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It’s used as a volumiser I’m told in order to make sure there’s enough warm water available for use in the defrost cycle

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I must have had that for almost 15 years now! I hadn’t planned on reviewing it, it’s just one of those background items really where all of the network ports around my home terminate and I keep my switch, NAS and other network connected devices.

Yeah I know :) There's actually a hook on the wall behind where I'm supposed to hang it when not in use! I normally leave all three of the valves shut when not in use, but I had added a bit to the system just before filming and forgot to close them all due to being distracted :) All three valves currently off, but the hose is left there out of pure laziness.

So Octopus have a centralised design team who produce the system designs for the customers, rather than it being done by the installers. The approach from Octopus is a boiler-plate one, so they pick from a number of set designs and tweak slightly as needed. This helps them keep the costs down and customers (like me) end up with a good solution at a great price. But, of course, if you want something much more customised and perfect then a Heat Geek installation is the way to go, and you'll potentially pay the premium that might entail.

@@SpeakToTheGeekTech If you don't mind me asking, how much was the Octopus installation in the end? I'm curious, because they claim "from £500" but I've only heard of ~£5k kind of installed system costs to customer.

You're in the right ballpark but it's not that simple - mine was a reasonably large install and there are lots of other costs and things to consider. A very modern but small house with perfect pipework and radiators could easily fall into the £500 category, I have heard of a couple of quotes in that region. I made a video covering the full breakdown of costs for my installation: ruclips.net/video/Tc_5SlkNkik/видео.html

Maybe I’ll do that. It’s just a pain because it means I have to tidy the whole house and not just those small fixed areas I’m showing you in this one! Have a look at my Topdon video which does a bit of a walk around.

@@SpeakToTheGeekTech If it means tidying, then pics of the rads and plant rooms would do. I think I saw the topdon one. Be interesting to see if they hit the designed temp, or slightly over / under due to piping or other factors like leaky windows. Have you had to restrict the flow to ones where the rad was oversized? Or is it just working well because of the heat loss survey? Cheers.

I opted to upgrade the radiators in the bedrooms to larger ones which output more heat than their original design. I have therefore used the TRVs to restrict the output in those rooms a little bit but everywhere at least hits the design temp if not exceed it at times.

That is the referral code as I've used it for my install and they accepted it

They are expanding slowly across the UK. Speaking with someone from Octopus earlier this year, they tell me they are reluctant to do installs too far away from their support bases because they just can't offer the expected level of aftercare otherwise. The bigger they get, the wider they can spread themselves though so hopefully they'll reach Scotland eventually. I was one of the first installs in Wales and they tend to send engineers from Bristol.

Works pretty well though, but I’ll try splitting and see what happens thanks

I think the only way to solve the mystery is to open it up!

I’d need a bigger house to fit more panels on before a bigger inverter would be of any use!

@SpeakToTheGeekTech yeah it's understandable. We currently only maxing out at 19kw so we trying to get more solar so we can do the full 30kw we got of inverter luckily we don't currently have export restrictions in the United States

You don’t control individual room temps, the radiators are each sized to provide a particular temperature at a given design flow temperature based on the heat loss of the room. The skill of the system designer is far more important with a heat pump than with a gas boiler which is why you have to be so careful choosing an installation company. And the airing cupboard is half height, the floor is waist level! The tank is too physically tall to fit in there. Also you’re not allowed to fit water tanks above stairs anymore under building regs I’ve been told, although I’ve not seen that in writing anywhere.

Nice, you should have a more efficient system than mine with those wider bore pipes

@@SpeakToTheGeekTech Fingers crossed 🤞 I've gone crazy on insulating not only 300mm in the loft but also 140mm for the ground floor ceiling. House was constructed in the 50s so drafts were plenty. After the install we'll be working on an AC battery and triple glazing for ultimate energy efficiency.

Yeah, Octopus are targeting the easy-install majority and doing is exactly by-the-book. If you need more custom designed solutions then Heat Geeks are definitely the way forward. I hope you get it all sorted. Your hot water tank probably will need to be replaced unless you take a drop in capacity... and that might make it tricky to get the BUS grant.

Thanks Gary! I look forward to seeing your heat pump journey unfold on your channel :)

Glad I could help!

