Thanks for documenting and sharing this. Looks like a great installation. Your heat pump will be running flat out when it does a legionella cycle. Most of the rest of the time it will be using a small amount of it's capacity, even on a normal DHW cycle. Towards the end of the DHW cycle when the flow temp ramps up, you can see the electrical consumption also ramping up and you'll be able to witness the unit getting marginally louder than normal. Make sure you wipe the little solar panel every few months to keep it clean. Unfortunately the sensocomfort is still very much needed. The app is very basic and buggy, mainly due to Vaillant servers! Where possible avoid using the solar diverter with the current tariff rates. Better to export and heat the water with the heat pump overnight on a cheap rate for a 1/6 of the cost. The most efficient way to heat your hot water is to let the tank cool as much as possible before reheating. Regular top ups will not help your DHW COP. Enjoy your first winter of lovely comfortable heating and your new toy! 😅
Thank you for your advice. Very useful. The Mixergy tank seems to understand about heat pumps and use them to best effect. The tank also understands about Agile so last night, at midnight, the rate fell to 0p for a short while, the tank called for heat from the heat pump and went from 40% capacity to 95% in that half hour. Very clever. I'm trying to use the machine learning rather than setting a DHW schedule, so we'll see how that goes. I enjoy your channel, keep up the good work! 👍
@@timminsitI was going to say why @UpsideDownFork said about the solar diverted, but he's already covered it, it probably wasn't cost effective even when you had gas.
A nice install Jason The grey isolater is a nice touch, mine is one of those red/yellow ones that stick out like a sore thumb. Not aesthetically pleasing in the garden. What make is that isolator? I may consider changing mine to one in the spring.
Thank you. It's going well so far. The isolator is by Scame. You can buy them here... midsummerwholesale.co.uk/buy/renewable-heat-accessories/heat-pump-isolator-32
@@timminsit you mentioned being warm in your home, we are the same, we still have the gas boiler because i'm not sure i'll like the slow and low approach.. we've had solar since the good old day's and two years ago we add a second 4.4k solar with 20kwh of battery storage, our main aim is to reduce our usage from the grid.
Sounds like you're in an ideal position for a heat pump. I agree that 'low and slow' seems crazy, but it seems to be working here... Let me get back to you in a few weeks.
@robin5215 ah well, good news, we'll be on heatpumpmonitor.org/ soon so you'll be able to see all that data for yourself. I'll send you the URL once it's running.
Pressure is very low, given this is new install it is either leaking or installers did not performed checks well. Also I think this type of ESBE valve is actually mixing valve, which can be used as diverter valve, but there exist on market a proper diverter valves which perform their role better.
Thank you for your comments. We have a weeping radiator valve at the moment which will be sorted soon. The valve and actuator are working beautifully and the flow rate is good.
@MrCro93 the valve body and the actuator are separate items, I don't think you can see the body in the video. How can you tell it's wrong? Also, the actuator is either (mains) powered or not, it does not support variable positioning.
The mixing valve is when you set a mid point. That valve will be set up for a 90deg sweep from heating to hot water. I have the same high flow valve.@@MrCro93
Interesting to see this hot water cylinder requiring heat exchanger with pump. Does it not have internal heating coil and takes hot water directly to pump it through the heat exchanger? Is this solution more economical compared to internal heating coil?
I can understand that, but Mixergy take a different approach. They believe that an external plate heat exchanger is the best approach, and they have numerous reasons… www.mixergy.co.uk/blog/using-your-mixergy-tank-with-a-heat-pump/ From our experience, our heat pump via the plate heat exchange, can heat our entire tank on a freezing cold night from 20% to 100% in around 50 minutes. Mixergy tanks also support heating just enough water for your requirements (using a machine learning model) which means that if we only need half of the tank heated, the heat pump can be used to do that too. The machine learning model integrates our hot water usage requirements with Octopus Agile’s dynamic pricing to ensure that (a) we have the water we need when we need it and (b) it’s heated at the cheapest time. I think that Mixergy tanks are very clever and worth the extra cost in the long run.
