Trials and Tribulations of Eco installs.

[Andy]

That is a horror story.

Indeed my stress levels are currently elevated just reading what you have been through.

[NoraBatty]

I had a fully pressurised, working, system, for 2 weeks, albeit with no inhibitor or glycol.
I had been pestering the incognito plumbers for not only coming to fix their mess but also dropping off some glycol. Alas nothing heard since the ceiling fell down in the bedroom.

4am one morning in feburary, there was an awful grinding sound coming from the pipes.
Up in the loft yet again and it is the secondary pump.
I cleared it of debris, cleared the magnetic filter, and turned it all back on again.
By 6am that morning the grinding sound had reoccurred, followed by hammering by the time i had gotten up into the loft to clear the pump again.
The pump was now seized.
I turned the heating off for the day and tried the plumbers repeatedly. No joy.
Facing more of the same i nipped to screwfix and grabbed some supplies to remove the pump, and the buffer. Cheapest option, and the buffer is pointless. There was no way i was paying for a new pump.
As i went to loosen the pump and buffer tank fittings.... i found even more untigjtened joints, held together this entire time by jointing compound and prayers.










With the buffer and pump removed completely and straight pipe plumbed instead, and confident i am capable of tightening a compression joint competently, i am happy to report, the system worked great.
Flow was not great. But i was confident the pipe upgrades would have made that significantly better.

[NoraBatty]

Right. That should do you for the night .
Only so much pain you all can take!

[NoraBatty]

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.

Ive heard the stories about mice chewing through plastic, but never encpuntered it myself. The previous house was all plumbed in plastic, and in 12 years never had an issue from the day it was installed. Its great stuff, in the right application.
I would never pay for it to be used over copper though.

Yes the plan is to replace as much as possible. The sub floor may be deep enough but difficult to get 28mm copper down the hatch. I have a plan to try, but i may have to leave the 28mm primary plastic in situ if not.
Its a toss up between 7 joins on multiple 2m long 28mm pipe, for both flow and return or one long uninterrupted pipe of 28mm plastic with inserts either end. Not sure which would be best. Both will cause flow turbulence, but if i can get 3m copper down there then i will happily swap it.

[NoraBatty]

That is a horror story.

Indeed!

[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.

Ive heard the stories about mice chewing through plastic, but never encpuntered it myself. The previous house was all plumbed in plastic, and in 12 years never had an issue from the day it was installed. Its great stuff, in the right application.
I would never pay for it to be used over copper though.

Yes the plan is to replace as much as possible. The sub floor may be deep enough but difficult to get 28mm copper down the hatch. I have a plan to try, but i may have to leave the 28mm primary plastic in situ if not.
Its a toss up between 7 joins on multiple 2m long 28mm pipe, for both flow and return or one long uninterrupted pipe of 28mm plastic with inserts either end. Not sure which would be best. Both will cause flow turbulence, but if i can get 3m copper down there then i will happily swap it.

Can you drill a temporary hole in the side of the house and feed lengths of pipe in. Then cement up after?

[Andy]

I had a local plumber do some work here. Almost everything he touched he messed up

1) measured up the towel radiator for battens to support it by looking at the box and saying he knew what he was doing. The wall was built, plastered, painted and then we discovered he had used completely the wrong positions resulting in the wall coming down to add supports in the wrong places.

2) He couldn't hang the glass door on the shower cubicle. I was helping and suggested we read the manual. He was definitely not going to do that. I had to rehang it after he left.

3) Installed a bath without the feet and supports. It was held up by the plastic trim cover and its not a small bath.

4) Didn't cut the over-flow pipe in either toilet resulting in the over flow being satisfied by the screw holes in the back of the cistern.

5) Measured the toilet install wrong so that planned shelf behind it was not possible.

6) Walked away without checking all his joints after pressurising the system. It leaked all over the floor. I called him back for the leak even though I could have obviously done it myself. He didn't seem that concerned about it.

7) Didn't insulate any of the copper pipes from the hot water tank to the bath and its a very long run. It was nearly a 10º temperature drop so I had to run the tank really hot.

Since then, I've done all my plumbing including a full replumb of the kitchen, living room & utility room with new rads.. I've got a pipe bender and all the kit. At least I know it's done properly. A previous experience resulted in nobody returning quotes for a replacement tank in the attic despite people sounding keen on the phone. I ended doing that myself as well.

We also had a company out to change the boiler when we were in a bit of vulnerable time. We got charged 4k for the job. They put in completely the wrong size boiler and didn't even balance the system. My brother in law in Cornwall got a new boiler, 5 radiators, a pressurised dhw and the whole system converted from gravity to pressurised. It cost him £3400 about 6 months after ours.

Suffice to say, my experience of Aberdeenshire plumbers has not been great either.

[NoraBatty]

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.

Ive heard the stories about mice chewing through plastic, but never encpuntered it myself. The previous house was all plumbed in plastic, and in 12 years never had an issue from the day it was installed. Its great stuff, in the right application.
I would never pay for it to be used over copper though.

