Electrical & Security

Honda EU22i Generator for home backup power

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Updated 29 December 2024

Table Of Contents
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Link to mobile inlet protection version

link to original power transfer/backup blog

We recently had a 4 hour power outage due to a blown street joint and found out I could now hardly lift my existing generator, so it was time for a rethink.

My previous blog covers the internal transfer switch enabling my consumer unit to be safely switched from utility power to local generation, that bit of the system has not been altered.

This blog covers the Honda EU22i generator, house inlet and circuit protection.

Generator

EU22i ManualDownload

I gave some thought to the replacement of my old open frame generator, and the following points were key for me (in no order):

  • Reliability
  • Manageable weight
  • Low running noise
  • 100% Sine Wave
  • Min 1800w output
  • Machine history
  • Cost
  • Serviceability

Although expensive, the EU22i met my requirements and was purchased from a local Honda approved dealer which increases my confidence in aftercare.

In case of extended running being required, I bought from eBay an additional external petrol tank and petrol lines for this reason.

Generator External Inlet Build

Construction was very straightforward, I start by making a dimensioned drawing using Visio of the enclosure and all parts to be used, this allows me to play about with the layout and finally print the front label which I use as a cutting template for the any holes required.

The parts were relatively inexpensive apart from the hour meter which functionally wasn’t required but is a ‘nice to have’ to monitor the generators onload usage to the house.

House Connection

The original connection from the generator to the transfer switch has been removed and replaced with one containing a voltage and current protector, a 30mA RCCD and an hour meter to monitor time off grid.

The above image shows the standby generator inlet powered externally from the EU22i without any load, the voltage and current protector GPS8-02), is displaying the actual generator voltage of 244v AC, the voltage and current protectors internal contactor will disconnect if any of the follow occur:

  • Voltage out of 210v – 252v range
  • Current over 7.5A

The Red LED indicator illuminates when the generator is running with the RCCD ON and controllers output is within the set parameters.

GPS8-02 Instruction ManualDownload

Image of power transfer switch below the consumer unit in the garage, below is an image of the consumer unit RCBO descriptive labels which are either Red or Green, if RED, then they must be turned OFF in advance of the generator power being switched over with only the GREEN left ON.

Electrical Connection Overview

First thing to note is that the generator is separated from the Utility power system by a ‘break before make’ switch, specifically designed for the purpose of external network protection, with this arrangement it is not possible to ‘back feed’ into the network and possibly cause injury to downstream workers.

The house supply is TN-C-S or PME, I had previously installed an Earth Rod for two reasons, the first was to remove reliance on the DNO protective conductor being the single point of failure and the second was to ‘Ground’ the otherwise ‘floating neutral’ of the legacy open frame generator in order for the RCDs to operate.

I wanted to retain the neutral – earth bond on my new Honda generator and so I contacted Honda Directly for the information.

NOTE: Earthing is the biggest area of debate regarding home generators, please do your own research on this complex area.

Honda Position on a Bonded Neutral

After many frustrating phone calls and emails both to Honda UK and my Honda dealer regarding conversion from a floating earth to a bonded neutral – earth on my EU22i generator, I was told the information I required was in the Service and Warranty Book which I don’t have, anyway below is the relevant information:

In light of the above information I bought a red plugtop and internally linked the Earth and Neutral together which I will plug in one of the generators outlet sockets whilst using the other socket to feed the transfer switch.

My Initial Concern Over a Bonded Neutral

I have retained this section for information only to show my thought process and rational for not simply jumping in and bonding the Earth to Neutral with the consequential risk of costly damage.

The above is the wiring schematic of the Honda EU22i with the addition of voltage measurements I have taken and a guide image inlay of a split load transformer.

I wanted to establish if the generators chassis ground screw was connected to anything other than the chassis, ideally I was looking to see if the neutral and chassis were directly connected, this would give me a fixed reference voltage and replicate my existing incoming electrical supply configuration.

Results:

  • Socket earth pin to chassis ground screw – Continuity and 0v AC
  • Socket live pin to chassis ground screw – 120 v AC
  • Socket neutral pin to chassis ground screw – 120v AC
  • Socket live to neutral – 244v AC

Conclusion before Honda clarification

The generators inverter output is split phase, effectively two live conductors when measured to the chassis, therefore, bonding the neutral to the chassis would cause a direct short circuit of one half of the inverters output and I’m assuming ‘magic smoke’ would soon follow.