@ interesting. Thank you for clarification. It seems that their approach would be even more efficient if the external heat exchanger was fed by refrigerant directly to eliminate unnecessary interface between water and water and boost efficiency even more, although it is probably much less practical.
Heat Geek reckon they've got a solution for that. It's a tiny tank that'll fit in (say) a kitchen unit. It's pretty clever. th-cam.com/video/3QAX6ygW9HM/w-d-xo.html
Our airing cupboard is 730mm wide. That's just about wide enough for Mixergy's standard tank, but I went with the slim one because it would have be tricky to get the standard one into the cupboard.
Hmm, I dunno. It seems that every home is different, in ours we already had a heat pump compatible hot water tank and we'd already upgraded most of the radiators. I'd say, just use the Heat Geek site, it'll give you a quick price which you can then follow-up with a (paid-for) heat loss survey from a local Heat Geek. If you don't like the quote/price/whatever, you can have your money back. Octopus Energy are the same, we didn't like their quote and they gave us the survey fee back immediately.
Yeah, OK, here y'go. I'm still struggling to keep the heat/flow sensor happy (I think there might be a bit of air in the system), but I think we're doing pretty well. emoncms.org/app/view?name=aroTHERM%20Plus%207kW&readkey=e64d41e26dec938a190cb91e90a30c50
@@timminsit Just a thought, are the black plastic caps on top of automatic air vents loosened off to allow air to escape, there will be several of these fitted throughout system, above Mixergy heat exchanger as example, I also have one at top of volumiser vessel and another on the 'return' flow to the HP from the volumiser ?
All looks good although with all of those pumps, valves, and other tech widgets it does seem as though there’s a lot to go wrong in the long term with potential for high expense.
I think it'll be OK. There's only one (expensive, high quality) valve now, rather than two before. The monitoring gear sits passively on the pipework so, if it were to fail, it'd just stop monitoring and won't/can't affect the actual operation of the system.
@@timminsit Thanks for the reassurance. I have a heat pump survey booked in with Octopus next week and I'm also thinking about including a GivEnergy battery.
@@timminsit Octopus Cosy is what I'm using for winter for import. On the really cold days you can top up the battery 3 times a day at fairly cheap rate so you *could* get away with a smaller battery, other considerations aside.
@@Chris-hy6jy Yes, that's right. Mixergy believe that it's more efficient to use an external plate heat exchanger. www.mixergy.co.uk/blog/using-your-mixergy-tank-with-a-heat-pump/
The Mixergy heat exchanger has a surface transfer area of 3.5m^2 and works very efficiently, the lack of internal copper coil allows for a greater volume of usable water inside the cylinder.
@@Chris-hy6jy It is and can be seen at 8:21 in Jasons video. There is a pump circulates water from tank through heat exchanger (can be seen just below Exchanger), whilst water is circulated by pump in heat pump to other side of heat exchanger.
Thanks for documenting and sharing this.
Looks like a great installation.
Your heat pump will be running flat out when it does a legionella cycle. Most of the rest of the time it will be using a small amount of it's capacity, even on a normal DHW cycle.
Towards the end of the DHW cycle when the flow temp ramps up, you can see the electrical consumption also ramping up and you'll be able to witness the unit getting marginally louder than normal.
Make sure you wipe the little solar panel every few months to keep it clean.
Unfortunately the sensocomfort is still very much needed. The app is very basic and buggy, mainly due to Vaillant servers!
Where possible avoid using the solar diverter with the current tariff rates. Better to export and heat the water with the heat pump overnight on a cheap rate for a 1/6 of the cost.
The most efficient way to heat your hot water is to let the tank cool as much as possible before reheating. Regular top ups will not help your DHW COP.
Enjoy your first winter of lovely comfortable heating and your new toy! 😅
Thank you for your advice. Very useful.
The Mixergy tank seems to understand about heat pumps and use them to best effect. The tank also understands about Agile so last night, at midnight, the rate fell to 0p for a short while, the tank called for heat from the heat pump and went from 40% capacity to 95% in that half hour. Very clever. I'm trying to use the machine learning rather than setting a DHW schedule, so we'll see how that goes.
