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:
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.
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.
This information will be updated regularly, last updated 26 October 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.
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.
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.
We have been thinking about this for ages and due to the ever increasing unbearable summer temperatures, we decided to have air conditioning (A/C) installed in the Lounge, Main Bedroom and Home Office primarily for cooling although they are capable of producing room heating.
Installation has to be carried out by an F-Gas approved contractor and I have previously used a local company, AC Cambridge, for our garden cabin A/C and when contacted, Declan had availability to help and an appointment was made.
On the day of the survey, we walked through the proposed equipment locations and method of installation, aesthetics are really important to me, so the feasibility of not seeing any internal pipes, wires or containment was explored, I also said that I would make separate arrangements for the condensers electrical supplies so this could be removed from the scope of works.
One of the limiting factors for consideration was the removal of condensate generated when the internal units are in cooling mode, the surveyor was strongly against using a condensate pump, as they are noisy and prone to failure.
The Main Bedroom and Home Office walls were external and the surveyor determined that we had enough wall space and that, if the units were pushed up against the wall, no pipes would be visible internally and externally everything would be in white containment.
The Lounge was the only wall which was not external, but backed onto a garage, this meant the pipework would need to transit at high level through the garage to the outside and disposal of condensate would need thinking about.
The recommended kit was three Samsung 2.5kW split load heat pumps with the external compressors mounted 2.6m high on an outside wall as floor space around the property was limited, this turned out to be an excellent solution.
Installation
In advance of the install day everything was moved out of the way in the work areas and I put dust sheets down, I had no need as the installer brought his own protective mats.
Declan’s first job was to mount the internal units back plates to the wall and core drill 65mm holes to the outside for the pipes and cables, once drilled the copper pipework from the internal unit was extended by brazing so that no compression were in the buildings cavity, removing any problems in the future, with the insulated pipes and cables passed to the outside, the unit is hung on the wall and the area tidied up.
Main Bedroom Unit
Externally the three condensers were mounted, I did change my mind about the location of one of the units part way through, but Declan was very amenable and moved it to my preferred location away from being above the boiler flue ,as I was concerned that the central heating boilers condensate plume may have an adverse effect on the equipment as it is mildly acidic.
To be helpful, I installed the condensate runoff in the garage, now the position through the wall of the Lounge unit was known, this was connected into the Utility room sink waste pipe.
The pipes and cables were routed in containment to the condenser and it made for an exceptionally neat installation.
Heat pumps are incredibly efficient, for example for 624 watts of electrical energy in we get 2.6kW of cooling out, however, the unit is equally efficient in heating mode with 1392 watts of electricals energy in we get 2.9kW of heating out.
The above values are different than that on the condensers data plate, however the performance verses energy consumption is still superb.
The cost to keep each air conditioning unit on standby when not in use is less the £1.00 a month.
Data Platewith discrepancy on unit wattage
Each internal unit has an external condenser which requires power, these can be ran from a plug socket, but I installed individual radial circuits with local rotary isolation as discussed during the survey.
Internal and external units generate condensate which is taken to drain by 21.5mm plastic pipe.
Each unit comes with a remote control, but I used a Tado V3+ Smart Controller which uses an App to remotely operate all the functions of the air conditioning.
As stated earlier, each unit is fed from its own supply via Fusebox consumer unit, I also decided to incorporate a kWh meter to see how much these units consume overall each season.
Sum Up
I was very happy with the installation and quality of finish, although there were some supply issues due to demand which meant the installation took longer than the predicted two days, however, it was worth waiting for.
The internal units are very neat and have a number of functions, including a sleep setting which ramps the temperature up a few degrees when you are asleep so you don’t wake up cold.
Samsung’s warranty is 24 months with 60 months on the compressor parts for peace of mind.
I would definitely recommend considering air conditioning to improve your home comforts, be that heating or cooling for you or your animals.
My existing, non condensing, Vaillant Thermocompact 24kW system boiler was installed when the house was built in 2002 and has worked really well, but with the price of gas its time for an upgrade.
My chosen replacement is an Ideal Vogue Max 18kW condensing system boiler with priority domestic hot water capability and 10 years manufactures warranty which I bought from Screwfix, this boiler will modulate down to 3.9kW to match my heat loss at a given temperature, whilst also giving me a short hot water cylinder recovery time when required.
NOTE – Gas and commissioning works were undertaken by Mr Fix It Gas (Gas Safe Engineer) who I would highly recommend.
