Member postings for Steve Skelton 1

I was with Peoples Energy when they went bump. I was automatically transferred to British Gas. BG sent me an e-mail on 23rd October 21 with the new tariff which although 50% higher than Peoples Energy I had to accept.

In the e-mail from them, it states that the new price was "Price guaranteed until 30th June 2022". I have now just received an e-mail from them stating the prices are going up on 1st April 2022. Again another 50% increase.

Needless to say, I have raised a complaint with BG, I wonder how they will explain this.

Steve

We sell using eBay via Royal Mail most days. If you have proof of delivery from Royal Mail then eBay will accept that and you should not have any comeback. EBay go on the tracking info and if it is shown as delivered then it has been in their view.

I use an extension on Google called "Cookie AutooDelete" which, surprisingly enough, does just that when you leave the site. You can add white lists, like this site for instance, so that it doesn't delete cookies etc when you leave.

It works well and keeps your PC clean.

Steve

"I am using strip of rubber to create a hinge between two plates of ABS."

Why not redesign it using polypropylene so that you use one piece of material - PP make perfect natural hinge material? May be easy to 3D print it? Would be a much more elegant solution.

https://www.protolabs.com/resources/blog/living-hinge-basics-for-injection-molding/

I'm also with Massimo on this one.

Jewellers rouge lasts forever and is easily mixed with a little water and if it goes dry in storage just add a little more water.

Works a treat and is low cost - £4 for 50g (eBay) which will last for a lot of soldering.

Thanks for that Peter and the offer of borrowing your old unit. I am thinking that a split system, which seems to operate at a higher output temperature, maybe my best approach.

I am in no hurry to jump into buying something yet as it is mostly an academic study as my heating costs are not excessive, even with bottled gas! However, I would like to do my bit to reduce my carbon footprint.

My concern has always been that the efficiencies are never what the manufacturers quote, I have tried to discuss this with them but they refuse to answer my questions - I have approached two of the major manufacturers with technical departments in the UK and they have not got back to me despite repeated requests. They just quote the DIN tests as this is all they have to quote on their technical specs. The trouble is the values quoted are for laboratory conditions with much lower humidity values than we experience here in the South West and I am still unable to determine whether the water removed from the test air is replaced as it is condensed. If it is not then the efficiency of the unit will rise as the test progresses.

The thermal conductivity of ice at 0 deg C is about 2 W/mK compared with a heat exchanger material conductivity of about 385 in the case of copper and 205 for ally. So any build-up of ice (which will occur at air temperatures of less than 10 C) will have a seriously detrimental effect on the ability to remove useful heat from the air.

Maybe this has been taken into account in the design of these ASHPs, I do not know.

Anyway, I will watch what happens in the heating industry with interest.

Steve

Hi Peter,

Thanks for the information. Likewise, we are also a new build, from 2008, but with lots of insulation – 140 mm in walls, 150mm in floors and 200+ in ceilings. We have a lot of windows (D/G) so that is the main heat loss. We also have whole-house ventilation with heat recovery which as you say is excellent – never seen any condensation on windows in any room except bath/shower rooms and then for only a short time.

We have a 500L thermal store with wet solar panels and a wood burner with a back boiler feeding the store. Main heating is an LPG boiler through a coil in the T/S – this is the biggest restriction we have in using a heat pump, the contact surface in the coils is only 1.2m2 which limits the size of heat pump I can strap onto it – probably to about 5kW. Pipework to this coil is 22mm and is about 28m from the boiler (and proposed ASHP site). I do not really want to change the store at this stage.

Feeding new ASHP feed pipework to the store would be very difficult due to the UFH in all rooms and therefore lifting floors is not an option so I was looking to use the same pipework for the ASHP as the boiler uses. I would do this with interlocked motorised valves to isolate each system and use a control system to send appropriate signals to the LPG boiler, ASHP and valves.

Our house thermal loss is between 225 and 275 W/K so in theory, a 5kW pump should be adequate for all but the coldest of weather. I would like to keep the LPG boiler as it can be run in a combi mode for hot water if the store temperature is not high enough ( ie when using an ASHP). We like to run the wood burner in the evening when we are in the house so again this helps with heating the store.

Our annual gas heating bills on bottled LPG are less than £500/yr although that does not take into account the wood that we burn which is free (we have a lot of trees).

I am very interested in the fact that you still get a high efficiency from the ASHP when it turns into a block of ice – I was under the impression that ice acted as a good insulator to prevent heat transfer. It has been this one issue that has prevented me from experimenting with an ASHP.

Where in the country are you? We are in the South West.

Thanks, Steve

Peter did you change your hot water tank when you installed the bigger ASHP?

