@adamk Is your vibration the one with the base thats slightly unlevelled and large glass doors reverberating? forgive me if I confused you with another

@ashp-bobba sounds like me yep.

Posted by: @adamk

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@drei I’ve not been able to find a local installer let alone someone who can pop round to have a look. I think I might be the only Vaillant 7kw in a 20 mile radius. My issue, after they finally sort the breakers out in October (only 3 months of chasing), will be hopefully only be the humming noise which whilst drives me nuts I would think is fixable even if I have to get the primaries run around the outside of the house and abandon the ones in the ceiling.

By way of encouragement I think you are right about the hum, its fixable.

Regarding the breakers I really wouldn't fret about these. 

Best practice is a Type B RCD (which protects people against electrocution in the event of several types of fault) + an MCB.  However the IET regulations, which are definitive, don't require an RCD for fixed external plant.  This is left to the discretion/judgement of the sparks, who is free to do a risk assessment and conclude that an MCB alone (which protects the cable from fire, and thus the building ditto, but doesn't really protect people at all) is required. 

Now if you read very carefully the Vaillant instructions they say 'if the installation requires it then a type B RCD must be used'.  The key here is the wording ''if the installation requires it', ie Vaillant are not saying it does, they too are leaving this to the sparks judgement and local regulations.  They are only saying that if the sparks determines that an RCD is required then it must be type B.

Thus a MCB only is consistent, at least in my reading, with both the IET regs and the Vaillant rubric.  Since a Type A RCD (the default) offers more protection that an MCB alone, it follows that this is no less safe than something that is perfectly acceptable.  As the RCD cant damage the heat pump, it is no worse than just having an MCB, which is legit.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't insist on the swap out, merely that I wouldn't stress about it in the mean time.  There are, after all, plenty of houses where all the internal circuits are protected only by MCBs or even fuses.  The protected circuits will include the ring main, into which you plug a variety of devices on flexible leads, and which are much more likely to develop a potentially dangerous fault than a fixed ASHP (like, for example, a steam iron)

When this issue first came up in another thread, I searched for any case of a person being killed or injured by an aircon unit, of which there must be millions in the UK, many protected only by MCBs.  I found one case of an engineer who was killed due to faulty wiring whilst he was servicing an aircon unit, but the wiring in question had nothing to do with the unit.  Of course I cant guarantee that my search was comprehensive, as I have access only to the same information as you, but its clearly an event which is highly unlikely to occur

FWIW my ASHP is on a MCB only, because this is what would fit in the existing CU and my electrician, who I have known for 12 years, have interrogated on many occasions and thoroughly trust, assessed that his was sufficient.  I'm guessing yours did the same.  In my case this will likely change when the CU gets replaced, which will likely occur when I decide to add an EV charger and an induction hob.  Until then it can live on the MCB alone!

I reiterate that I'm not saying that you shouldn't insist on the swap out, merely that I wouldn't stress about it in the mean time.

My house built in 1982 had a fuse wire fuse board that managed 15kW of power. When I planned the removal of Gas, fitting Solar PV, ASHP heating and EV upgrade path, it was prudent to update to 18th edition Electrical regs, new metal CU with dual RCDs. I have load balancing on the system so the EV only charges when load on the house is low. There is no requirement for a specific RCD for an electrical load in the regs. There are case studies mentioned for protecting inductive and resistive loads, as well as DC currents from Inverters causing a blinding issue with RCDs. These inverters are in PV and EV systems, not ASHP. 

I've put a comment on my article, directed at Heat Geeks, and I think you should still reach out to them directly, so they can put you in touch with someone to help, but also review your case:

@drei ive kind of reached out to them already via email and comments on youtube but they have stopped replying to emails and essentially said as it was done outside of HG they dont care.

