rumpus / summer climate related brown outs, ...govt needs to be nudged over this, & solar, & solar powered cooling ..after all it could be revenue for another piece of crap tick box paper (sneaky tax)

[nowty]

Gave the new sound bar and its associated bass unit and good test drive last night watching some of the Glastonbury footage from BBC iPlayer last night into the early hours, mostly Pet Shop Boys and Paul McCartney.

And to really test the bass unit, I had a real surprise when I found the BBC had covered "The Jesus and Mary Chain" gig. I saw them at my first ever live gig in a basement nightclub "Clouds" in Preston when I was 16 years old. Possibly the loudest event I have ever been to, those were the days.

I had to crank up the volume to SWMBO's displeasure when "Some Candy Talking" came on. That band wasn't quite her cup of tea.

[Stinsy]

How did you find bending the copper refrigerant pipes @Nowty?

I've heard that it is easy to crush them if you're not exceptionally careful...

[MoSTiE]

small hand bender or a spring

[Stinsy]

small hand bender or a spring

I've been told that a metric hand bender designed for 8mm or 10mm water pipe will tear open the imperial-sized ultra-thin refrigerant pipes. There is apparently a knack based around making lots of teeny bends with your fingers...

[nowty]

small hand bender or a spring

I've been told that a metric hand bender designed for 8mm or 10mm water pipe will tear open the imperial-sized ultra-thin refrigerant pipes. There is apparently a knack based around making lots of teeny bends with your fingers...

The installation manual specifically tells you NOT to use metric benders or internal springs.

The pipes are soft annealed, so are very easy to bend by hand. But as they were already wrapped in insulation, that helps to avoid any aggressive bending. They come coiled up so you carefully unroll and get them as straight as possible. Like Stinsy says, making lots of teeny bends with your fingers.

Then once you wrap them with the PVC tape and then again with duct tape over the top, it becomes quite a large stiff pipe which helps even more to prevent any extreme bends. I marked where the connections to the indoor unit where so I did not bend the pipe on the outside of the wall too close to them.

[nowty]

I have finalised the electrical connection to the Aircon unit.

I was quite lucky in that I had an old redundant 4mm spur ending in a junction box under for lounge floor, only about 2 metres from my old chimney cavity where the power cord from the indoor unit drops down. So just added a single socket on the end of a short cable so the indoor unit can plug into it.

In hindsight, I should have made it a double socket so I can also plug the heat recovery unit into it, but that's easily rectified.

There is a power and comms cable packaged within the pipe bundle which transfers power through the wall to the outdoor unit.

Excellent as I was not looking forward to running another cable to the consumer unit.