Ditching gas, going electric immersion only, a wee project

Solarchaser

Heedtheadvice said:

What will you do for ' Entertainment ' when it runs all by itself?

Haha, yeah I hear you.
Just finishing up my loft conversion also... maybe I'll get back to the fun of messing about with cars.

I really like the idea of doing nothing, just chilling out, but then boredom sets in and ....

Last year I rearranged the solar panels on my garage to have a 2/3rds bias to WSW over ENE, and thats resulted in a 10% improvement on production, which is great right?
But that is essentially 400kwh x £0.15 or £60, I'm not sure it was worth all the effort 🙄

I have come to the realisation that when I cark it, I will leave behind 2-4 unfinished "projects" that will make no sense to anyone else 😳😳

QrizB

Solarchaser said:

I have come to the realisation that when I cark it, I will leave behind 2-4 unfinished "projects" that will make no sense to anyone else 😳😳

If it's only 2-4, you're doing better than I am 😂

Solarchaser

QrizB said:

Solarchaser said:

I have come to the realisation that when I cark it, I will leave behind 2-4 unfinished "projects" that will make no sense to anyone else 😳😳

If it's only 2-4, you're doing better than I am 😂

That is strangely quite reassuring. 
Im not the only idiot in the village 😂

Though i should admit that I'm classing it as only 4 because I'm scoring off the loft and tanks, but neither are really finished yet 🙈

Martyn1981

Solarchaser said:

I have come to the realisation that when I cark it, I will leave behind 2-4 unfinished "projects" that will make no sense to anyone else 😳😳

Do you have a shed/garage that's hard to move around in, because it's absolutely full of stuff that 'will be really useful one day'?

Heedtheadvice

Martyn1981 said:

Solarchaser said:

I have come to the realisation that when I cark it, I will leave behind 2-4 unfinished "projects" that will make no sense to anyone else 😳😳

Do you have a shed/garage that's hard to move around in, because it's absolutely full of stuff that 'will be really useful one day'?

I know that situation.

Only it is all really really usefull 😀......

Solarchaser

Guilty as charged Mart, but in my defence, there is a car in there, and alot of the stuff is like doors and engine etc

It's 10 years into a 3 month project 🙈

Yeah its not the only thing that "will be useful for s project one day"

NedS

Martyn1981 said:

Solarchaser said:

I have come to the realisation that when I cark it, I will leave behind 2-4 unfinished "projects" that will make no sense to anyone else 😳😳

Do you have a shed/garage that's hard to move around in, because it's absolutely full of stuff that 'will be really useful one day'?

Is that not normal?

michaels

Heedtheadvice said:

What will you do for ' Entertainment ' when it runs all by itself?

I was quietly happy in Jan that my DIY heat pump project was running faultlessly without missing a beat having sorted all the teething issues.  Obviously I wasn't going to say anything and tempt fate but my dad asked so I told him how happy we were with it - so cue my phone going off at 2:30 AM that same night warning the breaker had tripped....


....always fun when it was minus 7 and we don't have gycol or emergency anti-freeze drain valves but rely on a separate pump keeping going that runs off the same breaker.

Heedtheadvice

Manual fix, make heat and pump https://images.app.goo.gl/bih44Ht5MDmUgFFb7

Solarchaser

Minor update, ran the test of how much heat is would lose in the dead of summer while away on holiday, last year before fitting the insulated box i was losing 10kwh a day at 85C, and this year it was 5kwh a day at 85C.

Pretty disappointing for all that work, but an improvement is still an improvement. 

Anyway as I looked to the future and coming out of the project, I knew i had to replace the two central heating pumps for reliability,  and did that last month, with a couple of new 6Meter pump head grundfos pumps, so hopefully no pump issues for a few years, i also had to face the reality that I just didnt have enough heat storage for a proper winters day, and due to not really having room for another tank, I scoured ebay for a couple of months looking for a sunamp.
I wanted the 210 /uniq 9 variant as thats the height limit i was working with.

We had earlier discussions about them and, och I just decided if I could get one for under a grand, id get one.
So one came up on ebay in August and I won the bidding war, and one winged it's way up to me. However when it got here, it wasn't the one I won.
Contacted the seller, honest mistake and through a bit of negotiation he sent me the right one and I sent some more money.

The thing about the sunamp is it's heavy, and I dont mean a wee bit, it's like 170KG of dead weight heavy, so it's pretty costly to move, even on a pallet.

So I couldn't easily send the wrong one back.
In hindsight I could actually have used either, but hindsight is always 20/20.

Short version is i have a "spare" sunamp uniq9 HW +I which im not going to use, should someone wish to pick one up for under a grand, as i need it out of my way, ping me a message.

Anyway moving on, so my plan was to fit it under the house also, but after a day of total exasperation, I found it won't fit, well thats not totally true, it would fit, but if it broke, or I ever needed to move it, the area is too tight and its far too heavy, so it's now on a shelf on the back wall of the house 🙈

The uniq 9 is billed as a 210L cylinder replacement with a maximum of 10.5kwh storage, but i seem to be able to put 12kwh into it every other night, 🤷‍♂️

So i was thinking my issue in previous years is that the heating can run fairly well at 40C, but the hot water really needs to be above 50C or the ladies in the house are not happy, the sunamp 58C phase change material seems to provide about 65C water, and it does so very consistently until it runs out which then goes very quickly from hot, to cold.

Short version is I've moved all of the hot water supply to the sunamp, leaving the tanks purely with heating.
We shall see how it does over the proper winter, but last week or so we have been in single digits temperature wise and it seems to be doing well.

I still need to change the thermostatic valve to get the radiators hotter, as they just weren't quite hot enough last year, and thats gonna have to be soon, as its getting into the proper cold in the next few weeks.