You should never think about it as breaking even, that's not what it's designed to do. If compared to gas, it's about cost comparative to run at standard rates. If you need to replace your heating system, put a heat pump in instead. If you want to reduce your carbon footprint, put a heat pump in instead. But if you want to save money, maybe invest in solar panels and a battery. A heat pump is for heating your home, not earning you a payback, it's the wrong way to look at it.

I take your point totally. Despite the fact that my house is thatched and therefore cannot take solar panels, through lateral thinking I have a lot of solar and batteries. At home I have 21 panels distributed around my property. At a separate off-grid location 1 mile from home I have another 66 panels feeding 52Ahr usable storage. On top of that I have two camping sized trailers each with 30Ah LFP batteries which take energy home. This all keeps two EVs and the house (minus heating) going for about 10 months of the year. At this time of year my electricity statements are about £17/​month of which £15 is the daily charge. My oil boiler is only 5 years old so no need for a change for at least a decade. It is just a shame that it is uneconomic and probably not green for me to change to a heat pump. @@SpeakToTheGeekTech

It is possible, but you shouldn't do that. You should size the radiator in that room in accordance with the heat loss for that room. Having an even temperature throughout your home is all about sizing the radiators correctly and making sure they are balanced properly.

A positive with a heat pump is that you don’t need any smart controls. As Oliver has commented, the system will (or should be) sized to match the heat output of your radiators to the heat loss in each room. If a specific room is getting a bit too warm then a standard TRV can be notched-down a little bit but, if the system is well designed then this shouldn’t be necessary. I believe they actually work best in more open-plan layouts as there won’t be got and cold spots as the temperature evens out. Watch some of the Heat Geeks videos for information on control and zoning (NOT!) Anyone want to buy a second hand Tado system with 9 radiator valve controllers?

System should be balanced so each room heats correctly using the lock shield valves on the radiators.

The braided hose is not supposed to be left in place, it's supposed to be taken off and left on a hook on the wall behind it when not in use and connected just for when you want to increase the pressure. But I'm lazy... and three separate valves would have to fail at the same time for it this to be a problem.

@@SpeakToTheGeekTech ta very much, I'll have to have a look for it!

Definitely going to be induction, but how long it will be until we replace it depends on the advertising revenue from this video :)

@@SpeakToTheGeekTech I have swapped my hob in advance of the heatpump install, when they have finished they can take the gas meter away :)

I replaced our gas hob with a Bosch 13A induction so just plug into a regular socket. It has 4 rings and we are a family of four. Works absolutely fine for our requirements. Side benefits are a completely flat surface and much better air quality.

@@snecklifter I have a 32a circuit for the cooker so I put in a full power hob as you're never likely to have all 4 hobs on full power and the oven at the same time

Yes, in isolation, but if it reduces heat pump cycling then that overall improves efficiency.

ESPAltherma only provides data, read-only, unless you start wiring in relays. I use ESPAltherma for data and the API for control.

That seems to be a common answer in the comments. I guess it’s possibly unused in my installation then

@SpeakToTheGeekTech when my 9kw was fitted by octopus the engineer said there was an air temp sensor on the back of the monoblock unit in a little plastic housing. As I'm using espaltherma, like you, i suggested they install the remote external one supplied (they werent intending to even though it was sent) ...so I persuaded them :) so I could get a more accurate reading out of the sun. It seems octopus send a load of standard kit to every job which may or may not get used. Then a trip to screwfix if they need extra stuff...Eg they didn't use the metal box isolator inside as they decided to put the proteus plastic breaker on the internal garage wall anyway as it was a back to back install...meaning tank was in garage directly adjacent to heatpump outside. I put a Shelly pro in with it too with breaker for better ashp and legionnaires tank power measurement for the espaltherma.

I tried contacting Nesta with a similar idea for those who want to learn more but don't really want to visit in person and this video is intended to get that ball rolling... they didn't reply :(

Why plastic pipes and not the longer lasting, stronger, less likely to leak copper pipes?

Internal diameter of plastic pipes is typically narrower than copper and when you add connections things get even worse

I hope it is, thanks for the feedback

Honestly I don’t think anyone really knows. It appears to be a leftover requirement in the MCS guidelines that Octopus have to adhere to in order to meet the criteria for the installation to qualify for the government grant. I imagine MCS will slowly evolve the requirements as best practice changes.

Probably the same reason a gas boiler is better on an EPC than a heat pump!! “Heating by electricity” was traditionally less efficient than heating by gas. TRVs are about saving waste by controlling the heating in different rooms but are not beneficial when using a heat pump.