I enjoy your channel, keep up the good work! 👍
@@timminsitI was going to say why @UpsideDownFork said about the solar diverted, but he's already covered it, it probably wasn't cost effective even when you had gas.
great video, the external unit tour was interesting.
Thank you. My video editing skills need some work. 🙂
@@timminsit wish me luck octopus are installing mine next week
@@iameccles Good luck, but I don't think you'll need it, they seem to be doing good work. Will you be recording the process and sticking it on TH-cam?
@@timminsit maybe i'm more of a solar/battery geek but I'll try :)
@@iameccles our heat pump is draining our little battery pretty quickly.
Looks a nice install that
Thank you. It seems to be working nicely.
Nice to know there is a heat geek assured installer in the Walsall area.
Yeah, Darren's a good guy.
Thanks for the vblog, very informative 👍
No problem 👍
Thank you for sharing 👍👍👍
Thank you. It's all new to me... I don't have much 'rizz' 😉 but I hope the information is helpful and accurate.
You might want to check the water pressure - looked to be on 0.9bar but your OEM heat meter wants it to be 1.5bar
OK, good tip, thanks.
You can pretty much tell if it’s a good install by the fact that they’ve gone for an Esbe diverter valve.
Yeah, the ESBE diverter is pretty cool.
A nice install Jason
The grey isolater is a nice touch, mine is one of those red/yellow ones that stick out like a sore thumb. Not aesthetically pleasing in the garden. What make is that isolator? I may consider changing mine to one in the spring.
Thank you. It's going well so far.
The isolator is by Scame. You can buy them here... midsummerwholesale.co.uk/buy/renewable-heat-accessories/heat-pump-isolator-32
nice setup👍
@robin5215 Thank you. Where are you on your heat pump journey?
@@timminsit you mentioned being warm in your home, we are the same, we still have the gas boiler because i'm not sure i'll like the slow and low approach.. we've had solar since the good old day's and two years ago we add a second 4.4k solar with 20kwh of battery storage, our main aim is to reduce our usage from the grid.
Sounds like you're in an ideal position for a heat pump. I agree that 'low and slow' seems crazy, but it seems to be working here... Let me get back to you in a few weeks.
@@timminsit thanks .. could you record your radiator temps, flow temps and your cop figures....cheers
@robin5215 ah well, good news, we'll be on heatpumpmonitor.org/ soon so you'll be able to see all that data for yourself. I'll send you the URL once it's running.
Pressure is very low, given this is new install it is either leaking or installers did not performed checks well. Also I think this type of ESBE valve is actually mixing valve, which can be used as diverter valve, but there exist on market a proper diverter valves which perform their role better.
Thank you for your comments. We have a weeping radiator valve at the moment which will be sorted soon. The valve and actuator are working beautifully and the flow rate is good.
@timminsit mixing valves cannot be fully closed, so they are always leaking a bit in either directions, but that is not something significal.
@MrCro93 the valve body and the actuator are separate items, I don't think you can see the body in the video. How can you tell it's wrong? Also, the actuator is either (mains) powered or not, it does not support variable positioning.
I think that you have ESBE ARA671 installed. Something like ESBE MBA135 would be better choice.
The mixing valve is when you set a mid point. That valve will be set up for a 90deg sweep from heating to hot water. I have the same high flow valve.@@MrCro93
Interesting to see this hot water cylinder requiring heat exchanger with pump. Does it not have internal heating coil and takes hot water directly to pump it through the heat exchanger? Is this solution more economical compared to internal heating coil?
I can understand that, but Mixergy take a different approach. They believe that an external plate heat exchanger is the best approach, and they have numerous reasons…
www.mixergy.co.uk/blog/using-your-mixergy-tank-with-a-heat-pump/
From our experience, our heat pump via the plate heat exchange, can heat our entire tank on a freezing cold night from 20% to 100% in around 50 minutes. Mixergy tanks also support heating just enough water for your requirements (using a machine learning model) which means that if we only need half of the tank heated, the heat pump can be used to do that too.
The machine learning model integrates our hot water usage requirements with Octopus Agile’s dynamic pricing to ensure that (a) we have the water we need when we need it and (b) it’s heated at the cheapest time.
