Trials and Tribulations of Eco installs.

[NoraBatty]

I have, for some time said I would get around to outlining how bad the install in this house is.

In early 2023, a Midea 12kw heatpump was installed under the ECO4 scheme by a company sub contracting to local installers, in the house we now live in.

Solar and internal wall insulation was also installed, and have also caused issues. I am unsure if these will be added to this thread as it develops, but it likely will, due to all being connected, so move if neccessary please.

We are currently in the midst of remedial work being carried out to get this system, safe, to code, and functioning properly.

The EPC has risen from a low E to a mid B with this work, though how accurate this is given the install issues, and flaws with EPC process is anyones guess.

I have repeatedly requested the heatloss calculations for this property from the firm, and each time I am told i will be emailed them, and am still waiting.
I will, in time do our own heatloss calcs but for the time being,
The property is a 90m2 2 bedroom end terrace house with a conservatory (72m2 disregarding conservatory)
The heat demand, in NE scotland, as given on the EPC based on 72m2 is
14278 kwh/yr for space heating
2794kwh/yr for hot water.

The demand taken from the MSDC from Eco handover pack for 90m2, is:
18217kwh/yr for space heating
4045kwh/yr for hot water.

These seem to be approximately the same and as you will see, somwwhat reflect our entire energy use for the last year.

The house previously had a Grant vortex oil boiler, feeding radiators thoughout the house and a 200L DHW cylinder in the loft.

All pipework was resized and replaced by the eco company, with only the DHW pipes from the cylinder, and the cold water pipes remaining as original.
The majority of the house has been piped in copper. The crawlspace has been plumbed entirely in plastic with pushfit fittings.
All radiators were upgraded to a larger size.
Pipework follows the 28mm primary, 22mm secondary and 15mm to radiators design.
All of these pipe sizes are therefore a mix of plastic and copper.

The house was split in to 2 zones "upstairs" and downstairs.
As such, had a 30Litre buffer tank and a secondary pump installed in the loft.



My Initial thoughts with the install were that however good it turned out to be, definate improvements could be made.
Not only by removing the buffer, and removing the zones,
But the state of the plastic pipework in the "crawlspace" was unbelievable, and sorting that out would make a huge difference.

Our crawlspace, is 4ft.
This is the badly insulated, awfully run, unsupported mess of pipes, and wires, left after the install.

[NoraBatty]

For interest, the restrictions a plastic insert has on a system, can be seen in this JG speedfit chart.


As you can see, a 28mm pipe can be restricted to an 18mm apeture at each insert.
That is going to lead to quite an issue with reducing turbulent flow. Sharp 90 degree fittings will also cause issues, and we have a meteric ton fo them under the floor in plastic, with sharp 90s at each radiator in copper on the first floor.

[NoraBatty]

At first, i planned to deal with this as an when. No rush. See how we got on in winter and plan to amend it in summer 2024.

During summer and autumn 2023, we had use of the ASHP for DHW, and all seemed to work fine.
As soon as October came around and we started heating just in the mornings, the ASHP became problematic.
At first, this was just continued pressure loss causing flow rate errors on the controller.

System pressure could never be made to reach 1 bar.
I noticed that the tundish was dripping constantly, and the plumbers attended to try and fix the issue. They couldn't.

As i was cleaning the filter on the return pipe just before the unit one day, i noticed that the filter housing was able to move.
I called the plumbers who tightened the joint, and we all assumed that was going to be the cause of the low pressure issue.
It wasn't.

Pressure loss was continuing, and we constantly had error codes whenever the heating was on.
Multiple visits from the plumbers to check over the system and find out why, resulted in no answers.

Eventually the leaking tundish was blamed on a faulty valve despite this dripping being traced to the DHW side. The valve was never changed despite this suspected culprit.

In early November, I was woken up at 2am by our cat screaming his head off in the spare bedroom. Looking up at the ceiling, and there was beads of water evident.



I immediately thought that there was an issue with the water cylinder. So went up into the loft.

What i found absolutely floored me.











That is the main water inlet for the system. They had not installed a stopcock in the loft, and not tightened the compression fitting down, the olive was still in the fitting, having not even compressed down onto the pipe.
I had to ring my neighbour at 2am and get him to turn off my water , whilst i held my thumb over the incoming water.


A night was spent emptying pots in the bedroom.


In the morning i found that the water had made its way down to the lounge and the bookcase was falling apart, electrics with water coming through them.

It took the plumbers 2 days to attend and remove all of the sodden insulation.
Luckily it was not yet too cold. The open fire kept the house an okay temperature, but i also purchased a couple of oil filled radiators in the meantime as a back up.






Obviously they refitted the joint, got the system pressurised and it was hoped that the pressure loss had been found.
Alas it was not.
4 more attendances by the plumbers "checking everything" and they finally found a big cause of pressure loss. One of the 28mm copper pipes transitioning through the floor, had not been pressed fully home in the push fitting for the plastic pipe run. So my joists were sodden in that area and needed to be dried out.
In order for them to push the pipe home correctly, this involved them gouging my floorboards away to gain access both above and below the floor.

This was then decided to be the main cause of the pressure loss.
And it did get better, but not completely.

[Fintray]

Nora, the pipework and cabling in that crawl space are abysmal, did they just hope no one would see it!
In your 2nd picture I see there is a twin and earth cable with just a chocblock on the end of it that will need isolating and made safe.