In light of this, I have made no modifications to the generators output (no N-E plugs etc) and instead opted to earth the generator to the house earth via the plug and add a global 30mA RCCD on the generators output.

The consumer unit does have RCBO’s, but I’m not bothered by selectivity of device operation in an outage, overcurrent again will be globally managed by the GPS8-02.

12v DC

I don’t envisage using the generators 12v DC output, however, I did measure the voltage and though I’d share the results:

  • Eco Mode – no load voltage = 16v DC
  • Eco Mode – across 21w load = 11.2v DC
  • Non Eco Mode – no load voltage = 33v DC
  • Non Eco Mode – across 21w load = 16.7v DC

Just one to note!

MkII Inlet Version

A family member asked me to build generator and load protection for his home setup, so I tweaked my static version for portable use and have done a write up on it should I need to make more.

As you can see, this version is fully portable and can be connected inline either at the generator or the load end, also it has a rating of IP65 offering a level of protection water ingress.

The clear lift up flap allows the status of the device to be observed without exposing the internals to moisture.

Construction was straightforward, the most time on the build was spent waiting for some of the parts to arrive from Aliexpress.

Pleased with the finished unit and wish I’d done something similar for mine 🙂

SES-16 Instruction Manual & Build InfoDownload

Tacho/Hours Run/Service Reminder Gadget

Bought this from Aliexpress for £9.99, I could have got a cheaper one but this uses a replaceable battery whereas some of the less expensive ones don’t.

Installation was very easy using a supplied self-adhesive pad to adhere the meter and I routed the sensor wire which wraps around the spark plug lead 5 times through the generators front vent so as not to make any holes in the generators casing which may invalidate the warranty.

The next part was to check and adjust the settings on the meter, pressing and holding the ‘M’ button enables you to scroll through the menus and make changes.

The main setting was the engine type, I originally had this set as being a 4 Stroke single cylinder (45 1c) engine but the meter displayed over 7000 RPM on engine idling which seemed way out.

Asking on the Facebook ‘Honda Owners Generator’ group about this, they kindly educated me that the Honda generator uses a ‘wasted spark’ system which I had not heard of before, and the answer was to change the meter engine settings to a 2 Stroke single cylinder (25 1c) basically halving the reading due to two sparks being generated on each revolution of the crankshaft.

After doing this, the generator idling, the RPM shows 3970 and in ‘Eco’ mode, the revs drop to 2830.

For me the main purpose of the meter is to monitor hours running and service timer, however, it’s nice to have a RPM indication.

tach/hour/svc meter instructionsDownload

What is a Wasted Spark?

Google was my friend as I’m not a mechanic, so put simply, with a wasted spark system, a spark is generated on every rotation of the crankshaft even though a spark is only required when the fuel/air mix is at the top of the compression cycle in order to combust the mixture with the resultant expansion of hot gasses pushing the piston down.

Any other spark is wasted.

  • 1 – Fuel/Air mixture drawn into combustion chamber,
  • 2 – Piston compresses fuel/air mix and SPARK,
  • 3 – Expanding gasses push the piston down,
  • 4 – Piston pushes exhaust out of the cylinder and a wasted spark is sent to the spark plug.

DIY, Electronics

Citroen C1 Dashboard Indicator Not Working

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Apparently this is a common problem with Citroen C1 where the indicators work, but the dashboard turn lights either do not work or become intermittent.

Like most people I went onto YouTube and the issue pointed to the steering wheel stalk switch which I duly bought from eBay, and after watching more videos on how to change this, I was very please with my efforts until I tested it and the issue was exactly the same!

How to Diagnoise

  1. Do both dashboard indicators come on when the Hazard Warning button is pressed and are they both stable when lit.
  2. If the dashboard lights are OK with the hazards but ‘flakey’ with the indicator switch, the problem is the steering wheel stalk and a replacement is about £18 and you will need a pair of bent long nose pliers.

Their are loads of YouTube videos on how to change the column switch and watched this excellent explanation: https://youtu.be/H3MQ8Ixwxow?si=G4r32EeSE6jmonJg

3. If the dashboard turn lights do not light at all or flicker or go very dim, this means the LED in the display cluster has failed or is failing, this was the case with me.