Upgrade radiators in order to operate at a lower temperature flow rate,
Make wall space for relocating boiler pipework and additional expansion vessel,
Expose existing pipe connections in the garage ceiling,
Install Normally Open motorised valve for the central heating,
Rewire the wiring centre to give the boiler two switched lives, one for central heating and the other for Priority Domestic Hot Water,
Remove existing electronic water temperature control from unvented cylinder,
Reinstate unvented cylinder integral thermostat in wiring centre,
Install North Facing weather compensation sensor and wire back to boiler location,
Replace mechanical frost thermostat with electronic version and wire in,
Install new Boiler isolation switch with 3A fuse holder built in.
Wall space cleared around the old boiler and hole cut in the garage ceiling giving greater access to pipework, ready for the existing boiler to be removed once the gas has been capped off, the gas work was carried out on the 11 April 23 by a local Gas Safe engineer.
Once the gas was off by Mr Fix It Gas, power isolated and the system drained down, the boiler and flue were removed and open water pipes temporarily capped, the next job was then to line the wall with a thin ply and paint it black to neaten up the job.
As boiler comes direct from Ideal, the communications wasn’t brilliant, I was notified at 16:50 the night before delivery, fortunately this was fine for me and it arrived on the 12 April just after 2pm, I had already picked the flue up from store in preparation for the big day.
Once the new boiler arrived it was unpacked and all parts checked in case anything was missing or damaged, once happy, the new boilers template offered into position and levelled.
The boiler is hung in place and supported by a bracket, everything required for this is within the box.
The boiler installation were straightforward with the manufactures instructions being very comprehensive, with the gas still not connected, I removed the room sealed boiler cover to access the electrical connections for the Weather Compensation sensor and the two switched lives, one for the heating and the other for priority domestic hot water.
The Ideal Vogue Max comes with a magnetic filter which must be fitted to maintain the manufactures warranty, I also retained my existing Adey magnetic filter as this is perfect as a dosing pot for inhibitor addition.
I included two dry pocket thermometers for flow and return water temperature measurement, my aim is to keep the boiler in condensing mode as much as I can.
The system was cold flushed, pressure tested and dosed with 1.5l of Fernox F1 inhibitor before the gas engineer arrived on the14 April to upgrade the gas supply from 15mm to 22mm and make the final boiler connections.
Ceiling hole closed off with a 60 minute fire resisting trap giving access to a cold water isolation valve and the completed installation was lagged using the Dr Pipe lagging pro to give me perfect cuts.
Nearly finished, just waiting for the Adey thermal jacket to arrive.
28 April 23, commissioning and Benchmark completed and registered, today will be the first time my unvented hot water cylinder is getting 800C of indirect heating at high fire of 18kW.
I haven’t yet balanced the radiators to get the greatest efficiencies, but the weather compensation is modulating the central heating water flow temperature to 49oC based on the external ambient temperature of 13oC.
The return flow temperature of 40oC, is well within the condensing range (<55oC), however, I do need to adjust my radiators to get an equal temperature differential across them all to maximise efficiencies.
Few points to note – The cold fill supply is regulated down to 1.5 bar so I can leave this connected and open without risk of over-pressurisation when bleeding radiators for maintenance.
Thermal jacket from Adey for the Magnaclean fitted, bit disappointed that Ideal do not sell an insulated jacket for their filter as it is wasting a lot thermal energy.
Last job was to test the system water quality:
pH 7-8
Hardness 60ppm (system filled with softened water)
Turbidity, base target clearly observed
Fernox Inhibitor concentration tested by titration test kit and OK
The gas engineer commented that my CO detector was in the wrong location to work effectively, ideally this should be 150mm down from the ceiling.
So, I removed the detector from the boiler back board and shifted it to where it needed to be :-), hence the two following pictures –
Radiators
The house originally had 13 Purmo panel radiators, I did upgrade one of these to a larger Stelrad K2 type as the bedroom over the garage was undersized a few years ago.
The Heat Loss calculations linked earlier, determined that a total of 9 radiators would needed upsizing to meet the heat losses at the lower radiator flow temperatures of DT30 to keep the boiler in the condensing range as much as possible.
The pipework to the radiators is a combination of 10mm plastic pipe behind the dot and dab plasterboard walls, transitioning to 10mm copper pipe for the final connection to the radiators, fortunately all the downstairs radiator lock shield valves have inbuilt drain off valves, making removal and replacement of the radiators a lot easier.
Lounge radiator draining down with the laser setup to project a line through the centre of the radiator tails.
Radiator removed, I used Plumb Tubs and a 20l foldable bucket to catch any drips, before lifting the radiator off its brackets, I fitted Plumb Thumbs to avoid any dirty water getting on the carpet.
New radiator mounted with insulated foil reflector behind it to try and conserve useful heat. Using the laser level line previously set up, I marked up 20mm from this which is to the bottom of the mounting brackets, I used a combination of Grip It (Brown) and Corefix fixings as this is a heavy radiator at 37 Kg.