You can't see in this video, but the tape used to hold the external insulation together had weathered and was no longer very adhesive. Octopus have since been back and sorted this using new extra-water-resistant tape. Still looks just as neat though.

@@SpeakToTheGeekTech Good to know, thank you. Just looks like standard black duct tape wrapped all round mine for now.

Is the little box your weather compensation sensor or external thermastat

If you have your gas meter removed, all standing charges also stop.

Yeah you will ruin your property value if you don’t maintain your electrical connection as reestablishing it later can cost thousands. Just export a bit of solar in the summer and it’ll cover the cost and in the winter it’s a pretty good value supply of last resort.

@@SpeakToTheGeekTech Just in case your 'all standing charges' gets misconstrued; all gas standing charges will stop if you remove the gas meter. You will still have to pay your electrical standing charge if you are electrically connected.

​It is very difficult to go totally off-grid in the middle of winter and for most people practically impossible if you have an EV and/or use a heat pump. It is just annoying that they have increased the daily charge so much.

It will be induction, but because I have an electric Rangemaster with gas hob built in, it'll be quite expensive to replace! Saving up though...

@@SpeakToTheGeekTech well I did contemplate converting my gas hob to run on the large 48kg bottled gas as. I reckon one of those would last a very long time for just cooking with. It would be an easy install for my hob too and could keep the bottle outside and secured. Then I don't have all my eggs in one basket sort of speak. Was just an idea though .

​@@jenksfzr600rnot a bad idea👍

Aha you are in a tricky situation of which tariff is best for the kit you have got! I think you will be fine - your peak rates are going to get used, but remember your heat pump will be at least 3 times as efficient as gas, if not more, meaning even at peak rates it will not cost you more to run. But you can boost your home off-peak and store heat in it like a battery. Tim from Tim & Kat made a video on this if you want the science behind it! (ruclips.net/video/q1tYCenxb2M/видео.htmlsi=dFqHtt0_s1rSTzwt ). If you really want to reduce your monthly bills though, a home battery is the only option. Charge it off-peak, your heat pump can use it during the day. This is what I do. I think you have the right tariff though overall especially because of the EV which I suspect will use a lot more energy than your heating.

I'm on IOG, have a 10kW ashp and 15kWh batteries. I managed last winter 99.7% on offpeak elec as I was "creative" in my timing for plugging the car in. I topped the batteries up midday most days. Working from home benefit 👍

It is important to remember as well that, whilst a gas boiler is typically turned off over night (unless it’s really cold), the heat pump tends to run 24 hours with, perhaps a setback of a couple of degrees. This means that the fabric of the house remains warm and the heat pump is just topping-up the heat that is lost. This is why the heat loss survey is so vitally important. Every room has a radiator that is sized to maintain the desired temperature by replacing just the heat lost to the outside. A temperature sensor in the house feeds back into the system but the external sensor is what does most of the work as the level of heating is set according to the outside temperature so that the heat lost is replaced. I think my surveyor was surprised by how much I knew but I do like to be informed!!

That video on the "thermal coasting" was very good, although this may not work with the Daikin as it does not come with individual room sensors to switch off the heating in the bedrooms overnight, but could work with the new Cosy 6. For it to be really worthwhile to get a heat pump and an EV at this stage, seems that either I should invest in a decent home battery such as the Tesla Powerwall 3, or Givenergy and make use of the overnight rates to charge up the battery, or Octopus are missing a more suitable tariff in their portfolio in-between Cosy and Intelligent Go aimed at both heat pump owners and EV users.

That could well be true! I'm just an end user not an expert in this so I can only go by what the heating gurus tell me. I think it must serve a number of purposes though.

Yes, it’s there to ensure there’s enough volume in the system for the defrost cycle. The defrost cycle takes hot water from inside and so if there’s not enough volume in the system, you end up in a “death spiral” where the defrost cycle robs heat from the house and yet still can’t quite get up to temperature. We have the same due to 10mm microbore upstairs and the UFH downstairs is sub-optimally spaced out. Also helps reduce cycling due to more volume of water in the system to deal with

I have ESPAltherma in there already, mentioned in a couple of other videos but I haven't made one specifically about it yet. I considered the Mixergy but I think for our household the extra expense and complication was just not worth it. Our hot water costs are basically a rounding error in the grand scheme of heating costs! The basic hot water tank works very well for us.