Instruction on stripping down the dashboard and changing the LED is here: https://youtu.be/vcVhkZm-138?si=Tqc9dxZNZn5V3RX5

Repair

The red circle shows the LED which has failed for the Right Indicator, the LED type is a surface mounted 1210 GREEN colour, (I swopped out the left LED while I was at it).

I bought 10 LEDS from eBay for less than £2, I bought super bright LEDs by mistake, should have got normal brightness, not a big problem but it would have been better on the eyes at night with less bright ones.

In preparation for changing them I also bought a 15w soldering iron with a fine pointed tip as these LEDs are tiny.

I already had a de-soldering suction iron from Aliexpress which worked brilliantly to unsolder the dashboard display to get to this point.

The LED is sat on top of a small screw and I found it a bit of a struggle as I didn’t realize how much my hand shakes, but managed it in the end 🙂

Everything worked fine when I plugged everything back together, BUT I made a mistake when I refitted the speedometer pointer, this meant removing the clear cover and pointer, turning the ignition ON, then pushing the pointer on the spindle at the zero MPH mark, I must have moved the spindle and after putting the pointer on, the servo speed motor couldn’t calibrate as it was hitting the milometer reset button.

This was an easy fix, but still a pain to do after I had though everything was working.

Hope this helps somebody else.

IT & Networks

Home Assistant – Journey Start

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Updated 24 December 2024

Home Assistant is a free Open Source device integration platform enabling a wide range of sensors and automations to make life that bit more smart and enabling data to be displayed in a way that suits you.

I’m a late starter with Home Assistant and after watching loads of YouTube videos’ I bought the bits in February 24.

Home Assistant PartsDownload

I must make it clear to start with, I’m a novice and not a programmer all my information comes from forums and YouTube.

The image above is the brains of Home Assistant and as you can see it is very compact, the enclosure houses a Raspberry Pi4B and fan, beneath the unit is an external SSD Hard Drive.

Home Assistant is powered by a PoE adapter, to the right of the picture you can see a Conbee II Zigbee Gateway used to receive data from wireless devices.

How do I use it?

Home Assistant is so incredibly adaptable, only your imagination is the constraint, my needs are a lot simpler and I wouldn’t know how to do half of the stuff its capable of 🙂

My main use is data collection to allow me to monitor performance after that I have a few alerts set up and linked automations.

The above is a portion of my main dashboard which is accessible anywhere on my home network, it is also available to me via the internet by subscribing to an inexpensive service.

From this one dashboard I can monitor a large number of variables to builds trends and performance management also there are of automations, the obvious one is for Octopus Free Energy, once a period of free energy is known and its duration, I enable the automation and a number of power hungry devices automatically turn on for the duration to make best use of the power, items turned on are the Immersion Heater, tumble dryer and underfloor heating, but it could be anything with a Home Assistant linked device.

A less obvious automation is based on Mains Water Pressure as where I live the water pressure can drop very low, so being alerted to this is very useful.

The automation is set so that if the water pressure drops to less than 1 bar for 1 minute, my mobile phone is sent a notification, I also get similar phone notifications if my leak detectors trigger, (Kitchen, Boiler and Irrigation System enclosure).

This is just a small introduction as to what Home Assistant can do, go enjoy!

Disaster!

18 October 2024 – A local underground joint failed causing a 4 hour power outage, on restoration of supply a number of Shelly devices blew there surge protection and rendered them no longer serviceable, (I did try and change the Varistor and fuse link but still U/S).

Process now ongoing to replace them and fit RC Snubbers to inductive loads in case this was a cause for at least one of the Shelly’s to fail, the one below was connected to the 1kW pump for my irrigation system, (all connections were tight).

November 2024 – All damaged Shelly devices now replaced, while I was ordering a Shelly EM I bought an additional 50A CT to supplement the CT I already had, however, the new CT channel read really low.

I raised a service ticket with Shelly Support and they were superb, guiding me through the diagnostic process culminating in a free part including postage being sent out to me.

