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Post by crowsfoot on Jul 4, 2023 15:17:19 GMT
My sister, lives in Truro. The council fitted one of these systems in her bungalow a few years ago. Never worked properly from day one. Kept losing pressure and stopping. After almost 18 months of constant complaints about it not working, they sent another company to have a look at it. Finally fixed. The chap who worked on it told her he’d never seen such a poor installation. Leaky joints, poor routing of the pipes. Took him almost two days to correct it. Now ( apparently) it’s working fine . A satisfied customer! Love to know exactly what they did to fix it JJ, then again this would be a so typical of the heat pump installs that I used to get sent to fix. A totally pointless job that I used to get to do after the so called experts had been sent in was to change the anti-freeze in the system! One group of pensioners who had gone from solid fuel to a ground source heat pump complained so much about it that the council took them all out after just 12 years and replaced the lot with gas combi's! I spent almost the whole of that first winter fitting Immersion Heaters to the storage cylinders during the cold spells as the GSHP was designed to priorotise the hot water over the central heating. "The radiators all got lovely and hot last year" was another quote (had to be a ruse)that was often wheeled out to me! Fitting a time clock on these systems I believe was also a big mistake because a couple of hours in the on position in the morning was simply not enough to get the radiators even lukewarm during a cold spell! Customers want the systems to work as they want it too and not as it actually does work which is yet another problem for the plumber and not the designer boffins. Above are all actual examples of heat pump failings in practice which you have to weigh up against all the theory behind them that is in Dicks post. |
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Post by battle1066 on Jul 4, 2023 18:53:44 GMT
My sister, lives in Truro. The council fitted one of these systems in her bungalow a few years ago. Never worked properly from day one. Kept losing pressure and stopping. After almost 18 months of constant complaints about it not working, they sent another company to have a look at it. Finally fixed. The chap who worked on it told her he’d never seen such a poor installation. Leaky joints, poor routing of the pipes. Took him almost two days to correct it. Now ( apparently) it’s working fine . A satisfied customer! Love to know exactly what they did to fix it JJ, then again this would be a so typical of the heat pump installs that I used to get sent to fix. A totally pointless job that I used to get to do after the so called experts had been sent in was to change the anti-freeze in the system! One group of pensioners who had gone from solid fuel to a ground source heat pump complained so much about it that the council took them all out after just 12 years and replaced the lot with gas combi's! I spent almost the whole of that first winter fitting Immersion Heaters to the storage cylinders during the cold spells as the GSHP was designed to priorotise the hot water over the central heating. "The radiators all got lovely and hot last year" was another quote (had to be a ruse)that was often wheeled out to me! Fitting a time clock on these systems I believe was also a big mistake because a couple of hours in the on position in the morning was simply not enough to get the radiators even lukewarm during a cold spell! Customers want the systems to work as they want it too and not as it actually does work which is yet another problem for the plumber and not the designer boffins. Above are all actual examples of heat pump failings in practice which you have to weigh up against all the theory behind them that is in Dicks post. That’s sums it up for me “Customers want the systems to work as they want it too and not as it actually does work which is yet another problem for the plumber and not the designer boffins.” It’s got to be stupid simple or there never off the phone to say it’s not working! |
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Post by dickpuller on Jul 4, 2023 19:19:05 GMT
From Solid Fuel to GSHP??!! FFS…that’s some jump for OAPs to except cf!!
Back in the day when we were fitting Solid Fuel, it was said that ideal temperatures were only achieved twice, as the system heated up & as it started to cool down. But it worked👍👍
Older people & lots of not so old, have a ‘Hearth mentality’ when it comes to CH. If a Radiator is just tepid, it’s not working.
We sat around a big Solid Fuel fire & roasted ourselves.
My details are not just design principles, it’s how a HP works.
First & foremost, a house must be well insulated. There must be the correct fabric U Values & the emitters big enough to combat the property Heat Losses.
In my view, you’ll always need Gas Boilers for our poorly insulated Housing Stock. A Gas Central Heating system is almost ideal in lots of ways.
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Post by crowsfoot on Jul 4, 2023 20:29:04 GMT
That was a the problem going from lashings of boiling hot water and radiators to a GSHP and controlled cooler radiators it was a too bigger jump for the tenants to get their heads around.
It's just the inconsistencies of how one heat pump system would work well whilst next door the exact same heat pump system wouldn't seemingly work as well that I found difficult to get my head around.
I suppose it's got to be the human factor of peoples different expectations and what they are willing/can afford to spend on heating are all different.
Perhaps as a nation we think more different than foreigners do and perhaps our thoughts are not as collective on heating our homes and that's why we are bottom of that heat pump table?
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Post by dickpuller on Jul 5, 2023 5:14:52 GMT
That was a the problem going from lashings of boiling hot water and radiators to a GSHP and controlled cooler radiators it was a too bigger jump for the tenants to get their heads around. It's just the inconsistencies of how one heat pump system would work well whilst next door the exact same heat pump system wouldn't seemingly work as well that I found difficult to get my head around. I suppose it's got to be the human factor of peoples different expectations and what they are willing/can afford to spend on heating are all different. Perhaps as a nation we think more different than foreigners do and perhaps our thoughts are not as collective on heating our homes and that's why we are bottom of that heat pump table? Very true cf. Many have the ‘Hearth Mentality’ mindset. Had similar on Social Housing with UFH a few years ago. Oh your Self-Build guys would love it, but the Working Class soap dodgers would constantly moan & whine, mainly because they’d nothing to dry their clothes on!! I’ve detailed this before, but with HP’s, you run it constantly, with Night set-back on CH. For HW, it needs a supplementary source of heat. The good HP systems, from a performance perspective are split units & maybe not economy, is the one with supplementary electric element in the condensing Unit. |
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Post by crowsfoot on Jul 5, 2023 7:39:34 GMT
Something like a "secret supplementary electric element" in the condensing unit would indeed explain a lot of the inconsistencies that I would regularly come across.