As you can see the pipework will need adjusting to get the bend back where the vertical pencil line is.
Using a Multitool I exposed more of the pipework back to the plastic/copper coupling, but needed to cut the wall back even further so I could get the correct positioning in line with the pencil mark.
The coupling come off the pipes by prizing the white end cap of and then pushing the collet towards the fitting, (I used a 10mm open ended spanner for this), and at the same time pull on the pipe.
I needed to shorten the plastic pipe, so I used pipe shears to give me a neat edge, then I used a 10mm plastic pipe insert from Screwfix, before reassembly.
Using 10mm copper pipe and a pipe bender, I formed the pipe to the radiator.
The other side of the radiator only needed the copper pipe extending although it was a longer wall chase.
Radiator all piped up and tested for leaks, now ready for hole filling.
Over the exposed pipes in the wall I used a foiled bubble wrap before applying a plaster bonding coat, once gone off I used a white filler and flattened this to a smooth surface.
A few coats of sealer, then paint and a new collars at each end, and the job was done.
External Sensor
I bought the Ideal OS2 weather compensation sensor off eBay, fitting was straightforward on the external North Face of the house at a height equal to that of the upstairs floor.
Only two 0.75mm2 wires are needed back to the boiler from the sensor for direct connection within the boiler.
Airing Cupboard Works
This is the location of my unvented cylinder and two existing normally closed motorised valves as I have a ‘S’ Plan system which needed modification into an X Plan.
First job was the removal of my ESi electronic hot water cylinder temperature control unit which I blogged the installation of HERE, with all power isolated, the cabling was removed from the wiring centre.
After removal of the ESi unit I blanked the 20mm hole with a plug.
While the wiring centre was open and power off, I replaced the Normally Closed central heating motorised valve with a Normally Open version, this modification is required to enable the priority domestic hot water to operate.
The wiring was then modified so that when Hot Water is called for, a switched live from the Hive Receiver operates both motorised valves at the same time, the live wire to the motors is in series with the unvented cylinders thermostat so that when the cylinders water is at the correct temperature, or there is and overtemperature, the thermostat will open, removing the live connection to the motors.
This will cause both motorised valves to return to their default state of Central Heating – OPEN, Hot Water – CLOSED.
In normal operation for hot water, the motorised valve will open and in so doing switch a live feed to S2 on the boiler, triggering a higher output water temperature.
This is a comprehensive continuation of problem resolution of the ESi thermostat which can be found HERE.
Update
Due to the imminent installation of a new boiler with Priority Domestic Hot Water, I will be able to control the water temperature using the unvented cylinders integral thermostat making the ESCTDE/B redundant and therefore I have removed it.
Problem
After the cylinder thermostat was installed, I noticed that the boiler would fire up outside of any scheduled times, checking the programmer settings and wiring, I deduced that the supply to call for heat to the Hot Water Valve was being controlled by the ESCTEDE/B.
I spoke to ESi technical and they confirmed this to be the case when the cylinder thermostat was configured for legionella mode. In this mode, the internal timer of the ESCTEDE/B will call for hot water, (irrespective of the time of day or programmer setting) until the measured water temperature is at or above 60 deg C for 1 hour in order to kill water borne bugs.
As a result of this, I reluctantly disabled the legionella function.
After I received the prompting comment from a blog reader, I thought I would look at a circuit which would only allow the hot water to call for heat based on the programmers scheduled time setting, however, should the legionella mode timer be internally activated, this would proceed as normal, but only within the programmers scheduled time slots.
The simplified schematic below shows this can be accomplished using an interposing relay as a switch for the motorised valve trigger.
Solution – Method of Operation
When the programmer calls for Hot Water, a switched live is sent to the ESi controller HW -ON -COM terminal and also to a Normally Open terminal of a 230v AC Relay contact, the common of the relay contact is connected to the motorised valve (Brown Wire).
When the ESi receives a switched live to the HW-ON-COM, the ESi LED illuminates and an internal connection is made and a switched live appears on the HWS N/O terminal, this output is now wired directly to the relay coil, rather than the motorised valve.
The result of this modification is that when the HW programmer calls for heat, the relay will energise and supply the motorised valve with a switched live from the programmer, should the ESI enter legionella mode, the relay will energise or remain energised depending on the programmers time setting, however, if the programmer is not calling for heat, the switched supply to the motorised valve will no longer be present and the valve will close turning off the boiler.
The advantage of this arrangement is that the boiler firing is dependent on the programmers scheduled times set by the user, rather than the ESCTEDE/B doing this at random times.