Yeah, the it made more sense when we thought we'd have gas got a long time. I don't blame you for keeping away. Mixergy recommended best usage is full the tank go 100% with a ashp

I rang Mixergy to ask for advice about fitting ASHP and I was told to keep hot water at 100%. I think you lose the functionality of the Mixergy tank.

@@SpeakToTheGeekTecha video on ESPAltherma would be welcome. We are getting the 4kW unit but I guess it will be the same.

I think the only solution here is for me to isolate the power and open that box up to have a look!

Everyone loves a mystery 😄

Frost stat?

That's what I thought! Except that I'm getting an accurate external temperature out of the system which I assume must be from a sensor in the heat pump itself which matches other external sensors I have nearby, and those doesn't match the temperature readings from sensors in the garage! I can only assume the sensor was wired up but disabled in the setup of the system or something if it is what you're suggesting! A bit of a puzzle

​​​@@SpeakToTheGeekTechI have a 7kW Daikin Altherma 2 which was installed by Octopus in June 22. I had an external sensor installed on a north facing wall of garage low down behind a fence to shade from any solar gain. The heat pump is west facing and at times when ambient is 17/18 and sun is out the temperature goes crazy up to 35⁰c etc. The setting to enable the external temperature sensor is part of the installer setup. The annoying thing is when I use Home Assistant integration for Daikin it only reports the temperature in heat pump. Fortunately having checked spot readings the system is using the external sensor and correctly adjusting flow temp . In Home assistant I plot the AccuWeather temperature. Hoping to install an open energy monitor system soon to complete my monitoring as energy readings can only be taken from my controller manually.

@@SpeakToTheGeekTech I assume your heatpump is north facing so is using its internal sensor , still weird that they then bothered to wire an external sensor in a garage then disable it. I would certainly query it with octopus to see was they say.

Could be for frost protection internally so that the internal pipework is protected, although I would have thought that there would be sensors on the pipework already and a sensor built into the MMI?

With my 10mm microbore system (which has wider feed pipes which the microbore branches off from) then yes, I absolutely feel I made the correct choice. If it had been summer and we were planning to do a massive redecoration of the house anyway then new pipes would have been a no-brainer. It really depends on your personal scenario but I don't reckon it was worth the extra cost and disruption in my case.

Thank you!

​@@SpeakToTheGeekTech my install has just been brought forward from mid December to mid October. Will see if they will let me use your referral code for the install.

​@@marklewisduncombe Nice! Should be a lot more comfortable for you without heating for a few days than having it done in December so that's a massive bonus for you. And I hope so with the referral code, all uses of it are very much appreciated thank you :)

Glad you think so!

That does happen sometimes but it’s still not massively noisy. No different to a hot water cycle. Only happens on some cold days when there’s a lot of moisture in the air. When humidity is low even when it’s minus outside I was surprised to see no frost on the heat exchanger.

You're best asking on the project's GitHub page. I don't actually use this component any more due to changing my car to a different brand.

I already replied with a solution under one of the previous comments: I found a solution for this. At 4:04 in the video, when "Success" appears, click on "Go to otp config" just below the "Success" caption. And then follow the instructions.

@@The_Prompt_Show Hello and thank you so much. Now it works fine. Have a nice WE

It’s possible to start and stop the charge and the project has examples on how to do that. It’s not possible to set the charge current though certainly on the PSA models I’ve seen

The time can be set manually (see my web site for the user guide), or if you have it connected to the app then it gets its time based on the time-zone you have configured for your user account in there. If it's an hour out and you've connected it to the app, you have probably set your time-zone wrong for your user account. www.speaktothegeek.co.uk/2023/02/wifi-electric-underfloor-heating-ketotek-smart-thermostat/

Basically it's the same with a different screen aspect ratio, but there are so many variations of each model that it's tricky to compare like for like.

All right I understand thanks for the quick answer

I got the same. Don't know how to resolve this.

I found a solution for this. At 4:04 in the video, when "Success" appears, click on "Go to otp config" just below the "Success" caption. And then follow the instructions.

Ha! Well of course, but sometimes you just don't want to be climbing a ladder because you recompiled the software on your ESP32 but accidentally disabled the Wifi library... so I decided to go off-the-shelf for this one. I am considering a home-made hedgehog house though.

Thank you so much!