The above rig has both CT’s measuring the same load resistive load of the kettle, the faulty CT was measuring 6.7w whist the other was reading 2.17kW, you guess which was faulty 🙂

Pyronix Alarm link to HA via Shelly i4DC

So as not to mislead anyone, this is a simple hardwired interface enabling selected Pyronix Euro46 output states to be displayed on Home Assistant.

On my home alarm system I have a Euro-OEM8r8c output node which has 8 relay and 8 transistorized outputs, I wanted Home Assistant to display when certain areas of the alarm were set and also the status of my water softeners salt level.

The positive and negative transistorised output on the node both had a voltage on them, therefore I used an Optocoupler to isolate this from the Shelly i4DC.

The Shelly i4DC was the perfect addition to allow this interface, I programmed the output nodes with the appropriate ‘Follow me’ trigger and this enabled the switching of the Shelly inputs via the optocoupler.

Change Locked/Unlocked to Set Unset

In Home Assistant Entities, I created a Sensor Template and used the code below, this allows the state description to match the alarms area status of the alarm.

Parts Used and DiagramDownload

DIY

Convert manual lever valve to automatically close when a water leak is detected

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Updated 27 August 2024

I have an irrigation system with a water break-tank containing ~ 400 litres which is used to supply an unattended pump, the problem I needed to solve was what if there is a leak or burst in the pump enclosure, I don’t want the tank to empty.

The break-tank does have a base valve and I saw on Aliexpress that they did 12v clamp on motorised heads which can convert a manual lever valve into an automatic valve, enabling both electrically operated, opening and closing, these cost £10.42 including VAT and postage I thought I’d give one a go and ordered the 3/4″ clamp version.

When the unit arrived, it became obvious that it physically wouldn’t fit on the base valve, so I bought a 22mm full bore lever valve, (Toolstation part 92144), and fitted this upstream of the base valve giving plenty of room for the head to mount.

Fitting of the head is very easy with a clamp being used around the pipe to hold it in place and the moveable arm has adjustable pins for accurate lever alignment.

On the base of the head is a ‘ring pull’, pulling this disengages the motor enabling manual operation of the valve.

The video is a bit rough as this was the first actual test after building the control system and triggering the valve using a licked finger on the sensor.

The motorised head has no positional output, once power is applied, it will drive 90o in one direction and stop, reversing the motors polarity, will cause the motor the drive 90o in the opposite direction and stop, all very simple.

Home Assistant monitors my irrigation system, so it was a logical step to include the leak detection system into that, however, it will run without Home Assistant from the Shelly App.

The Shelly Uni has two outputs and two inputs, each of the outputs was used to trigger a relay for valve open and valve close.

One of the inputs was connected to a probe with separated contacts, if the contacts are bridged (wet finger), the Shelly detects this which was perfect, the other input I used with a reed switch so that I could open and reset the valve with a magnet, I chose this way so that I didn’t have to drill the IP rated enclosure, (Toolstation part 91800, 80 x 80 x 50mm), the circuit board will live in.

The above image is of the test leds simulating the motor polarity with the finished circuit inside a IP65 rated enclosure.

Finished water leak protection valve wired up to relays within IP rated enclosure.

12v from PSU to Shelly and relays from motor control box, in the top right you can see the white water leak sensor.

The Shelly Uni has a timed output facility, also the inputs can be linked to the outputs, this means that if the leak sensor detects, the associated output will operate for a preset time, in my case I used 10 seconds for both open and close duration.

Below is my Home Assistant irrigation status dashboard this shows the status of the leak detection sensor and the valve position, (done by virtual entity toggling status, rather than valve feedback).

When a leak is detected in the pump enclosure, the break-tank base valve will close and at the same time, the pump contactor will be interlocked to prevent operation.

An automation linked to my local calendar, will ‘exercise’ the base valve to close, then open, monthly, this automation will be overridden if the irrigation system is in use or a leak has already been detected.

I can either manually trigger the valve to open by offering a magnet to the side of the control box, or use Home Assistant, once the valve is triggered to open, the interlock comes off the pump contactor.

I have also set up Home Assistant to send a notification to my mobile should a leak be detected not only from the pump enclosure, but from a wireless leak detectors placed by my heating boiler and washing machine.