The main thing to note is that the legionella setting from the ESCTEDE/B will not reset unless the water, reaches and maintains, a temperature of 60 degrees for 1 hour, this means that the programmers time window must be greater than 2 hours making the assumption the tanks contents will reach temperature in the first hour and maintain this in the second hour.
Obviously the boilers hot water temperature setting must be greater than 61 degrees for this to work.
Modified ‘S’ Plan Wiring Schematic to include Relay Control
My existing central heating wiring centre was the original one and modified when I fitted the ESi and as you can see it was a little bit ‘busy’ and desperately in need of a tidy up!
Looking around for a replacement wiring centre, I saw that a local Screwfix had one in which uses Wago connections rather than traditional terminal strips, the main benefit of this is the tool less connection of wires and a greater number of connection terminals avoiding doubling up of wires which makes installation messy and fault finding difficult.
The Screwfix part number is 621HV and the product is a Wago L32 Terminal Junction Box.
Even though the L32 had a lot of connections, I still needed additional connections for the earth wires and a cross connect marked as connector ‘A’ in the schematic.
Old wiring centre removed and cables marked up ready for re-termination.
The completed Wago L32 wiring centre is considerably neater than the one it replaced, the schematic terminal connections are faithfully recreated within the L32 to aid fault finding or future modifications if required.
Once this was done I changed the legionella setting to operate every 7 days, the installation guide on how to set this up is HERE.
ESi showing the cylinder water temperature of 50oC, the hot water is calling for heat as my setpoint is 55oC.
I have always struggled with water temperature control on my Trevi CTV thermostatic shower valve, typically it was always too cold and we ended up running the cold sink tap at the same time as having a shower, in order to reduce the cold water pressure, this then allowed warm water flow.
My first thought was that the problem was within the mixer tap, I downloaded the manual and disassembled the mixer to check that the hot water strainer was clear and nothing obvious was wrong, what I did notice was the temperature limiting plastic ‘stops’ were missing.
These ‘stops’ are a means of maximum temperature regulation and also act as an ‘anti scold’ devices, so the removal of them meant the installer knew of a problem 🙁
I went on the UK Plumbers Forum to ask advise about this and the answer came back almost immediately.
In order to explain, I need to show how my domestic hot water is plumbed:
Looking at the diagram above, the high pressure mains water supply enters from the right into a balancing valve, this valve performs three functions:
Reduces the incoming cold water pressure to 3.5 bar to feed the unvented cylinder
Provides a cold water connection at the same water pressure as the unvented cylinder
Contains a Pressure Relief Valve which will discharge to drain if the pressure exceeds 6 bar.
Monoblock/Balancing valve.
My unvented cylinders reducing valve doesn’t have a cold water take off, so instead of fitting one, the original installer simply took the cold fee to the mixer shower valve directly from the incoming supply, which is at a greater pressure than the pressure reduced hot water, so it would never have worked properly from day one.
The person who fitted it must have known this, so removed any overtemperature controls, what an idiot!
In order to fix this, I needed to either fit a balancing valve and re-pipe the shower to the cold take off, or, fit a 3.5bar pressure reducing valve (PRV) near the shower, this is what I did.
The plastic pipes from the shower mixer run under the landing floor, so I used a multitool and cut an access hatch in the floor to locate the pipes, turning on the shower for hot water whilst holding the pipes, soon identified the hot one.
The PRV needed to be fitted to the cold water, so the stopcock wat turned off and water drained by turning on the kitchen taps, once drained the plastic pipe was cut and inserts fitted.
I used a short length of 15mm copper pipe tails from the PRV inlet and outlet compression fittings and made the connection to copper/plastic pipe with ‘push fit’ sockets.
The hatch cover was then screwed down and marked up, so anyone lifting the carpet back will know what’s under the hatch.
It was not an expensive fix, and its made a huge difference, don’t know why I put it off for so long.
My central heating system has 13 radiators with 12 having Thermostatic Radiator Valves (TRV), and I decided a couple of years ago to replace the existing wax capsule TRVs with intelligent Hive ones which I did.
Stock Honeywell TRV Head
Hive Intelligent TRV replacement head
Installation of the Hive TRV was very straightforward, the existing heads are removed by unscrewing the knurled nut and the Hive supplied adapter is screwed into place on the valve body, the Hive TRV then screws to this and using the App is enrolled onto the heating system.
Hive TRVs have picked up negative reviews, I think this was due to launching the product before it had been fully beta tested, that said, most of the wrinkles have now been ironed out and I enjoy the benefits individual radiator temperature control and scheduling gives me.
My main issue has been that the Hive TRVs, which are controlled via a smartphone app, and this keeps requesting that the TRV’s need calibration, which I have put down to the age and condition of the existing radiator valves.
