Starting out on my heat pump journey

[Ronski]

I am lucky, my roof is flat concrete tiles, at a 30 degree pitch, very easy to work on, and to walk around on.

[Moxi]

Well I managed to get one tile back in place and stapled but that was it for me, two others are both in gullies where the ladder and hooks cannot be positioned and the last tile is on the north roof two down from the ridge and too hard for me to reach with ladders etc so I decided it needs an expert who has the knowledge and the agility to traverse a steep slippery slate roof.

Wife was relived when I came to my senses and opted out of the DIY fix.

Moxi

[Yuff]

Well I managed to get one tile back in place and stapled but that was it for me, two others are both in gullies where the ladder and hooks cannot be positioned and the last tile is on the north roof two down from the ridge and too hard for me to reach with ladders etc so I decided it needs an expert who has the knowledge and the agility to traverse a steep slippery slate roof.

Wife was relived when I came to my senses and opted out of the DIY fix.

Moxi

Always better safe than sorry.
My BUS upgrade has been approved, so now I need to ask do I need a buffer tank and is it possible to heat the DHW tank which is on the first floor. I have tended just to use the immersion as it is pretty cheap but seeing Ronski’s costs for hot water it doesn’t seem so cheap now

[Stinsy]

Well I managed to get one tile back in place and stapled but that was it for me, two others are both in gullies where the ladder and hooks cannot be positioned and the last tile is on the north roof two down from the ridge and too hard for me to reach with ladders etc so I decided it needs an expert who has the knowledge and the agility to traverse a steep slippery slate roof.

Wife was relived when I came to my senses and opted out of the DIY fix.

Moxi

Always better safe than sorry.
My BUS upgrade has been approved, so now I need to ask do I need a buffer tank and is it possible to heat the DHW tank which is on the first floor. I have tended just to use the immersion as it is pretty cheap but seeing Ronski’s costs for hot water it doesn’t seem so cheap now

Buffer tanks reduce efficiency in most applications. Unfortunately, the MCS guidelines were written by someone who didn't know what they were on about so buffers are strongly encouraged therein.

If you want "the grant" you'll need to go the the huge expense of plumbing your HP into your DHW system. However in most cases this is a waste of time!

Below is my most recent Gas bill. My woefully inefficient gas combi consumed c. 67kWh of gas in the month. Even generously assuming 80% efficiency, that represents c.54kWh of heat. If I heated it with an immersion at 7p/kWh that'd cost £3.75.

You don't need to do CoP calculations to understand that paying £1000 for a new cylinder, and all the labour cost/disruption of new pipework, to understand that connecting your HP to your DHW is pointless!

[Ronski]

So, yesterday was heat pump replacement day, I had the day off work, the Heatgeek trained engineer and one of the trainee's arrived, I was told he was just for muscle to lift the heat pump, it was supposed to be the two experienced plumbers.

They did power flush the system, for about four hours, bang on some radiators but certainly not all, it certainly wasn't thorough. They altered the pipework behind the uniTower so that the feed and return is crossed over there, that means the outside is neater. They replumbed where the heating splits off in two directions, as they had a 22mm speedfit tee to connect to the pre-existing 22mm plastic, I had pointed out it would be better to make up a copper tee, and speed fit either side to the plastic. They also fitted an inline strainer, I had asked that one of the isolators be replaced with the type what has a built in strainer, you turn the isolator off and can remove the strainer without draining the system.

We set the app up yesterday, and he did tell me that I'd get an email requesting authorisation to monitor the heat pump.

This is where we were at yesterday, yes we did have hot water.



Just the main guy came today, to finish off, and commission the system, I was at work but the wife was home.

Also the Octopus engineer removed the gas meter



Accidently posted!

So we still have this on one elbow.



And who can spot problems here? This is looking straight down from above the isolators and antifreeze valves.



I've no idea if they added any additive, he said he'll add a little something yesterday, but who knows???