Vaillants customer services team who i contacted through find an installer and who were very helpful initially have now gone silent also.

think its the same old story if an install goes a bit south everyone goes into pointing finger mode in a circular ring and nobody even the manufacturer wants to take responsibility.

i went into this project pretty much gen'd upto the eyeballs after watching so many Mars and Heat Geek vids. but the reality is even if you stand there watching them you cant always catch every screw up. i think the videos especially from Adam of HG stating HP are not noisy can be taken with a bit of scepticism as mine isnt that noisy outside but is definitely noisy inside. and if completely isolating the primaries from the main building fabric is an issue maybe make a short or add it to and existing vid telling people this, cause i still dont believe all installers fit anti vibration clips along the full length of the pipe work. or just tell people not to run primaries inside the building.

having said all this whilst i havent had the heating on yet as too warm the hot water at 45c setpoint is achieving about 4.4 scop according to the Vaillant app, though thats been during summer only.

@jamespa i contacted Vaillant system design after bringing the breaker issue up with them and they confirmed it wasnt correct and then i got into a bit of piggy in the middle with the installer saying someone, who they never explained who the person was, from Vaillant said it was just "belt and braces". so went back to Vaillant who said no its been a requirement from them since 2023 and wanted to know who it was from Vaillant that had said it was ok so they could send them the internal info.

Posted by: @adamk

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so went back to Vaillant who said no its been a requirement from them since 2023 and wanted to know who it was from Vaillant that had said it was ok so they could send them the internal info.

My comments were based on what it says in the printed installation instructions, supplied with my heat pump in Nov 2024.  These, to my mind trump any verbal communication because you can refer to them to in court.  For the same reason  they also in my mind trump written communication unless the latter refers to them and expressly states that they are out of date.  People on calls say all sorts of things to which you can hardly ever hold them, a principle that works both ways!

Posted by: @adamk

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mine isnt that noisy outside but is definitely noisy inside.

That's the odd thing and indicates a problem with isolation or a distance based resonance (ie an internal reflector which, because it is at the 'right' distance causes the sound energy to be concentrated in particular locations.).  Isolation is the most likely, distance based resonance would be location and frequency specific.  Some investigation needed.

Posted by: @adamk

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having said all this whilst i havent had the heating on yet as too warm the hot water at 45c setpoint is achieving about 4.4 scop according to the Vaillant app, though thats been during summer only.

That's about right and similar to mine.  Vaillant seem, if my experience is typical, to have tuned the system so that.the Cop doesnt vary as much as the raw thermodynamics say, presumably by playing games with the compressor operation point.

@jamespa i did wonder if it was ok at 4.4 as in another thread an installer said summer hot water cop should be 6 which seemed a bit high. highest ive seen is 4.9 on one day.

Posted by: @adamk

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@jamespa i did wonder if it was ok at 4.4 as in another thread an installer said summer hot water cop should be 6 which seemed a bit high. highest ive seen is 4.9 on one day.

Like you I dont see the really high cops but neither have I so far seen really low ones which is why I surmise Vaillant may be playing balancing games with compressor operating point.  This winter may reveal more.  BTW I do DHW on eco mode.  It's a bit slower but seems to give good dhw cop which TBH I wasn't expecting.

Unless you have UFH operating at <35, you are unlikely to be top of the SCOPS, but heating is a utility not a competition.

@jamespa yeah im using the ECO mode, i did try combining it with noise reduction but apparently this doesnt affect the compressor as ECO takes precedence. i do think the fan on the external unit ran slower with both modes enabled though.

Posted by: @adamk

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@jamespa yeah im using the ECO mode, i did try combining it with noise reduction but apparently this doesnt affect the compressor as ECO takes precedence. i do think the fan on the external unit ran slower with both modes enabled though.

If you are still hearing the noise with NR enabled (which defaults to 60% max compressor modulation) then there is definitely something odd.  At that level mine is near silent and certainly not anywhere close to being audible inside.

@jamespa in eco or NR mode it is pretty silent until i go in the utility room about 4m away from the outside wall the unit is sat near, then i can hear it. if i turn off eco or NR i can hear it over the TV like ive left a sub woofer on.