Being 4' deep would make working down there pretty comfortable (compared to many crawl spaces) and the install could have easily been much tidier.
Sounds like the company that installed it would have saddled up at the end of the job and rode into the sunset...

It really can only get much better when your remedial work is completed.

P.S. Just as well the cat had alerted you to the leak.

[NoraBatty]

Fast forward to december 2023 and we had been battling with low pressure loss again, i had been told repeatedly it was air in the system escaping, but i pressured them to attend anyway because i knew it was not.
I was getting dressed one morning to go out, and a tiny hole appeared in my ceiling with water pouring out.


By the time i had reached for the phone, the ceiling gave way, and a torrent of water was pouring in the bedroom


They also had not tightened the compression fitting to the zone valve, which by the time i made it to the loft, had emptied the entire buffer tank into the bedroom



As you can imagine, i was pretty enraged by this point.
The plumbers attended the next day, and said that they wouldn't leave until every single joint had been checked and rechecked. Something they had said twice before.

The system was once again refilled, and holding pressure much much more than it had ever done.
The plumbers had left promising to return in 2 days to move the filling loop to my bedroom cupboard, where i wouldn't have to go into the loft to check or top it up continuously.
1 week went passed and they never came round and were not picking up their phones.

I did it myself.

By moving the filling loop, i had started another issue soon to rear its head.
Whilst I was watching tv one day there was a buzzing noise in the lounge followed by a tapping noise.
I couldn't work it out. I went upstairs and repressurised the system early evening, and then the issue became apparent.
The light in the lounge started flicking. And buzzing. And sparking. And drips of water were coming off of the fixture, and the plasterboard.in the lounge.





This was the area directly under the bed. Carpeted, fully furnished room. Once again my other half was on survey so not around.
What do you do when you cannot lift heavy furniture but need access to the floorboards in an emergency?
i stanley knifed the carpet. And immediately found a wetter area around a screw.
Sure enough, lifting that floorboard, water started gushing up.
The plumbers had screwed through their own pipes when putting the floorboards down.











Not only that, but on closer inspection, they had absolutely butchered the joists in order to lay the pipes.

[NoraBatty]

Nora, the pipework and cabling in that crawl space are abysmal, did they just hope no one would see it!
In your 2nd picture I see there is a twin and earth cable with just a chocblock on the end of it that will need isolating and made safe.

Being 4' deep would make working down there pretty comfortable (compared to many crawl spaces) and the install could have easily been much tidier.
Sounds like the company that installed it would have saddled up at the end of the job and rode into the sunset...

It really can only get much better when your remedial work is completed.

P.S. Just as well the cat had alerted you to the leak.

The cat is a legend.
May well be lassie reincarnated.
He will alert you to everything and everything.

Completely agree it is abysmal.
That chockbloc you speak of, is how the electrician left the previous electrics for the zone valves that were taken out.
The black wires with no chocblocks, just cut off, are all live too.
Now fixed, but you see what i am dealing with!!!

[Andy]

OMG. That's just appalling, I really feel for you.

I would also recommend replacing all the plastic fittings and pipe work. A friend called me round to help as his system wasn't holding pressure. He had some very old copper corners that had needed fixing urgently and he'd had a plumber mate come round in the evening and had helped out by just popping on some corner push fit that he had to hand as a temporary fix. My mate had never got round to doing the full fix and a year later the mice had chewed through the corners of multiple fittings. Luckily it was in the crawl space so the water just went into the soil.

[NoraBatty]

Deeply notched joists mid span to take 22mm pipe, then drilled directly underneath the notch to add 2 15mm pipes.


It is unclear in this photo, but the joist behind the 2x3s has been chopped to half its height. You can just make out another 2x3 blocking the joist up to the correct height for the floorboards to be laid. The front 2x3 at least was an attempt at sistering the joist to strengthen. Even if it is split and installed awfully.


Because this is where i had moved the filling loop to, the constant walking over of this section had caused the weakened joists to flex, which had opened up the seal that the screw had plugged through the pipe.

It was at this point, the plumbers started ghosting me.
I waited 4 days for a reply, calling them repeatedly and being ignored, qnd then fixed the pipe myself. I also wanted to brace the joists, so i started looking at the white plastic 15mm pipe.

It was at this point, i realised that they had not zoned the house into Upstairs/downstairs.
The "upstairs" zone was 1 single radiator. The spare bedroom
The rest of the house, was on the downstairs zone.
They hadnt even been bothered to zone the house properly.
So i removed the zone, and plumbed the single rad into the main zone. I simply put a stop end on the pipe before the zone valve for that area.
Wuth that out of the way i could sister the joist and repair the pipe, to get the heating back on. It was now very cold. Mid winter.
I only had a scrap of plywood available, but that was better than nothing.
Pipe was fixed with 2 compression joints.

[NoraBatty]

After all of that. I repressurised the system and had a total of 2 days before the next issue reared its ugly head.
This time, in the kitchen.
Plumbers still non responsive.

With system drained down, i then set to work hacking up my bathroom.and landing flooring, in order to track down the next leak.
Once again, absolutely no excuses.







Traced back to a soldered elbow. Only, the pipe had not been inserted into the elbow and then soldered. More like, the two ends had been glued together.

It was only a matter of time for this joint, but the constant pressurising and loss of pressure clearly hadnt helped.

And i wish, i could say that was the end of it. We are now mid jan 2024, in our timeline.

[Joeboy]

That is a horror story.