@ashptenant

No problem. If you were knowledgeable about heat pumps and plumbing then you would not need to come to the forum.

The point that I was making is that one has to structure the advice at a level that the recipient will readily understand, particularly when trying to find the root cause of a problem. It is pointless just saying "check the valve and actuator", without explaining how and possibly why.

Posted by: @derek-m

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@ashptenant

No problem. If you were knowledgeable about heat pumps and plumbing then you would not need to come to the forum.

The point that I was making is that one has to structure the advice at a level that the recipient will readily understand, particularly when trying to find the root cause of a problem. It is pointless just saying "check the valve and actuator", without explaining how and possibly why.

You're a star @derek-m.  A very patient one!! 😊  

@ashptenant

Thank you, you must explain that to my wife. 😋 

Your landlord would be more than welcome on the forum, and together we may be able to resolve your problem.

Posted by: @derek-m

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@ashptenant

Thank you, you must explain that to my wife. 😋 

Your landlord would be more than welcome on the forum, and together we may be able to resolve your problem.

😆

And I'll mention it to my landlord, thanks.

Posted by: @ashptenant

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Hello, I am a tenant in a very recently refurbished house which, as part of it's complete gutting and refurb, had an ASHP installed last year. We are finding it hideously inefficient and the bills are terrifying! £550 for last month alone. Completely untenable for us.

During the very cold frosty weather recently, we were barely getting up to 13 degrees in the house most days, though the water was always really hot. This was despite running the system 24/7. The house is very well insulated, with thick, new, loft and cavity wall insulation, as well as new double glazed windows throughout.

Our landlord has been trying to help sort it out, but has apparently been getting completely contradictory advice from the various engineers he's spoken to, plus the rep for the system. It's an LG.

The landlord discovered that the two handbooks provided with the system differ also, with the install schema showing the hot water and heating pipes either side of a valve connected one way, but the other booklet describing them connected the other way! He hasn't been able to get a straight answer regarding which is correct from anyone; some engineers say one way is correct, others at the same company say it's the opposite!!!

Can anyone advise please?! 

Just to clarify, if the system was installed last year (2021), then how did it perform last Winter? Has the problem that you describe always been present or has it just started recently?

We only moved into this house in July 2022 and due to hot weather and good insulation, we didn't need to have the heating on at all until October.  Even then we had the thermostat set relatively low.

Then as it got colder and we wanted it to be warmer, at first we thought it was a problem caused by our not understanding the system and so read up about it a bit and tried various things, such as having it on 24/7.

It was only in the recent very cold snap that it became apparent it was really a huge problem. The house was unoccupied between the landlord purchasing it and undertaking a major renovation and our tenancy starting.

Posted by: @derek-m

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Posted by: @ashptenant

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@derek-m thank you for the explanation and suggestion. To be honest, I'm very wary of doing anything to the system. It's completely unfamiliar (and intimidating) to me and our landlord has already expressed concern about invalidating the warranty if he messes about with it. So I'm a bit scared to flick any valves in case I get it wrong!! However, I will happily ask the landlord to try what you've suggested when he comes to look at it again in the new year. 

The heating is now off for the night. My husband has reverted to it being on twice a day rather than constantly, because it's now achieving the temps we need, since the valve on the AB/A/B port has been disabled.  

However, for what it's worth, every pipe in the cupboard is currently equally warm to the touch, with the exception of the one going up and through the ceiling of the cupboard (serving the upstairs radiators?) and the one coming out of the small white wall mounted tank (is that the immersion tank?) on the left hand side.

Pushing the operating lever on the valve actuators will not have any adverse effect, and is a simple way to test the valve operation. If you look closely at the side of the valve actuator, you should see a lever sticking out, which can be moved backwards and forwards in a slot in the side of the casing. If when the lever is pushed it moves freely, this would indicate that the actuator is powered. If when the lever is pushed some resistance is felt, this would indicate that the actuator is not powered. In this situation when the lever is released it should return under spring action to the starting position.

I suggest that you give it a try. Don't worry you cannot hurt anything, but it will indicate the position of the zone valves, which are probably controlled by the two thermostats.

The next test will be to operate each thermostat in turn and check to see if the zone valves respond.

 

Hello again @derek-m. Happy New Year!! I am home and have tried the actuators now, as per your suggestion.

On the metal valve box which is lower down and positioned horizontally on a pipe, the lever moves freely away from the AUTO position to MAN OPEN at the other end of the slot, where it remains until moved back.

However, on the higher up actuator, positioned vertically on the pipe, there is appreciable resistance when trying to move the lever away from AUTO to MAN OPEN. There is a whining noise and the lever springs immediately back to AUTO.

As you know, the third actuator has been temporarily disabled (hanging in front of the cylinder in the pictures) so I am unable to test that one. 

I did this test whilst both the heating and hot water were on. 

Does this offer any glimmers of solution in the mystery of our strangely ineffectual system?!

@ashptenant

Hi,

Happy new year.

The lower of the two valves is open, which I suspect is for the downstairs zone, but the upper valve is in the closed position, and I believe this valve is for the upstairs zone. If you increase the setting of the upstairs thermostat then the upper valve should also move to the open position.

Because you have the 3-way valve manually positioned in the mid position, I suspect that most of the warm water coming from the heat pump is going through the heating coil inside your hot water cylinder. If you either move the 3-way valve manually, or refit the actuator, such that the water from the heat pump is directed towards the central heating zones, you should get more heat energy to the heat emitters.

Once you have confirmed that the various items of equipment are functioning correctly then it should be possible to start improving the operation of your system.