Are We Sleepwalking Into Another Race to the Bottom?
Posted by: @ksimfor example Gemini calculates that the flow should be fine, but still scared of microbore so recommends buffer tank.
That’s a very interesting exercise…. And it’s good to see some caveats in what was offered. I think Gemini is cautious of microbore for good reason since there are too many unknowns.
Apart from specific bore size…. How was it installed eg with kinks and tight bends? How many radiators are Daisy chained off a 10mm branch pipe? Is there any push-fit plastic microbore. To name a few.
We do have some microbore and it does work but we did do some remedial work to ensure the pipe sizes cascaded down so that only 1 radiator was fed from one branch of 10mm pipework. There is a limit as to how much heat energy a 10mm pipe can carry. The attached file shows how much energy can be carried by a given pipe size.
ps adding a buffer tank doesn’t solve the problem of under sized heat carrying pipes for a given load requirement.
Posted by: @sunandairApart from specific bore size…. How was it installed eg with kinks and tight bends? How many radiators are Daisy chained off a 10mm branch pipe? Is there any push-fit plastic microbore. To name a few.
this is why I provided current flow temperatures in the prompt and dt at different pump speeds and asked to do calculation of the existing flow. LLMs are not "thinking", looks like Gemini training data is more incline to install buffer or separation for microbore. so even the flow is fine, it recommends a buffer.
I do not exclude any problems with microbore, absolutely possible to have an install where a buffer is needed, or repipe. I had installers from: "microbore won't work", "microbore will work but with only with lowloss header", to "everything is fine it will work if you keep it as open loop and weather comp", Let me show an example of my data and you can decide for yourself.
This is 5 hours of tonight, outside temps are 1-2C (external sensor). boiler minimum delivery is 7000kW, so every interval is boiler running at that power.
Room temperatures over the same time
7000W at delta T 5K, you can calculate the flow, there is a formula; similar to my heat loss/size/design temperature properties are running at ~12l/min according to heatpumpmonitor.org.
Running a bit further, I've asked Gemini to calculate the heat loss, gave property build/extension walls/roof insulation, windows, etc, no sizes except the whole house, it estimated 5.3-5.8kW, ChatGPT - 3.3kW, Heat Geek - 5.3kW. Next I provided annual gas consumption, ChatGPT run out of calculation tokens so I dropped it, Gemini adjusted to 2.0 - 3.0kW for the main house and 600W for the extension where Air2Air currently used. Next provided graphs from above and final recommendations were:
Please do not think I am trusting LLMs here, it is just interesting....
It would be interesting to feed to LLMs some real data which requires separation, if I increase flow temp from my boiler in the prompt they immediately starts to have doubts that ASHP will work in the property and recommends to keep gas.
As an idea, load a design document from the installer to LLM with all the numbers and ask to analyse it for possible questions to the installer and problems system might have.
I have a magic boiler
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