@lenny 

Sorry if this is a repeat, I am very new to this.

Eco4 and paid for do not deliver the same results except to comply with Building Regulations, in the case of Eco4 just about.

A paid for in person installation would be a mutual agreement between the contractor and customer. There would be discussions about costs, timing, type of installation and the final finish.

In my experience there is none of this with Eco4. As I have said I was told, bullied even, that I had no choices. Company contracted to do the work forgot to email contract and work detail. I was quite poorly but no excuse for not realising there should have been some sort of formal agreement. It was on Day 3 of the project that I was emailed a contract to sign and I saw the conditions for the first time. I should have stopped it there but I was confused and overwhelmed by what was happening.

I would not have agreed to Eco4 if I had viewed contract before work started. It seemed I had no option but to allow wholesale destruction of many fittings to be replaced with the cheapest possible materials. 

@editor 

Not sure how to start a new thread or even follow established threads, sorry.

I joined the discussions to warn of the pitfalls that can happen with Eco4, not always but it seems quite often. 

Posted by: @dwynwen

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A paid for in person installation would be a mutual agreement between the contractor and customer. There would be discussions about costs, timing, type of installation and the final finish.

In my experience there is none of this with Eco4. As I have said I was told, bullied even, that I had no choices.

In other words beggars (the recipients of 'charity') can't be choosers. Not only is this morally unacceptable, it is a disaster for what we might call quality control. What should happen is the recipient becomes in loco parentis for the grant payer (who is ultimately the taxpayer, and no such actual person exists who can actually do what is needed). I am not a lawyer and I don't know the legal structure, but it seems to me the sensible contract arrangement is that the recipient acts 'as if' they had been the payer, ie they agree to have the work done, they agree the contract, the timing, the details etc and they also raise any objections when necessary, with every expectation things will be sorted out. Otherwise, the contractors have carte blanche to do as they wish, and unfortunately as they wish is all too often their very worst.

 Edit: two missing words ('me' and 'they') added where needed   

Posted by: @dwynwen

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Not sure how to start a new thread or even follow established threads, sorry.

I really appreciate the effort you’ve put into sharing this. Don’t worry about starting a new thread – just reply here with as much detail as you can about your experience, and I’ll use that to create a dedicated thread for your installation. Stories like yours, Lenny’s and JaynieQ’s genuinely infuriate me. This kind of behaviour is completely unacceptable, and I’ll be sharing these posts with the “powers that be” to make sure they’re aware of what’s going on.

@cathoderay 

Thank you.

You have described the situation far better than I could.

Think Eco4 is financed by energy companies' profits, buying carbon credits, so we are all  paying for it.

@dwynwen - thank you. It is racketeering and it does need to be called what it is.

@dwynwen not you that should be apologising !

You describe an appalling situation. I guess I have to consider myself VERY lucky ............ My ECO4 install followed all the guidelines and regulations and I was given (maybe demanded is closer to fact) choices.

I suspect the use of selected National main contractors and multiple subcontractors is the root cause, or enabler, that leads to hidden communications allowing you to end up in the situation you are.

Moving forward the important thing to you is to get the system you have working, assuming that just needs helpful information and guidance. If it needs more than that and your main contractor will not help I guess a call to the Regulator will be in order 🙄   

Posted by: @cathoderay

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but it seems to me the sensible contract arrangement is that the recipient acts 'as if' they had been the payer, ie they agree to have the work done, they agree the contract, the timing, the details etc and they also raise any objections when necessary, with every expectation things will be sorted out.

that was the position with my install. Maybe I was lucky but if what we see happening with the two posters in the Topic are "normal" something needs to change ! 

@lenny Thank you for reply.

I am waiting to see whether proposed remedial work happens.

Good you had choices and have a satisfactory installation.

When I objected to the siting of an extractor fan I was told by the project manager that unless I allowed the install he would stop the job so I suppose I did have choices. In fact, he did tell everyone to stop work until I agreed. Will always regret not calling his bluff.

My install was by LMF Energy Services 

Contact I had with them was always good BUT all the work was carried out by Subbies and as they were working for LMF i don't have any details of them, apart from the plumber who did the actual ASHP install. He is local to me and has been back a couple of times when requested (without charge).

I would have to admit there where times when the remoteness of "responsibility" was a bit worrying  but still I managed to retain enough control during  pre, actual and post install. One card that ECO4 customers have is that the contractor will not be paid until you do a final sign off of the job. LMF responded by sending subbies back for a couple of minor but still important things when I refused to sign 

@jaynieq Hi Jaynieq,

All the advice offered by JamesPa is, as per usual, spot on.

Unfortunately, ECO4 installations are frequently where we see homeowners having issues with their systems and installers not rectifying. This comes down mainly to the way funding is awarded to the installer but that is more of an industry gripe which I won't elaborate on further here... 🙂

As above, the Radbots are likely to be hammering the system efficiency as any form of TRVs do. They aren't suitable for use with a low temperature heating system (<45degrees C) as per their manufacturer's information.

The below info on Radbot operation is based on my best information from research and datasheets, but open to stand corrected.

Radbots generally assume a flow temperature from a high temp system like a boiler, as they don't measure flow temperature and instead rely on the relationship between the flow temp entering the heating system and the produced air temp in the room. With heat pumps, whilst this relationship is still valid, it is skewed as the flow temp produced by a HP is much less than a boiler when designed correctly. The radbots are assuming a higher flow temperature than you actually have.

How many thermostats do you have in your house, is it just the Vaillant controller?

Weather compensation should have been set up by default on your system but this is likely to even further interefere with the Radbots.

1. As a first step the Radbots should be removed and the heat pump allowed to dictate its own flow rates. You can remove the radbots by hand by unscrewing the bottom or unclipping it depending on the type. Make sure the heating system is off before doing this.

2. Let the HP run off the installed thermostats only, (hopefully not too many of them)! See how it performs.

3. If you could tell us the Current Flow Temperature leaving the heat pump (Installer Level, Access code 00, Heat Pump 1, Current Flow Temp) when the system is operating, that would be useful.

4. When you say you 'turned off' the hot water, was this via the Sensocomfort (black controller) or via a 'light switch' style switch? When you want HW from the tank, how are you triggering this? HW tank should never be allowed to cool firstly because it annihilates system efficiency and secondly because of legionella risk.

Let us know how you get on.

There's plenty more that can be investigated, but this is a good start point.

PS the arotherm plus is a fantastic system. I highly reccomend sticking with it, once it's functioning to your liking I'm sure you'll really enjoy it.

Rob at Cirrus Energy

Posted by: @dwynwen

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set 50.0, current 40.6. No idea what this means, be pleased if you could tell me

I suspect this is target dhw temperature and current dhw temp,erasure.