Mick Wall

Hot Water Cylinder Sizing and Mixing | Energy Stats UK What size hot water cylinder should you get with your heat pump? And how mixing can help you get more usable hot water.

Yeah. I wrote an article on the site about water mixing and me having a blending valve on the cylinder.

energy-stats.uk/hot-water-cy...

The story of my #heatpump journey. Big thank you to all the bluesky folk who have helped on the way!

Immersion element? Legionella cycle? And perhaps the immersion is not being monitored by the electrical meter?

People of Bluesky!! How do you track your central heating, if you do? Spreadsheet and regular meter readings? Heat meters on your pipes? A smart meter? Anything more unusual?

PLEASE TELL ME! Working on a story about this.

In the main it's a combined figure. But many installs, including mine are now splitting off heating and DHW COP. Open energy Mon provides the hardware to track and record this and now also provides the functionality in the charts and the app.

Expert Heat Pump Customers - Mick Wall Interview - BetaTalk - The Renewable Energy and Low Carbon Heating Podcast Nathan interviews Mick Wall, a self-proclaimed 'heating nerd,' about his experiences with a heat pump expertly installed by Damon Blackmore, a renowned engineer. Mick's story, like those of Trystan an...

It happened, Nathan finally got me on the Beta Talk podcast.

“Don’t drink, don’t smoke, what do you do?”

betatalk.buzzsprout.com/509671/episo...

We spoke for ages about a load of stuff and mentioned a ton of people.

@octopus.energy @energystatsuk.bsky.social @openenergymon.bsky.social

Energy Stats Graph

Greener Nights/Mornings Score by Octopus Energy

Aimed to forecast how green the grid will over the coming nights

Could you delay your overnight usage until a greener morning?

For more information about Greener Days visit:
https://energy-stats.uk/octopus-greener-days/

Energy Stats Graph

National average pricing for Octopus Energy Agile Tariff: Sun 22-12-2024

Min: -1.5p (01:30)
Max: 31.4p (17:00)
Avg: 7.1p
Avg Excl Peak: 4.0p
Peak 4pm-7pm: 28.0p

Get graphs & pricing for all 14 UK regions at www.energy-stats.uk

Yesterday, Wed 18-12-24.

Wasted wind cost Britain: £12,614,972

£4,172,190 switching off wind turbines

£8,442,781 buying energy elsewhere

That's 84,887 MWh of green electrons: enough to power 2 Londons for a day.

Powered by: wastedwind.energy

Energy Stats Graph

National average pricing for Octopus Energy Tracker Tariff (SILVER-24-10-01)

Recent Pricing
Thu 19 Dec, Elec:20.39p, Gas:5.76p
Wed 18 Dec, Elec:20.0p, Gas:5.79p
Tue 17 Dec, Elec:23.02p, Gas:5.7p

Get graphs & pricing for all 14 UK regions at www.energy-stats.uk

Yesterday (Tue 17/12/2024).

Wasted wind cost Britain: £6,733,406

£1,707,773 switching off wind turbines

£5,025,632 buying energy elsewhere

That's 45,428 MWh of green electrons: enough to power London for a day.

Powered by: wastedwind.energy

Energy Stats Graph

Greener Nights/Mornings Score by Octopus Energy

Aimed to forecast how green the grid will over the coming nights

Could you delay your overnight usage until a greener morning?

For more information about Greener Days visit:
https://energy-stats.uk/octopus-greener-days/

Arotherm Plus Hot Water Modes | Energy Stats UK This article explains the 3 DHW (direct hot water) modes on the Arotherm Plus heat pump; Eco, Balance and Normal. And why you'd choose one over the other.

Was wondering why my DHW COP was so poor on @openenergymon.bsky.social but thanks to @zarch1972.bsky.social excellent blog - energy-stats.uk/arotherm-plu... - I realised I've been running it on normal as opposed to Eco. Will be interested to see what difference it makes. emoncms.org/app/view?nam...