The mobile alert action below is for the pump enclosure and is triggered when the valve closes on water detection:

General

Reversing Manrose Extractor Fan Motor

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I have a small room with an IT rack which gets quite warm, I do have internal cabinet fans and a room ceiling extract fan, but I wanted to pull cooler air from outside into the space to create a crude forced ventilation system.

I already had a 4″ duct to the outside and didn’t want to start making the hole bigger, so I wanted to get a fan of this size.

Struggling to find a 4″ reversible extraction fan, I decided the cheapest option would be to modify a traditional extractor fan to blow rather than suck.

The model of Manrose fan modified is 17122-0001 and was bought from Screwfix.

Motor Reversal Process

The motor in these fans is a shaded pole induction type with a fixed direction of rotation which cannot be altered electrically, the only way is to dissemble to motor and rotate the internals by 180o degrees and reassemble.

First job is to remove the spring clip from the fan blade and slide off the motor shaft.

Turning the fan over, remove the black wires from the connections, then pop out the two screw covers and remove the Philips screws to release the motor.

The motor will now come away from the fan body.

The motor will need to be physically altered in order for it to rotate in the opposite direction, enabling air to be be drawn in rather than exhausted.

This involves drilling out the end plate rivets at both ends and swopping the bearing plates around, effectively the motor shaft will end up on the right rather than that shown in the unmodified picture above.

Securing the motor body in the vice and using a 6mm drill bit, drill the rivet lip off at both ends, this allows both bearing plates to come off, I needed to gently pry these off the rivets using a small screwdriver.

The longer fan shaft has indentations, so will not slide out of the bearing plate.

Change the ends where the bearing plates were and using 2 x M3 machine screws and nuts, reattach them to the body of the motor.

Once done, reassemble the motor into the body, connect and test.

Conclusion

The task was fairly simply to do and took no more than 10 minutes with the end result of a working intake fan.

Obviously this will invalidate any warranty, so undertake at your own risk 🙂

Plumbing & Heating

BK-G4M Gas Meter – Home Assistant

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Updated – 12May 2024

I wanted to measure the volume of gas taken by my Ideal Vogue 18kW boiler in order to convert this to input energy in kW and therefore determine if the boilers displayed efficiency is accurate.

I decided to get a secondary gas meter fitted inline with the gas feed to the boiler, the meter was a BK-G4M from HERE.

The meter comes with a prewired switch assembly to count the number of 1/100 of m3 wheel rotations:

pulse meter

I’m a complete novice when it comes to Home Assistant and rely wholly on YouTube, community forums and search engines for information, and I would like to pass my sincere thanks onto all content creators who help folks like me.

I used a ESP8266 flashed from within Home Assistant with the coding configuration to enable the meters switch to increment the displayed gas reading on the dashboard of Home Assistant.

Current code used below:

esp8266-gasDownload

The above code gives a stable output to Home Assistant with no creep over time 🙂

Once the data is being imported into Home Assistant you can manipulate in many ways:

ESP8266 mounted on breakout board from Aliexpress, the other items within the enclosure are an M-Bus reader and Open Energy Monitor Pi for my heat meter.

Links to Sources –

Plumbing & Heating

Ideal Vogue 18kW System Boiler – Monitoring, Controls, Weather Compensation and Boiler Performance

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This information will be updated regularly, last updated 22 December 2024

Work in Progress

Monitoring

I’m using a combination of Open Energy Monitor and Home Assistant to display and record my heating’s data.

The above graph consolidates my boilers data to give an overall efficiency and is linked to my configuration on emoncms.org.

The Open Energy project is primarily focused on monitoring to get the best Coefficient of Performance (COP) out of your system, this is more applicable to Heat Pumps which can have efficiencies of over 500% rather than Gas Boilers which will never be 100% efficient, however, its good to know how its performing and if I can improve.

The feed data used to compile and compute the overall efficiency:

  • Outside temperature
  • Room temperature
  • Target temperature
  • Boiler actual power usage
  • Boiler cumulative power usage
  • Gas actual usage
  • Central heating – on or off
  • Domestic hot water – on or off
    • Heatmeter
      • – Cumulative energy
        • – Return temperature
          • – Flow temperature
            • – Power
              • – Flow rate

My Controls

I use HIVE to schedule my heating and hot water, all radiators have independently controlled HIVE Thermostatic Radiator Valves (TRVs).