I could temporarily free sticking valve pins by ‘tapping’ and adding oil or WD40, but they would always stick again, and they did look a bit mangy, also my boiler pressure was dropping very slowly over time and I put this down to TRV valve leaks, so it was time for action!
Honeywell VT15 TRVs
The TRVs installed when the house was built (circa 2002) are VT15:
Unfortunately the valve has no serviceable parts and therefore no replacement insert is available which is a nonsense to be honest, as it forces you to either buy a complete valve assembly with TRV sensing head or search for a vendor who will sell the valve body only.
After much searching, I found a seller on eBay of VT15 valve bodies only at £6.99 each, so I bought what I needed which is a lot cheaper than buying a complete assembly for £15 each and throwing half of it away.
I had no intention of changing the valve body on the radiator as it would only introduce more work and an elevated risk of leaks from pipework joints, only the insert needed to be changed, so when I received the valves the inserts had to come out.
I had to use a 19mm socket in an Impact Screwdriver to remove the inserts from the new valves as they are insanely tight, so make sure the valve is held tightly in a solid vice before trying this.
Fitting Inserts
After switching power off to the boiler, I drained the water out of the heating system, this was easy in my case as the downstairs radiators had drain valve lockshields.
After removing the Hive TRV head, you can see the hexagonal head of the valve insert, using the Impact Screwdriver, the old insert was swiftly removed and the new insert fitted and carefully tightened with a 19mm ring spanner.
As the insert uses ‘metal- to metal’, mating face with the valve body to form a seal, I used V2-Plus jet lube jointing compound on the threads and joint face as a precaution against leaking.
Removed inserts from the heating system.
I changed 11 inserts, on investigation 1 was OK, 10 were sticking or stuck in the closed position and of the 11, 7 showed signs of leaking.
While the system was drained I changed the Automatic Bypass Valve (ABV) for a better quality Honeywell DU145, although my boiler has an inbuilt ABV for boiler protection, it is prudent to have one installed with TRVs as the external ABV is designed to maintain a minimum pump flow rate through the boiler as the individual radiator TRVs close and to manage boiler over-run when zone valves close, rather than ‘dead heading’ the pump forcing the boiler ABV to open.
When all the inserts and the ABV was fitted, Fernox F1 inhibitor was added via Magnaclean filter chamber and the system filled with water, circulated and vented.
Not being a plumber, I decided to cut open a TRV valve body to see how it work and where it fails.
Jointing paste was used on the threads and contact face of the insert just in case of a bad seal
Insert Operation.
Water from the heating system enters at the bottom of the valve body, as the valve plunger is away from the valve seat (room asking for heat), water will pass and exit to the radiator.
If the pin on the top of the insert, (which is under spring pressure to keep the plunger lifted), is slowly pressed down, this will begin to restrict the water flow to the radiator as the plunger lowers into the valve seat, eventually closing the central heating water off completely to the radiator.
The job of the TRV head is to push down on this pin based on the rooms ambient temperature.
The movement of the pin is not very much at all :
The plunger on the left is stuck in the lowered position, the one on the right is OK as the internal spring has overcome friction and lifted the plunger.
So what’s inside an insert?
Bottom View
Top View
Starting at the bottom of the insert, this is in contact with the central heating water, the first part is the plunger which has a disk of rubber, copper riveted to it, this forms the watertight seal when the plunger is pushed fully down into the seat of the valve body.
The plunger is pushed tightly onto a stainless steel pin allowing the pin to raise and lower the plunger, the pin passes through a rubber seal in the body of the brass insert.
With the pin in the body, a spring sits over the pin and a copper ferrule holds the spring in place.
The last part is the stainless steel collet which is held in place by a ribbed design, locking into the brass body when pushed in.
The action of locking the collet in to the body, compresses the spring, forcing the copper ferrule to seat against the underside of the collet and lifting the pin to the correct height to enable the plunger to be lifted clear of the valve body seat.
Where are the problem areas?
The majority of my problems were due to the pin sticking, the root cause is where the pin passes through the rubber seal at the base of the brass insert body, and no amount of lubrication will get anywhere near it.
It looks like the rubber seals have age hardened due to being subject to wide temperature variations over time, eventually the seals friction against the pin overcomes the springs lifting force.
Obvious sign of water seepage into the insert cavity.
As a result of the pin seal ageing, system water creeps into the insert cavity, making its way past the locking joint of the collet/body or collet/pin, manifesting as discolored caking at the interface, this is an area for ‘weeping’ as the gunge is damp and therefore a point where system pressure is lost.
This picture says it all, the top insert shows how a good one should look, with the pin freely moving when pressed down using an upturned spoon.
