Air source heating

[poorman]

Nibe Fighter 2015 8kw
285 ltr tank
145 hot water
120 radiators
20 solar

8 radiators

Number of starts 10060

total running hrs 382

over 7 months

Opinions please

 

[eaton]

Couple of starts a day? Nothing wrong with that, what's the issue

 

[eaton]

Sorry did calc on hours, so it starts around 50 times a day?

Is that 20l dedicated solar coil, must be one small panel

 

[poorman]

Hi
The solar panel is 1.5m x 1m.

The tanks is made by Macdonald engineering and are specials for these 2 properties. These readings are from my neighbours house, we happened to be some of the last council tenants left in our village, myself for over 25ys, in a earlier post I asked much the same question as our own house had the same problem, it turned out to be a blocked input filter!, which the installer had put on the outlet instead of the inlet, my neighbours is in the correct position. I'm not to sure if air source is really cost effective being retro fitted into houses over 60yo.
I would have thought for the same price PV panels and storage heaters would have been better, less maintenance and no need to train council employees up for the AS & GS heating systems they have been fitting across the Highlands.
Still doesn't get away from the problems, the installers who have done very well out of the capital contract seem to be a bit reluctant to address the problem.

yes the starts are around 50 a day,

ASH manufacturer say that the parameters are wrong and that the system would benefit from buffer tank.

The house has a SMO5 and a danfoss tp5000si room senor in the hall which controls the house heating with the bedroom(3) having radiator control valves.

Our climate on the west coast is very variable, last week we had a night frost then couple of days where the temp never dropped below 12 deg. my understanding is that these systems work best in a climate that doesn't vary like ours.
My own readings work out at around 20 starts a day which nibe say is still high. but this may be skewed from the earlier problem we had.

 

[eaton]

shouldnt really be starting anymore than 5 max times a day. sounds like everything is set up wrong, 60s houses are fine for ashp but need insulation and double glazing as minimum, id expect rads to be upgraded but if not insulated from the start existing rads are sometimes big enough as once insulation and double glazing are added the heat loss of house is generally halved

 

[poorman]

Is 120 ltrs really enough for a heating system like this given it operates at a lower temp than oil/gas although it does have an immersion heater to back it up once it gets reallt cold.

 

[eaton]

I gather the 120l is a buffer tank for the heating which will be plenty

 

[poorman]

hi
yes it's 120ltrs, we are still awaiting the installers to address why there are so many starts and to swap the filter from the outlet to the inlet.
We will have to wait and see if this system is going to be any cheaper than the storage heaters it replaced, I personally think that PV panels would have been a cheaper option in the long run. I'll post what the installers come up with for the high start rate when they appear!