I think that Mixergy tanks are very clever and worth the extra cost in the long run.
@ interesting. Thank you for clarification. It seems that their approach would be even more efficient if the external heat exchanger was fed by refrigerant directly to eliminate unnecessary interface between water and water and boost efficiency even more, although it is probably much less practical.
The amount of kit required is huge space wise. Just wouldn't have room in my little place
A littler place needs a littler heat pump. Get a guy to give your a quote and see what you think.
@timminsit got no where to put a tank for a start. Houses don't have cupboards anymore for such kit.
Heat Geek reckon they've got a solution for that. It's a tiny tank that'll fit in (say) a kitchen unit. It's pretty clever. th-cam.com/video/3QAX6ygW9HM/w-d-xo.html
Just wondering how big that cupboard looking at heat pump but my cupboard is only 760 wide
Our airing cupboard is 730mm wide. That's just about wide enough for Mixergy's standard tank, but I went with the slim one because it would have be tricky to get the standard one into the cupboard.
@ how big is the capacity of the slim line
@trisknight9430 ours is 150L, but they do bigger ones.
Maybe further insulate that heat exchanger.
It's already wearing its jacket.
Would you mind sharing roughly how much your heat pump cost including installation. Thank you.
Hmm, I dunno. It seems that every home is different, in ours we already had a heat pump compatible hot water tank and we'd already upgraded most of the radiators. I'd say, just use the Heat Geek site, it'll give you a quick price which you can then follow-up with a (paid-for) heat loss survey from a local Heat Geek. If you don't like the quote/price/whatever, you can have your money back. Octopus Energy are the same, we didn't like their quote and they gave us the survey fee back immediately.
Are you sharing your open energy monitor, if so have you got a link
Yeah, OK, here y'go. I'm still struggling to keep the heat/flow sensor happy (I think there might be a bit of air in the system), but I think we're doing pretty well.
emoncms.org/app/view?name=aroTHERM%20Plus%207kW&readkey=e64d41e26dec938a190cb91e90a30c50
@@timminsit
Have you increased the water pressure as yet, your flow meter needs a minimum pressure of 1.5 bar ?
Hi @@_Dougaldog, yeah, that's all fine. If I could just get it to stop moaning about air in the system during the DHW cycles, that'd be super!
@@timminsit
Just a thought, are the black plastic caps on top of automatic air vents loosened off to allow air to escape, there will be several of these fitted throughout system, above Mixergy heat exchanger as example, I also have one at top of volumiser vessel and another on the 'return' flow to the HP from the volumiser ?
All looks good although with all of those pumps, valves, and other tech widgets it does seem as though there’s a lot to go wrong in the long term with potential for high expense.
I think it'll be OK. There's only one (expensive, high quality) valve now, rather than two before. The monitoring gear sits passively on the pipework so, if it were to fail, it'd just stop monitoring and won't/can't affect the actual operation of the system.
@@timminsit Thanks for the reassurance. I have a heat pump survey booked in with Octopus next week and I'm also thinking about including a GivEnergy battery.
Batteries are a good option with a heat pump, but get a big one as a heat pump can use loads of power! Do you have solar?
@@timminsit Octopus Cosy is what I'm using for winter for import. On the really cold days you can top up the battery 3 times a day at fairly cheap rate so you *could* get away with a smaller battery, other considerations aside.
The system is pretty simple, could argue there’s more to go wrong inside a boiler.
So that hot water tank doesn't have an internal heat exchanger?
@@Chris-hy6jy Yes, that's right. Mixergy believe that it's more efficient to use an external plate heat exchanger. www.mixergy.co.uk/blog/using-your-mixergy-tank-with-a-heat-pump/
The Mixergy heat exchanger has a surface transfer area of 3.5m^2 and works very efficiently, the lack of internal copper coil allows for a greater volume of usable water inside the cylinder.
@_Dougaldog so the HEX is on the outside of the tank? Sorry, I know nothing about these lol
@@Chris-hy6jy
It is and can be seen at 8:21 in Jasons video.
There is a pump circulates water from tank through heat exchanger (can be seen just below Exchanger), whilst water is circulated by pump in heat pump to other side of heat exchanger.