To Sum Up
Don’t waste your time lubricating or tapping TRV pins like I did, the pin is sticking at the seal and no amount of lubricant will fix it 🙁 .
If the pin sticks or gunge is evident, you are only putting off the inevitable valve change, a plumber can do what I did a lot quicker and in some cases without draining the system, however, it is a DIY job if your confident.
Being a new water softener user, (March 2021), I was constantly checking the level of the block salt my Kinetico Premier Compact uses and as my unit is outside due to space restrictions, I thought there must be away to remotely alert if more salt was required.
Final Version (23 February 2022)
Below you will find a number of different versions and iterations of my attempt at alerting to low salt level in the water softener, this is what I have ended up with.
No additional devider required to keep the salt blocks apart in the softener, this caused the salt block to jam 🙁
The Sonoff wireless contact was simply out of range of wifi reception no matter what I did, this caused it to intermittently drop offline and eat batteries, so this was removed.
Replaced the Sonoff with a Pyronix Nano door contact:
The magnet carrier within the softener remained the same, simply resting on top of one of the blocks and the Nano contact velcroed on the side of the casing, in the same place where the Sonoff used to be.
A little circular magnet gives me a level indication of the salt block, average usage is about 11mm of salt block erosion per day.
The Nano contact links into the house alarm system and is configured to log events and act as a simple switch to operate a relay when the contact opens or closes, this is a totally independent function of the alarm and will not cause an alarm activation if the salt goes low 🙂
I have brought the Sonoff switch inside and it is now triggered by the relay which changes state based on the Nano, this allows a ‘Scene’ to run, switching on and off a mains lit sign when the salt is low as well as an App notification.
The use of using an intruder alarm contact is that communications between the contact and the alarm is monitored as is the battery condition, giving me a failure alert which I didn’t have with Sonoff.
This setup has been in use for about two months and has worked really well, I think this may be the last time I have to play with it!
Version 4 (21 May 21):
I have used Sonoff Smart devices for a number of years which are monitored and controlled via the eWeLink App on my iphone and ipad so I knew this was the non invasive way to go, especially as the DW2 battery level and online status is monitored and alerted on the App .
Caution – The method I’m using is not fail safe, please don’t blame me if your water reverts back to being hard because you ran out of salt :-).
The idea is that a strong magnet will be carried on top of the left hand salt block as this was observed to be slightly lagging the right hand one as the blocks dissolve.
The magnet will be lowered by the dissolving salt until a point is reached which it will trigger the Sonoff sensor which will be attached to the outside of the water softener, this will then trigger an alert via WiFi and the eWeLink mobile App as below.
A 90mm length of 25mm PVC tube with sealing end caps sits on the salt block, inside the left hand cap is a 20mm x 4mm disc Neodymium magnet. To enable the magnet to be guided throughout its travel, a Perspex divider is used between the two blocks.
On the outside of the softener the Sonoff switch is fixed with Velcro at a height which will give me a few days notice of low salt, with the wires from the switch have been extended to the Sonoff transmitter, and this is now mounted as high as I could get it within the enclosure in an attempt to get the best WiFi signal.
I also decided to use a smaller magnet on the outside of the softener to show the position of the salt block magnet, a graduated strip shows approximate days salt usage left (26 days per 8Kg).
The level detectors signal strength is quite good and seems to work, but its still early days and more monitoring is needed before I can say with certainty that it can be relied upon fully.
On thing to App allows you to do is link to other devices in the Sonoff range, I have set a ‘scene’ so that on low salt detection, a mains powered light will turn on in the house giving me a visual indication, which is a great feature.
Testing of the Sonoff is very easy, I simply place an external magnet near the device to confirm operation.
NOTE: Most of the difficulties in my installation have been with WiFi signal, if your softener is indoors, an unmodified DW2 with a magnet in a tube would work just fine 🙂
Sonoff Devices
The WiFi sensor I used was the battery operated stand-alone Sonoff DW2 -WiFi wireless Door/Window Sensor, as I already had a number of Sonoff devices and the eWeLink App on my iphone.
I did modify the sensor as described further on, but I didn’t have too, as the App had a selectable setting to push notify when the sensor either goes Closed or Open, equating to ‘seeing a magnet’ or ‘not seeing a magnet’ which if I’d known first I wouldn’t have gone to the effort of taking it apart :-).
A key takeaway is that the Sonoff must be in range of your WiFi, obvious I know, but it caught me out!
How it evolved to the working version
The Sonoff modification would be to change the original Reed Switch which is normally kept closed and out of an alert condition by the presence of a magnet, I needed the opposite of this, the introduction of a magnet would cause an alert, (as mentioned earlier, this really doesn’t matters as the App settings could have solved this).