The current setup is that all the radiator TRVs are set to 23oC for temperature overshoot prevention and the Hall wall mounted thermostat is set to 21.5oC to control the on/off signal to the boiler.

The idea of this configuration is to keep the house at a comfortable ambient temperature using a low boiler temperature flow to the radiators, these radiators have been sized to map the rooms heat losses.

I still have some work with regards to radiator balancing and tweaking the flow temperature.

Domestic hot water recharge flow temperature is independent from the heating, referred to as Priority Domestic Hot Water (PDHW) and will have a flow temperature of 80oC, during this time the flow to the radiators will be off.

The CIBSE domestic heating design guide for room temperatures was followed, however, as no ground floor door is closed and we don’t have a door closed to the stairs, heat certainly rises and room temperature overshoot is inevitable.

An Opentherm hall thermostat would possibly reduce temperature overshoot, but if I can strike the correct balance with flow temperature and weather compensation slope settings, I should be near enough.

One thing to be careful of with low flow temperature radiators, is that there is no sudden rush of heat, its all very steady to match the room losses, if the room is cold, it will take time to warm up, so best keep it at a reasonable set-back temperature when the system is off.

A set-back temperature is a point at which the heating will resume even though it is outside of the programmed heat schedule, in my case 17oC.

Weather Compensation

Very early days yet and I’m trying to get to grips with the weather compensation slope to give me the most efficient return.

My slope settings vary between 12 and 13:

The efficiency of this is:

I have made some minor adjustments to my Hive schedule, implementing a 16oC Setback temperature rather than the 10oC previously used, the strategy behind this is using the house as a thermal store, and that is should use less gas overall raising the house temperature by a relatively small amount when demanded.

16 October 2023

The heating is on in earnest now as the temperatures are dropping, so I revisited the weather compensation slope information, necessitating a call to Ideal Technical to clarify slope settings.

The graph above is within the documentation of the external weather compensation sensor and I was trying to figure out which slope to use with my system design of 55oC flow temperature when the outside temperature was -3oC.

I was overthinking it, simply the slope at which my setting intersect is the number that needs setting and I have modified the graph to make this easier for others to follow.

Slope 16 set, as the house no longer uses a thermostat, instead relying on the boilers weather compensated flow temperature to radiators to modulate according to the return temperature.

The flow temperature is based on a boilers room temperature setting which I have set at 21oC.

The key thing is that each rooms radiator is sized correctly to match its losses based on the heat loss calculation, if I have this wrong, then the room will either not reach temperature or be too hot.

Hive radiator TRVs have been set to 24oC as room overheat control and the Hall thermostat also is set to 24oC as protection.

Test 1 Result – With the settings above the average room temp went to over 22oC whilst upstairs, some of the TRVs which were set at 24oC, closed, the outside temperature was 9oC.

I will repeat this before adjusting further.

5 December 23, We have had below zero temperatures so this has been the ideal time to calibrate the weather compensation Slope curve and room temperature control.

The above display is the designed boiler flow temperature at -3oC, the Slope curve was 15:

The room temperature control was set to 20oC:

Ironically the displayed room temperature doesn’t mean that! What it means is a flow temperature adjustment band within the selected Slope curve, for example:

  • Room Temperature Control 21oC =57oC flow temperature at -3oC
  • Room Temperature Control 20oC =55oC flow temperature at -3oC
  • Room Temperature Control 19oC =53oC flow temperature at -3oC
  • Room Temperature Control 18oC =51oC flow temperature at -3oC

As stated earlier, my design flow is 55oC @ -3oC, the overall heat loss at -3oC is calculated at 7890 Watts/Hr, the total heat emitted by the radiators at 55oC is calculated at 8862 Watts/Hr.

My initial thoughts were ‘Open Loop’ control, i.e. letting the boilers flow temperature, based on the Slope Curve, balance house losses by adjusting the flow temperature, I’m having difficulty with this for two reasons;

The first is that the heat output of the radiators has to exceed house losses, otherwise it would never get warm 🙂 but this means that without any form of ‘internal temperature feedback, the house temperature overshoots and continues to rise,

The second issue is the Slope Curve, if I adjust the room temperature control flow temperature to closer match house losses when the house is at temperature, means that it will take ages to warm up.