Steve

Edited By Steve Skelton 1 on 24/10/2021 14:47:56

Yes, you are right as a species humans have done all of those things, but in the scheme of things the fumes emitted by a 3D printer are completely insignificant.

Do you stop having a cup of tea on a dark windless day because the power station is going to have to produce the electricity to boil the water and all the environmental impacts that has? I will say no more.

Steve

Michael, are you really inferring that the fumes from a 3D printer are a real environmental problem?

Steve

Ground source heat pumps are much better than air-source but are so much more expensive to buy and install.

Air-source does work in dry climates but my research indicates that they do not perform very well in damp environments, like the majority of the UK, as their COP drops off due to ice build up and the need to constantly de-ice them by reversing the cycle.

I would like to do my bit and install one but I fear I would still end up using the same amount of energy to heat my house as I am doing now.

Steve

Roy, you can still get them but they are not really cost-effective.

We built our house in 2008 and I installed them when the roof was put on. Buying the panels at trade prices and installing them myself still cost around £1250. We probably get about £50 worth of free energy a year giving us a payback of 25 years. Paying to have them retrofitted to an existing house would cost a minimum today of £4000 - 80 years payback!!

Even so it is great to turn off the boiler in March/April and not put it on till October/November and still have a supply of hot water - it does get a bit lukewarm in prolonged periods of overcast weather though.

Steve

Neil, having checked the chipboard is moisture-resistant not waterproof

https://www.jewson.co.uk/p/caberfloor-p5-moisture-resistant-chipboard-flooring-tg4-22mm-FH22C4TA

Neil, from my experience I would recommend 50mm of Extratherm or Celotex type of insulation followed by waterproof tongue and groove chipboard flooring (the blue type I think it is).

You will still get a bit of bounce from the insulation but the chipboard will spread the load and not deform locally due to its thickness. When we built our house the chipboard floors were left exposed in the elements for about a month being constantly soaked before we could get the roof on and did not suffer from this at all.

Steve

Oh, and put a waterproof barrier sheet down between the concrete and the insulation

Edited By Steve Skelton 1 on 27/09/2021 12:23:01

Zan, you need to be a little more precise with the description of your electrical installation before anyone can advise you on potential problems.

Is your workshop within the confines of your house or is it a separate building? If it is separate then the earthling arrangements for your workshop may need to be separated from your house.

Ideally, your workshop should not be fed from the house consumer unit by a ring circuit. Does this circuit have any RCD protection at the origin?

I have never come across a domestic 24A circuit breaker. If so what type (tripping characteristics does it have)? Do you have RCD protection within the workshop?

Have you had the wiring tested to ensure all of the protective devices and wiring are appropriate?

From the sound it I think it would be wise to get an electrician involved who understands inverters - you may have the incorrect type of MCB fitted if there is a fairly large inrush current – if it is a B type circuit breaker you may need to change it to a C type.

Sorry, I can’t be more help - there are too many unknowns.

Dave, thank you for such a positive attitude, I did think twice before posting as often you see people getting hot under the collar when someone questions something that they posted.

I personally would never fit a fuse rather an mcb but they are much more reliable, as my NICEIC assessor always kept impressing on me during my annual assessments.

Cheers Steve

SOD Sorry Dave, I have to challenge you on a couple of points re the above:

1 RCD's and Fuses are not similar they do completely different things. An RCD detects leakage current that could potentially be going through a human. Fuses on the other hand are there to protect the wiring and prevent overload and potential fires. An RCD will not detect overload if there is no leakage current whereas a fuse will blow at a predetermined level. RCD's detect the difference in milliamps between the phase and neuitral conductors, fuses in household circuits operate generally at between 6 amps and 45 amps

2 When you say an RCD Consumer unit is safer than a fusebox, that again is not strictly true for the same reason as 1. If you are saying that MCB's are safer than single-use fuses again that is not so, the only advantage of an MCB is that they are resettable. An MCB is a mechanical device that can (and frequently do) fail. A correctly specified fuse is the safest means of detecting and disconnecting a supply in the case ofcurrent overload.

Steve

Ian, looking at Solid Edge it only gives a free limited-time trial use of the software, the basic entry level is $75 a month.

How did you get yours?

Duncan, I have tried to install NanoCad but without success - it tries to load .NET Framework 3.5 but my PC point blank refuses to accept it. It throws up an error code 0x800F0922 . I have followed Microsoft instructions on how to deal with it but my PC keeps saying NO.

So unfortunately I am going to have to give in trying to load it - I spent about two hours trying , rebooting and am now giving up.

Steve

Tom, brilliant, many thanks

Steve