So to the shopping list, all of eBay:
Version 1
ABS Box (75.5 x 49.5 x 28) @ £4.50,
Disk ring Neodymium magnet 20 x 4mm @ £4.89 for two,
Reed Switch 3 pin magnetic switch normally open closed conversion 2.5 x 14mm @ £4.79 for five,
(Version 2) offcut of 22mm and 20mm plastic conduit (already had).
Parts came to ~£23.00
Version 1 – First job was to glue the disc magnet inside the ABS box, after trail and error, the best place for the magnet was the rear left side of the box.
Next task was to remove the reed switch which comes with the DW2, this is easily identified as the long thin black rectangular component on the same side as the battery clips, this simply unsolders from the PCB pads.
The PCB is held in place by a small blob of white silicon at each end and a clip, using a small screwdriver to carefully prise the board out does the trick.
I originally soldered the normally closed reed switch in the same places as the original, but I thought I needed to get the reed switch as close as I could to the wall of the softener, so I used the Sonoff’s magnet enclosure to hold the normally closed reed switch after attaching so flying leads.
The image below shows the type of reed switch I needed to fit as I had to change the reed to be normally closed without the presence of a magnet, telling the DW2 door sensor that the door was closed, when a magnet is introduced, the reed moves position within the glass envelope, breaking the circuit, triggering the DW2 to alert to a door open which in our case is low salt level.
A couple of holes were drilled and the wires from the reed switch were soldered to the PCB pads.
Once the eWeLink App is downloaded and an account is created (can be free but I chose to pay the nominal fee), the DW2 can be paired on the 2.4GHz WiFi home network, this is incredibly easy, open the app, press and hold for 5 seconds the push switch on the DW2 until a red LED flashes, back on the App – Press add device and after entering your WiFi details, the DW2 is paired 🙂
Details can be configured in the App, including changing the alert description, push notification and sharing the alerts with other eWeLink accounts if needed.
Now the moment of truth – bringing the magnet close to the reed switch should trigger the App status to show the switch is open and change to closed when the magnet is moved away.
As my block salt level was low, I noticed that the blocks tilts back slightly in use, I put the ABS box on top of the left hand block and due to the lean it should stay in the same place on the block as it drops.
I offered up the DW2 to the outside of the softener while watching the App status, moving it up and down the outside of the unit until it triggered, I marked with a pencil using the top of the DW2 on the cabinet the point at which I wanted an alert, I then stuck a strip of self adhesive Velco hoops under the pencil line.
The magnet I used is deliberately powerful, and it was no surprise that it operated the reed switch when it was some distance away from the reed switch and will continue to hold the reed switch open for a fair bit of travel as the salt level lowers, this was factored during the setup process.
Using Velco I secured the DW2 to the softener as this allows for fine adjustments and the job is done.
Salt changed and system ready with room for the lid.
This was the first time I had replaced the blocks and those with keen eyesight will note the blocks are not installed as per the manual (page 18), this has now been rectified.
Version 2 – Magnet Carrier
A few days after changing the block salt, I decided to see how the ABS box magnet carrier was sitting on top of the salt …………disaster!
As you can see from the picture, the left hand salt block has leaned over to the right taking the magnet too far away from the side wall, it may well be that when the salt block drops it may once again move to the optimal position for the magnet, I didn’t want to take the chance, so here is Version 2 which will defiantly need further revisions.
I took the two magnets out of the ABS box and cut two pieces of plastic conduit, the 25mm conduit spans the salt block gap, with a shorter piece of 20mm conduit glued inside it, the magnet was glued inside the 25mm pipe with the 20mm pipe acting as a backstop.
It was important that the magnet was flush with the end of the pipe as I’ve ordered some plastic end caps as I don’t want any metal contact with the salt or brine solution.
Its quite hard to see, but the conduit pipe bridges both salt blocks, I put a magnet at each end so it wasn’t important which way round I put it in.
The major problem with this design is that the pipe will hit the salt grid which I have only just noticed, so watch this space!
Version 3
To address the problems with Version 2, I bought a piece of 3mm thick Perspex and cut it to act as a full height guide for the left and salt block, the guide simply rests against the salt and the existing salt grid assembly.
I cutdown the magnet tube holder to be a nice fit and this time I’m only using one magnet to bias rather than trying to balance the tube.
Lessons Identified
1 . Make sure you have a solid WiFi signal where the DW2 is fitted.
The eWeLink App shows signal strength that the DW2 is seeing, however, once I put the box around the softener, the received signal strength fell and the DW2 went offline. To resolve this I changed one of the kitchen sockets, which is near to the softener, to a WiFi extending version from Screwfix (988FV) and this worked fine.
