Trials and Tribulations of Eco installs.

[spread-tee]

Jeez, it makes my blood boil to see cowboys doing junk work like that and pretending to be Plumbers. The problem is that real plumbers are regulated and monitored somewhat (not enough in my opinion) but the cowboys fly under the radar and are not penalised at all. Only if someone is caught doing illegal gas work is there recourse, carrying out dodgy plumbing is barely controlled sadly.

It gets us all a bad name and that is unjustified, but there you go

Desp

[NoraBatty]

Yes the block should be easy enough, its the internal stone that will cause the issue. Im just hoping there is a gap through. There looks to be but i wont know until the boards are up.
It cant stay like that anyway. Its got a neon sign up asking for rats to make themselves at home.

[NoraBatty]

Jeez, it makes my blood boil to see cowboys doing junk work like that and pretending to be Plumbers. The problem is that real plumbers are regulated and monitored somewhat (not enough in my opinion) but the cowboys fly under the radar and are not penalised at all. Only if someone is caught doing illegal gas work is there recourse, carrying out dodgy plumbing is barely controlled sadly.

It gets us all a bad name and that is unjustified, but there you go

Desp

It makes me worry for all the people out there unaware of the work these people have done.
At least i looked at the install and knew it looked crud and would need work.
The company who installed this all has all the accreditations. Theyve then subbed the work out to localish firms.
The plumbers apparently work on commercial stuff as well as domestic.
When it came to the firm saying they would rectify the issues, i stipulated the plumbers were not welcome back.
They cam round checking for leaks and pressure loss at least 15 times. Then just ignored me after the issues started. And they didnt find any issues. Despite tightening their own joints and making sure. Words fail me.

I had a couple of chimney sweeps round last week and we were talking about how bad the installs for eco seem to be.
He attended a blocked flue a few weeks ago.
When he stuck his brush up to sweep he heard a metallic clunking noise and couldnt get passed. He then stuck his camera up the flue to have a look around and found that the eco scheme plumbers who has installed an ASHP there (possibly the same cowboys) had drilled through the chimney stack and installed the heating pipes directly through the flue.

[NoraBatty]

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... 3712&__n=K

How does this happen.

[AlBargey]

Wow, I feel for you, I've been fighting with my plumbing recently and I'm no plumber but that's a shocking install, I hope you had a few dehumidifiers and some strong beers!

At least now you've pretty much sussed the system and are practical enough to fix it yourself.

+1 on the Cat alarm!

I love the way they used the longest screw they could find to screw through the floorboard and pipe!

I have met few good proper heating engineers that are prepared or have the time to do neat and thorough installs, or finish snags and problem solve until the solution is actually found, sadly they are few and far between. I've now helped with a few boat install remediations, but nothing has come close to what was under your floorboards!

Fingers crossed, it can only get better!

[Marcus]

...
I have met few good proper heating engineers that are prepared or have the time to do neat and thorough installs, or finish snags and problem solve until the solution is actually found, sadly they are few and far between. I've now helped with a few boat install remediations, but nothing has come close to what was under your floorboards!
....

Definitely wouldn't want that bunch on a boat install! They'd be screwing things to the bottom and wondering where all the water was coming from

They make my installers look almost competent Mine did put the expansion vessel on the wrong side of the check valve so the pressure vent would open if you tried heating the water, and they forgot to fit a circulation pump to make the water go round the heating system, but at least they tightened all the joints.

[NoraBatty]

Earlier i mentioned the heating calculations given for the house and not having the proper design calcs.
With all that has gone on, it should be noted one of the first things i did was install a Homely device on the ASHP.
Its not a perfect system, and calculates cop based on a system that has 2x 100w pumps installed (with no way to correct it) but it is designed to modulate the flow temperatures in response to your invididual homes need.
They say, it is like an engineer stood at your heatpump controls 24/7 fiddling with flow temperatures to make your system optimal.
I have a few nags with it, but i am convinced it does a better job than weather comp could do alone and has certainly delivered a decent return with the system it had to work with.

I will eventually install an opentherm system to get more accurate data and then can compare its output to opentherms hard data ,but the homely will remain as the controller. As an "installer" i do have access to the data, but it is not perfect as stated above.

To give people a bit of a headache, i have muddled together the following.
The scop given for the system by homely despite how bad it is, from August 2023 when i installed it to october 2024, was bang on 4.5. This may actually be higher given half of the winter i was not running 2 pumps, only 1.

The ASHP meter at install was brand new at commissioning in may 2023.
Reading 00002 at key exchange july 2023.

On the 24th of october 2024, the ASHP meter reading was 03324kwh.

At a scop of 4.5, 3324kwh would equate to 14958kwh of heating and hot water use between july 2023 when we moved in and october 2024.
This is obviously not perfectly complete data, because we used oil filled rads and the immersion each time the heating was off, for days at a time, and it got quite expensive, and those wont be on the ASHP meter.

But our electricity bill october 23-october24 totted up to
6421kwh. We are fully electric here.