The upshot of this is that I have reverted back to control using Hive and the ‘Heat on Demand’ (HOD) function which was the system I used before the boiler upgrade.

I have Hive TRVs on all radiators, the HOD function allows individual room temperature control, and rather than heat the whole house with ‘Open Loop’, enables me to have time and temperature based heating patterns based on the use of the room.

Still playing, so keep checking in.

21 January 2024

Yet more tweaking with the weather compensation slope and associated boiler room temperature control whilst the weather is still cold, the settings which seem to work well with increasing efficiency are a Slope of 13 and room temperature of 19oC:

Updates

4 May 23 – Boiler registration and Gas Safe certificate arrived from Ideal Heating.

6 May 23 – On going historic Gas kW usage graph in order to monitor the new boilers performance, new boiler installed part way through the period apr-apr 23.

Note 1: – Gas consumption is due to heating water in the unvented cylinder, in September 23 Octopus Energy introduced periods of free electricity, therefore, hot water is heated by the immersion heater and not gas, hence the reduction in consumption for this.

Plumbing & Heating

Adding Sulphidation Filter to Gas Boiler

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8 August 2023

sulphidation filter and iso valve

I was reading about boilers gas valves being blocked with a black dust called Copper Sulphide (Cu2S), although I have not experienced this with my previous boiler, I thought as my boiler is new, now is the perfect time to get a Sulphidation filter installed, this was installed close as possible to the boilers gas inlet valve, the filter was a 3/4″ bore version purchased from BES.

The filter simply comprises of a brass body containing a 50 micron (300 mesh) stainless steel sieve which enables gas to flow, but captures particulates larger than the sieve size.

The body of the filter can be separated to clean the sieve, the sealing ‘O’ ring is made from Nitrile Rubber and is a type BS215 ‘O’ ring.

The Sulphidation process can not be stopped as natural gas contains varying amounts of Hydrogen Sulphide (H2S) as this reacts with the Copper (Cu) pipe, (iron pipes are also affected as a point of interest), as the reaction is within the pipe, the filter must be close to the appliance.

A filter downstream of the appliance, for example directly after the gas meter, will be ineffective.

TB-0105 (Ireland Publication)Download
Gas Engineer Article on this subjectDownload
BS-6891-2015 (see page 87) Gas PipeworkDownload

sulphidation filter installed

Installed Sulphidation filter directly below the gas inlet valve to the boiler, a butterfly, full bore, gas isolation valve was also fitted for future filter maintenance.

Hopefully this additional step will reduce the likelihood of premature boiler failure.

IT & Networks

You (formally Youfibre) Installation

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Link – Blog on Chatteris Netomnia infrastructure

Link – Blog on Openreach installing TalkTalk Fibre

I have blogged extensively on Netomnia coming to my home town HERE, and I didn’t take up the service earlier for various reasons, however, my TalkTalk email account was hacked and I needed to rapidly distance myself from it, so better late than never, here we go!

NOTE – Use this code for cash back on the referral scheme http://aklam.io/yf9oO1

Process

First job for me was to cancel my contract with TalkTalk, I was contracted until August 2024 after taking their fibre upgrade, so this cost £90.54 penalty for early cancellation.

Due to my hacked TalkTalk email being used for fraudulent activities, this is a cost I was prepared to pay in order to totally disassociate myself from TalkTalk.

Next step was to ask and existing You subscriber if I could use their You referral code, the package I wanted was You 1000 which gives an average upload and download speed of 900mbps, using the referral code at the point of ordering will give each of us £50 after the first bill has been paid, which makes my early TalkTalk cancellation fee slightly more bearable.

The You ordering online was easy with an installation date within 3 weeks of ordering (15 November 2023), I did add to the order a static IP, this took my monthly total to £32.99 for a 24 month contract period which is only marginally more than TalkTalk for a 6x faster service.

Pre Installation

My existing Openreach fibre carrying the TalkTalk service terminates in an upstairs cupboard and this is where I wanted the You fibre to terminate as well.

The route from where the Openreach duct stops at the house to the upstairs cupboard is rather protracted and I have used PVC conduit for most of the run, this was no problem for the Openreach engineers and they helped me to thread the fibre, I wasn’t sure if the You engineers would be as equally amenable on installation day.

