Antifreeze Valves versus Glycol
Agreed @johnmo - a combined product can tackle multiple issues simultaneously.
I'm just providing the link to that Flomasta product from Screwfix.
Before you buy, check everything:
For example, the usual dosage of a typical corrosion-inhibitor would be about 1%.
But that Flomasta combined inhibitor and anti-freeze requires 25% concentration for their base-level protection down to -11°C
... and it costs £40 for each 5-litre container.
Does your Village Hall system have a dosage-pot to better facilitate adding large quantities of chemical?
Save energy... recycle electrons!
@transparent Before the antifreeze option came up Corrtec was the suggested additive. I don’t know about acidity but we are on mains water - no limescale. Batteries ? do you mean in conjunction with PV. We are looking into getting PV at the moment. I’m hoping to talk to the engineer who serviced it shortly. Lots more q’s now. No dosage pot that I’m aware of presumably engineer will be kitted out for large scale dosing. One final question a separate issue about ASHP installation pipework, in our case the primaries are 28mm plastic which are insulated directly near the 2 pump units – mounted on a concrete platform. However they - 4 x28mm pipes are then bundled together uninsulated and run down into a duct through the platform below ground across a pathway and up into the plant room 3-4m run approx. It strikes me this can’t be good for the system performance. I think it would be possible to re- run the pipework separated & properly insulated just below or above ground level but would it make a big difference?
Great.... This is the sort of related information we need @toucan
Don't worry about grammar, or trying to organise the issues...
... just fire them all out and we can take it from there!
Batteries, PV panels and overall system resilience are best discussed in a separate/new topic within the Energy Storage section of the forum.
We need a topic title which brings in the right sort of people in future. Something like "Energy generation and storage for Village Hall" is sufficiently all-embracing.
I'd like to propose parts of the work which could be done by the village community rather than just buying-in expensive contractors.
That also has the advantage of people in the village picking up new knowledge and skills which can then be applied to their own houses.
Yes, your preferred heating engineer may have a pump which can be used to push larger quantities of additives into the system.
Just bear in mind that any future breakage which requires the system to be drained down will mean throwing away some very expensive chemicals!
My own house has 340-litres of circulating fluid, so I'm very conscious of migating against such a scenario.
You are absolutely right to raise the problem of uninsulated plastic pipes for the main feeds into the building.
That should never be the case, whether they're underground or ducted or sleeved.
Any chance of some photos?
I'd be particularly interested to see the point where they enter the 'thermal envelope' of the main building.
Save energy... recycle electrons!
It is indeed a lot of water @johnmo
But my starting point is a 280-litre thermal store!
Whenever I've needed to release water to 'work' on the heating system, I've perfected a method of temporary storage using a large rainwater tub on a wooden platform in the bathroom!
The same trick isn't likely to work for a village hall.
But it's something to consider before @toucan spends £hundreds on an expensive chemical solution.
Save energy... recycle electrons!
On the note of glycol performance effects; my Vaillant Arotherm Plus system is augmented with 10% Fernox HP5c additive. According to the manufacturer’s specs, at this concentration it only reduces the heat capacity of the water mix by ~2%, which to me is a worthwhile trade off for the peace of mind knowing I don’t have any anti-freeze valves which may suddenly dump all the fluid, or not work when needed.
@transparent Good Morning In reference to village hall primary pipework query I have some photos of external pipework
Wow! Great photos - thank you.
Let me re-post two of those with annotations:
On the left there are four pipes and four cables disappearing down a hole,
and emerging on the right as four pipes and two cables.
If we zoom in on the front of the external units we can see those four cables:
but I don't know which is the power feed, or where the other two are connected.
Looking again at the left hand of the upper photos, the concrete pad is carefully positioned so that the rain and any condensate from the heat-exchangers can fall into the pipe-hole and surround them with cooling water.
This arrangement leaves me wondering if the intention is to heat the village hall or the entire planet? 🤨
Yes the four pipes should be insulated along their entire run, but the decayed state of the external insulation above ground doesn't look much better than an uninsulated pipe anyway.
The idea is to totally seal the flow/return pipes in insulation so as to allow no ingress of rain water.
In your case the rain enters through the numerous open gaps, then runs between the insulation and the pipe, neatly removing heat as it does so. 😖
For underground runs there is actually a ready-made dual-pipe with a sealed insulation layer manufactured by Rehau, Uponor EcoFlex, Polypipe, Mibec Microflex and others.
I think your external pipe runs need completely redoing,
and condensate collection trays placed below the units to guide water away from the concrete platform.
You might need to employ a heating engineer to make the connections at each end and repressurize the systems, but the bulk of the work is 'just' labour.
Frankly there's little point relying on an accredited installer to apply pipe insulation anyway.
You achieve better results from a teenager with OCD.
Save energy... recycle electrons!
@transparent I'll have a look and see how re-routing the pipework might work. Thanks for you help
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