Yes the plan is to replace as much as possible. The sub floor may be deep enough but difficult to get 28mm copper down the hatch. I have a plan to try, but i may have to leave the 28mm primary plastic in situ if not.
Its a toss up between 7 joins on multiple 2m long 28mm pipe, for both flow and return or one long uninterrupted pipe of 28mm plastic with inserts either end. Not sure which would be best. Both will cause flow turbulence, but if i can get 3m copper down there then i will happily swap it.

Can you drill a temporary hole in the side of the house and feed lengths of pipe in. Then cement up after?

The house is 50cm thick stone wall. Without hiring an extended pro core drill i wont be able to, but i am hoping that the gap around where the plastic pipe enters the property, is big enough that if i lift the conservatory floor i will be able to poke some 28mm through, because where the pipes enter, is not ideal or pretty by any means.

The wall on the right is solid, with a solid concrete sub floor in that section of floorspace. As a result, The pipes currently disappear under the floor and go down and round that concrete slab.


It means that the pipes enter the sub floor void at about half way up, and the pipe has to be bent up to meet the joists (remedial work piping)


The pipes are at the yellow level currently.
I plan to try and cut out the nonsense by getting the pipes in at the area circled in red. You can just about see there is a deeper spot there. That hopefully givea access under the conseevatory floorboards.


If i pull up some of the conservatory floor and create a better angle, i can also cut out the stupidity of the outside either with a smaller core drill or by removing the block around the soil pipe if possible, and having a nice gradual bend instead of 3 + extra sharp elbows when there is no need.
It may not be possible, but i will try. The conservatory is full of insulation.currently for the underfloor, so no chance to test the theory until that has been fitted.


The red area should get me just under the joists. You can see the level where the soil pipe snakes round under the floor. I will aim for above that.

[NoraBatty]

I had a local plumber do some work here. Almost everything he touched he messed up

1) measured up the towel radiator for battens to support it by looking at the box and saying he knew what he was doing. The wall was built, plastered, painted and then we discovered he had used completely the wrong positions resulting in the wall coming down to add supports in the wrong places.

2) He couldn't hang the glass door on the shower cubicle. I was helping and suggested we read the manual. He was definitely not going to do that. I had to rehang it after he left.

3) Installed a bath without the feet and supports. It was held up by the plastic trim cover and its not a small bath.

4) Didn't cut the over-flow pipe in either toilet resulting in the over flow being satisfied by the screw holes in the back of the cistern.

5) Measured the toilet install wrong so that planned shelf behind it was not possible.

6) Walked away without checking all his joints after pressurising the system. It leaked all over the floor. I called him back for the leak even though I could have obviously done it myself. He didn't seem that concerned about it.

7) Didn't insulate any of the copper pipes from the hot water tank to the bath and its a very long run. It was nearly a 10º temperature drop so I had to run the tank really hot.

Since then, I've done all my plumbing including a full replumb of the kitchen, living room & utility room with new rads.. I've got a pipe bender and all the kit. At least I know it's done properly. A previous experience resulted in nobody returning quotes for a replacement tank in the attic despite people sounding keen on the phone. I ended doing that myself as well.

We also had a company out to change the boiler when we were in a bit of vulnerable time. We got charged 4k for the job. They put in completely the wrong size boiler and didn't even balance the system. My brother in law in Cornwall got a new boiler, 5 radiators, a pressurised dhw and the whole system converted from gravity to pressurised. It cost him £3400 about 6 months after ours.

Suffice to say, my experience of Aberdeenshire plumbers has not been great either.

You dont expect it do you. Not least if you pay for it.
As shocking as this plumbing saga has been, and it still isnt over, i still class the electrics as being worse.
Mostly because despite how angry its all made me, its all fixable and within my capabilities.
I would be hanged if i walked away from a job the way this was left by my firm. Not that im a plumber either!.

Its the compounding factors that pee me off the most. If the plumbing wasnt as shoddy as it was the electrics wouldnt have been half as dangerous as they were. And if neither of those had of been bad then the internal insulation wouldnt have mattered.

Even that they managed to bodge.
Its warm in the hpuse dont get me wrong, but the plaster is popping off over every screw where its not been joined properly, ans a thermal camera tells me the joins look like the plasterboard has not been cut off at the corners in order to have insulation meet insulation. I wont know for sure until i investigate, but that is what it seems like to me. There is no point butting up insulated plasterboard to the face of insulated plasterboard as the plasterboard then becomes a cold bridge. Thats what this looks like to me.



I could be wrong of course.
The main issue with the internal insulation was that in both upstairs bedrooms, the escape route was blocked off as they had sloped the plasterboard down on the window reveal, which stopped the windows opening to allow egress.






A simple fix, and harmless enough, until you are told that your consumer unit, that is directly under your stairs is unsafe, and unable to trip the electrics, and then think back to the sparks and buszzing coming out of the light fitting in the lounge when there was a leak. How the hell would you escape in the case of an electrical fire!
Cant get down the stairs as they would be alight, and cant get out of the windows either.
On the plus side thr water would put out the flames but your ve electrocuted instead

[Fintray]

You should be able to drill or chisel out the mortar around that block, remove it and work your way through without too much bother.

Those "plumbers" should be shot!