As luck would have it, I spotted an installation in progress further down the road, so stopped and asked them if I could install my own fibre in advance of the installation date, the guy was great, he walked to my house and had a look at the fibre route and gave me a 20m roll of In/Out fibre for me to install.

With domestic assistance, the fibre was quickly installed, in the cupboard picture you can see the terminated end ready for connection into the router when its installed, the other end is coiled up by the duct for splicing.

Installation Day

The appointment was scheduled between 8am and 1pm and I had plenty of email reminders in advance, the installation engineer arrived at 9.45, Mikolaj was the same engineer who gave me the cable to install, so he was very familiar with my layout.

He checked each end of the fibre I had installed, and whilst in the house, he installed the Optical Network Terminal, (ONT), which in my case was an Adtran SDX 631q 2.5GBE XGS and the eero6 wifi router.

Installation mirrored my Future Fibre install by Openreach engineers, a flexible rod (Cobra), was pushed down the duct at the house emerging in a footway box some 50m away.

A fibre ‘Drop Wire‘ was taped onto the Cobra and then pulled back to the house, once the drop wire had been fully pulled through, an optical signal test was carried out on the Connectorised Block Terminal (CBT) in the footway box and the pre-connectorised end of the drop wire connected to one of the tested ports on the CBT.

Back at the house, a ‘Drop Box‘ was drilled and screwed to the wall, this is also referred to as the ‘Customers Splice Point’ or CSP, the purpose of the CSP is where the fibre splice between the external ‘drop wire’ and the internal ‘outside/in‘ cable is located.

Mikolaj carefully preparing the fibre for splicing.

Fibre being prepared for cleaving
Fibre cleaved to give a perfect face for fusion
Fusion slicer lining up both fibres
Fibers automatically aligned for fusing together

YouTube video of correct splicing process for CSP – LINK

At this point Bobby the apprentice arrived and Mikolaj asked him to go to the ONT to check the quality of the optical signal which was a pass, (this test confirmed the splice was good).

Mikolaj then plugged in and powered up the ONT and eero6, also he connected a Cat 6 RJ45 into the eero6 and ONT, after making a phone call, the service was enabled.

The eero6 serial number is used as a validation for service on initialization, once this had been done the eero6 was set up as a new network on my phones App.

You must have a smartphone to enable and manage the eero6, I’m sure virtually everybody has one, but one is needed if you haven’t.

The OLT indicator lights were explained to me and the system was left working after a speedtest giving me:

The guys were here for 21/2 hours and when they had gone, I used some BT Capping 25 and a Connector Bend #4 I had bought from Telenco to cover and neaten up the external cables.

Overall Impression

The guys were respectful of my property, removing shoes inside and being very courteous.

Installation and billing communications were on point as is the speed.

The thing I need to get used to is that you don’t have an individual user portal online so you can’t check your account, thats said, I would defiantly recommend Youfibre.

DIY

Immersion Heater Smart Switch

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Octopus Energy have introduced a scheme where they allow you to use electricity at certain periods which they reimburse you for, as hot water heating is our largest daily load, it made sense to fit a smart switch to this as normally the water is heated by the gas boiler, this now means I can suspend the boilers and turn on the heating element.

The smart switch is a remote way to turn ON or OFF the Immersion Heaters 3kW element, the smart switch is rated for 20A and by touching the faceplate, manual switching is possible.

I used a double dry lining box which has a depth of 35mm to accommodate the smart switch, I also incorporated a 20A double pole isolation switch for maintenance.

Wiring was very straightforward, power in and load out, no earth connection is provided on the device, but I used the one on the maintenance switch.

Before installing the unit, I powered it up at the table and connected it my eWeLink mobile App, to do this I ensured the phone was on 2.4GHz WiFi and the device connected perfectly.

The App allows me to set timers to ensure I don’t exceed the allocated free electricity periods, I’ve also set up notifications when the switch operates as a confidence check, its early days, (13 Nov 23), but I’m hopefully this will last.

The details are:

Smart Switch for Electric Boiler, FORNORM 20A 4400W Water Heater Switch Timer Controlled by Amazon Alexa/Google Home, APP Remote Control “eWeLink”, 2.4Ghz/Neutral Wire, White

Bought from Amazon for £23.99 – LINK

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