Yet why would the manufacturers go to all the trouble of designing an ASHP or GSHP then fit an electric element into it?
Could part of the problem be that the units maintenance fall between 3 different trades - Plumbers; Electricians and Refrigeration Engineers all trying to diagnose if the unit has a genuine problem or not?
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Post by dickpuller on Jul 5, 2023 12:21:51 GMT
Something like a "secret supplementary electric element" in the condensing unit would indeed explain a lot of the inconsistencies that I would regularly come across. Yet why would the manufacturers go to all the trouble of designing an ASHP or GSHP then fit an electric element into it? Could part of the problem be that the units maintenance fall between 3 different trades - Plumbers; Electricians and Refrigeration Engineers all trying to diagnose if the unit has a genuine problem or not? Well I’d cover all 3 of these vocations cf. And, Some neurosurgery on the side or Side Hustle as the kids call it!! |
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Post by crowsfoot on Jul 5, 2023 17:15:25 GMT
A fly on the wall documentary would be top tv entertainment if "Puller Enterprises" should have won that social housing heat pump maintenance contract that I used to work on!  Tenant "All my radiators are cold Mr Puller" Mr Puller "You have to have the fucking unit switched on in the first place for it to work dear"! |
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Post by joinerjohn on Jul 5, 2023 17:32:53 GMT
A fly on the wall documentary would be top tv entertainment if "Puller Enterprises" should have won that social housing enterprises heat pump maintenance contract that I used to work on! Tenant "All my radiators are cold Mr Puller" Mr Puller "You have to have the fucking unit switched on in the first place for it to work dear"! Aye, and video of Puller Enterprises looking for the poor buggers purse as soon as her backs turned. 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 |
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Post by battle1066 on Jul 5, 2023 18:07:13 GMT
Something like a "secret supplementary electric element" in the condensing unit would indeed explain a lot of the inconsistencies that I would regularly come across. Yet why would the manufacturers go to all the trouble of designing an ASHP or GSHP then fit an electric element into it? Could part of the problem be that the units maintenance fall between 3 different trades - Plumbers; Electricians and Refrigeration Engineers all trying to diagnose if the unit has a genuine problem or not? Yes an interest problem - who do you send when the system works, just not as good as the customer desires - perhaps Dick’s right with the head doctor. |
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Post by dickpuller on Jul 6, 2023 15:05:36 GMT
A fly on the wall documentary would be top tv entertainment if "Puller Enterprises" should have won that social housing enterprises heat pump maintenance contract that I used to work on! Tenant "All my radiators are cold Mr Puller" Mr Puller "You have to have the fucking unit switched on in the first place for it to work dear"! Aye, and video of Puller Enterprises looking for the poor buggers purse as soon as her backs turned. 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 Only if it’s OAPs JJ. They’ve always got cash…💷💷💷😎😎 |
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Post by dickpuller on Jul 8, 2023 6:06:58 GMT
With HP’s I’ve stressed the importance of Flow Rates, this guy explains it simply for the hard of thinking;
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Post by crowsfoot on Jul 8, 2023 9:30:24 GMT
Seems like a good channel about heat pumps there Dick and I'll keep tuned to that one from now on.
All the systems that I worked on would all have two pumps on them in order to get that high flow rate.
I knew that they had to have a high flow rate and if not a built in sensor would cut the heat pump out.
However, I never realised that it made such a difference to the heat output of the heat pump itself.
He mentions that the anti-freeze will also cause a drop in the flow rate even more.
Which is interesting because we would often (after the so called experts) had looked over a supposedly faulty heat pump then get the dour job of changing all the anti-freeze in the system.
One thing that could I never understood about heat pumps was when I was called to a supposedly faulty unit I would put in a call for heat and nothing would happen for 5, 10, 15, 20 or even more minutes.
You are then at your wits end and just about to send for an electrician when the unit would suddenly start up (due to a time lag),why oh why put a time lag on an hp in the first place?
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Post by dickpuller on Jul 8, 2023 11:49:51 GMT
Seems like a good channel about heat pumps there Dick and I'll keep tuned to that one from now on. All the systems that I worked on would all have two pumps on them in order to get that high flow rate. I knew that they had to have a high flow rate and if not a built in sensor would cut the heat pump out. However, I never realised that it made such a difference to the heat output of the heat pump itself. He mentions that the anti-freeze will also cause a drop in the flow rate even more. Which is interesting because we would often (after the so called experts) had looked over a supposedly faulty heat pump then get the dour job of changing all the anti-freeze in the system. One thing that could I never understood about heat pumps was when I was called to a supposedly faulty unit I would put in a call for heat and nothing would happen for 5, 10, 15, 20 or even more minutes. You are then at your wits end and just about to send for an electrician when the unit would suddenly start up (due to a time lag),why oh why put a time lag on an hp in the first place? It could simply be hat the HP was sitting at a high temperature & needed to cool. Or a in-built time lag to stop it cycling inefficiently? |
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Post by crowsfoot on Jul 8, 2023 18:46:47 GMT
Like I have said before I think that you would have to live with one of these units to get a real idea of what is exactly going on with the plumbing in them. Maybe in the future you will switch on your heating unit for a warm and the unit will think "I'm not ready to start up just yet I've got other things to do first" !! |
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