As a reminder
The heat demand of this house 72m2, NE scotland, as given on the EPC
14278 kwh/yr for space heating
2794kwh/yr for hot water.
17000 kwh/yr total.

The demand taken from the MSDC from Eco handover pack, is:
18217kwh/yr for space heating
4045kwh/yr for hot water.
22300kwh/year total.

Given these estimates are going to be flawed by their nature, and the meter data is hard data but everything else not, i do not think 14900kwh for heating too bad at all as guestimates go. Its in the ballpark. We do use less hot water as we shower at the gym alot.
So the 4.5scop does actually sound about right.

What we concentrated more on last year was price.
We averaged 16p on agile over the last year, which came out just over about £1000.

We used to pay £1200 for gas and electricity per year, 4 years ago on the south coast, before prices got crazy.
I call that a win!

With batteries and or a better tarriff savings will be even more.
With the install sorted out i expect this to also improve significantly, and then there is the pir that will go under the floor when they finally finish the remedials.

And we are significantly warmer at all times of the winter than we were in Portsmouth with drafts, when we were heating to 21C and the other half was still cold.
Now we heat to 18C and he is happy.
And its cheaper

[NoraBatty]

Wow, I feel for you, I've been fighting with my plumbing recently and I'm no plumber but that's a shocking install, I hope you had a few dehumidifiers and some strong beers!

At least now you've pretty much sussed the system and are practical enough to fix it yourself.

+1 on the Cat alarm!

I love the way they used the longest screw they could find to screw through the floorboard and pipe!

I have met few good proper heating engineers that are prepared or have the time to do neat and thorough installs, or finish snags and problem solve until the solution is actually found, sadly they are few and far between. I've now helped with a few boat install remediations, but nothing has come close to what was under your floorboards!

Fingers crossed, it can only get better!

Only the one dehumidifier and ive needed it this past year. Not only for that, but the solar install being installed wrong and causing roof leaks.
I can only write so much a night. So the saga will continue.

Thank you

[NoraBatty]

...
I have met few good proper heating engineers that are prepared or have the time to do neat and thorough installs, or finish snags and problem solve until the solution is actually found, sadly they are few and far between. I've now helped with a few boat install remediations, but nothing has come close to what was under your floorboards!
....

Definitely wouldn't want that bunch on a boat install! They'd be screwing things to the bottom and wondering where all the water was coming from

They make my installers look almost competent Mine did put the expansion vessel on the wrong side of the check valve so the pressure vent would open if you tried heating the water, and they forgot to fit a circulation pump to make the water go round the heating system, but at least they tightened all the joints.

Wow thats quite an impressive screw up. Lucky they didnt forget the heat source.

[NoraBatty]

Continuing with the saga.
There was nothing functionally wrong with this section.
But i don't understand why pipes have to run at a diagonal across the floor like this.

I also have no idea why one primary pipe has a single ball valve isolator and the other two, practically next to each other.
Nor do i understand why anyone thinks it is a good idea to put these, at floor level, where they were covered in insulation, and where feet were navigating constantly to top the system up due to all of the other issues.
The pipework was all spread out, largely unsupported, and relying on the affixed buffer tank to support everything.

The wiring wasn't much better. The mdf board the control centre for the thermostats had been attached to fell down, where it was previously screwed to a joist. With one screw, in the corner. The wires were then just dangling over everything.





This brings us on to the electrical issues for the heat pump, solar and ventilation.

Decentralised mechanical ventilation fans were installed in the bathrooms and in the kitchen that have to run on low speed continuously for adequate ventilation.
Logically these have to have isolation switches installed alongside them.
The downstairs toilet one was put next to the consumer unit,



The switch for the fan boost is next to the toilet light. Its no big deal, but ideally the light switch would be wired with this. But the fans do have inbuilt humidity sensors so will turn themselves on if need be. And you just have an extra switch to flick. The isolation switch doesn't need to be in such an odd place, but it is fine and has had some strange comments.

The kitchen fan, due to the conservatory covering the outside wall and the window lintel impeding core drilling access, goes up to the second bedroom and out of the wall inside a cupboard.

There is a pull cord in the kitchen for the boost.
You can see they attempted the hole at least 3 times from this photo, the plaster is blown, in one area and patched badly by the plasterer in another.


The isolation switch for the fan is also upstairs in the bedroom cupboard though and not in the kitchen where you would expect it to be, for emergency use.


We have spray foamed the white flexible ducting to cut the noise down and the draughts, until i decide what we are doing with this. I would like rigid ducting at the least installed, and i will be linking this up to the extractor in some way or fashion as currently it is just a filtered recirculating extractor hood. Which is next to useless.

The weirdest place to put an isolation switch though, is for the bathroom upstairs. This could have been neatly wired in above the light switch.
The electrician actually wired the fan boost to come on when the bathroom light was turned on, so there clearly was access to this section of wall.
Instead though, the isolation switch for the bathroom fan, was put in the loft.