Energy Stats Graph

National average pricing for Octopus Energy Agile Tariff: Mon 16-12-2024

Min: -0.6p (05:00)
Max: 38.1p (16:30)
Avg: 16.5p
Avg Excl Peak: 13.5p
Peak 4pm-7pm: 36.0p

Get graphs & pricing for all 14 UK regions at www.energy-stats.uk

Energy Stats Graph

Greener Nights/Mornings Score by Octopus Energy

Aimed to forecast how green the grid will over the coming nights

Could you delay your overnight usage until a greener morning?

For more information about Greener Days visit:
https://energy-stats.uk/octopus-greener-days/

I have been thinking of an "Arotherm Basics" blog article. Will add it to the to-do list.

But really the installer should know everything I've passed on. But didn't? 🤷🏼‍♂️

Does the homeowner need to know every technical detail like this if installer did their job and handover?

Second Winter With Our Vaillant ASHP | Energy Stats UK More lessons learnt from the second winter with our 5kW Vaillant Arotherm heat pump and Mixergy water cylinder.

You need to leave the system as open as possible. The more water in the system, the better the heat pump will run.

I went through this in my first winter and second winter. I wrote about automated TRV in this article.

energy-stats.uk/second-winte...

I have since ditched TRV entirely.

Head over to heatpumpmonitor.org?period=last3...

Loads of Vaillants being monitored over there.

Most getting COP 4 to 5+ in the past 30 days.

So i'd say 2 to 2.5 is very poor!!

Yes, it's a bit of a dark art.

Although weirdly, if you have the eBus controller, you can poke half settings into the WC setting.

Like 0.475

It does this because it can fall on half settings as part of auto adaptive WC setting.

Heat loss calcs in the main are oversized.
So whilst curve 1.0 in the book would be about right for 19.5C indoors (50C at -3), i'd start lower.

It's the old Heat Geek trick. Keep dropping the curve until you get cold. Then knock it back up one.

Inactive is purely weather comp

Active is WC with some room influence (I use this, i find it best)

Expanded works like Active but then also turns the heat pump on and off. I don't like this. More like a boiler control.

Final few questions for now.

What was the calculated heat loss of the house?
What did they say the design temperature was? ie 45C at -3C or similar?

Is the system 'open loop' (good) or do you have zones that switch on and off (bad, especially with third party stats/controls)

How to Measure Vaillant Arotherm COP How to measure the COP on a Vaillant Arotherm Plus Heat Pump. Detailed instructions to see how well your Arotherm heat pump is working.

You can also find the COP from the heat pump controller, it's called Working Figure on there.

You can get separate readings for heating and DHW.

energy-stats.uk/how-to-measu...

Vaillant Arotherm Weather Curve Information | Energy Stats UK Vaillant Arotherm Weather Curve Information. How to read the graphs and how set your heat pump up correctly. With tables and charts.

That chart is from this article about Weather Comp Curves.

energy-stats.uk/vaillant-aro...

Do you have an outside temperature sensor?
Where is your internal sensocomfort located?
What Room Temp Mod setting are you on? (Inactive, active or enhanced?)
1.2 is pretty high. 0.7 seems better.
The Max setting is only a limiter. The weather curve will choose flow temp based on outside temp.

The Tracker tariff rollercoaster. 🎢

Swings and roundabouts. All the real gains come from the cold bits at the starts. It tapers off as you get at the hot end. I probably need to do a @openenergymon.bsky.social deep dive to higher temps. 🤣

what make and model is it? Are you running it on weather compensation? If Vaillant what curve setting?

Where are you getting the COP from? Is the 2.2 heating, DHW or combined?

I spy with my little eye 22:30. 👀

Looks like it might be worth hanging off a day with any big charging? 🚗

Yeah. I was expecting more of a difference. Perhaps I need to do a year long deep dive into the data. 🤣

On these figures it's a no brainer to choose price over COP if you're after the cheapest regime.

Those chasing #topofthescops stick to afternoons. 😉