2 . The DW2 eWeLink allows for a selectable Push Notification to your phone if the switch either opens or closes, I could have left the DW2 as it arrived out of the box and made the change in the App rather than physically modify the DW2.
3 . My salt level was falling at a rate of 14.6mm per day and we will always have 8Kg available (Block 280mm tall/14.6mm daily usage = 19 days per 8Kg). This was the first salt the softener had used, so it may slow down, the point being to set the alert level to suit adding a new block straight away, or as a trigger to re-order or change it in X days, the positioning of the DW2 determines the alert trigger.
You could always add another DW2 using the same magnet, with one DW2 set as a pre-salt order trigger with the other DW2 as the block change alert.
4 . The ABS box for the magnet was just the right size, if it was any larger it might not allow the lid to close in the salt compartment when a new block was fitted, but it was small enough to give me an alert on low salt level with 30mm salt left (day and halfs worth).
5 . Keep an eye on things in case they don’t go to plan, hence Version 2 🙂
Ricks TwinTec Softener Alert
Rick got in touch as he has a TwinTec water softener and was looking to also have a low salt alert and sent me a list of parts he was going to use and his ideas:
Ricks design was for the magnet which triggers the wireless door sensor to mounted on the outside of a waterproof box which sits onto of one of the salt blocks, the external magnet will also space the box away from the side wall, the wireless sensor will be affixed to the outside of the softener.
The final location of the sensors exact position will be by ‘test & adjust’, making sure it triggers when the salt level is at the right point that it needs replacing.
With the aid of a Zigbee repeater (Hubitat C8), when the sensor triggers an alert is set to Ricks phone and Alexa speakers announce out loud ” replace salt in water softener“, but so as not to wake everybody, Rick has set the announcement to stay quite between 10pm and 9am.
Really pleased it works for him and a great project, so thanks for allowing me to share it.
We moved from the North a number of years ago from a soft water area to Chatteris, Cambridgeshire which has water classified as Hard, the effect of this is that soap doesn’t lather easily and appliance heating elements get coated in limescale reducing efficiency and life.
As a home improvement project, I decided to research water softeners.
How is Hard Water Quantified
Parts Per Million (ppm)
This scale is used to measure very small amounts of something in a larger quantity of liquid. It is used to measure dilute concentrations of chemical substances. One litre of water weight 1 million milligrams (mg). So 1 part per million (ppm) would mean the chemical is one millionth of the solution, or 1mg per litre.
For water hardness levels, we measure parts per million of minerals including calcium carbonate (CACO3) in the water. Calcium carbonate is the compound in hard water that causes limescale build-up. Soft water typically has less than 50 ppm of calcium carbonate. Hard water has over 200ppm, Anglia Water drinking water quality information for the Chatteris area shows that the level is 230ppm compared to where we used to live which was 17.5ppm.
I bought a water hardness test kit from Toolstation and this indicated that my incoming cold water was between 240ppm ~ 280ppm so I know the extent of the hardness which be of use later.
1 drop of reagent into incoming hard water , adding drops until the solution turns blue
After 12 drops equates to 240ppm on the 1 April 21, the same test on the 22 February 21 came out at 280ppm.
These work by ion exchange, incoming hard water passes through a bed of activated resin beads, these beads remove the calcium carbonate and magnesium molecules as the water passes through the resin chamber, the exiting water is now free of the limescale causing molecules and is now soft.
To maintain the resins ability to ion exchange the resin is backflushed with a brine solution, the backflush waste water goes directly to drain.
There are a number of considerations to take into account in selecting a water softener, these are:
Cost to purchase
Cost to run
Salt – Block or Granular
Number of bathrooms
Number of people living in the property
Incoming water pressure
Single or Two resin chambers
Type of hot water system (Gravity, Indirect or combi boiler)
Electrical supply required or not
Physical size of the softener and where will it go
Warranty
Dealers
Cut away view of of Kinetico premier compact
What did we choose and why
I’m definitely no expert on water softeners, first port of call was the internet and YouTube to see what were the popular UK models and to read reviews that users made on dealer sites.
Going through the above list, the purchase and running cost will be known after most of the other points are answered.
3 live in the property and we have 2 bathrooms (ensuite shower is classed as a bathroom), the hot water is supplied from an unvented indirect cylinder, meaning the hot water is under a constant pressure and pushed out of the cylinder to the hot tap by the incoming water pressure at the bottom of the cylinder, the incoming pressure is typically maintained at 3 bar so that the hot & cold taps and mixer showers for example are at the same pressure.
Where the hot water uses the incoming water pressure, a High Flow (HF) unit will be required as the flow rate is higher through the resin chambers to reduce any pressure drops, also the softener inlet and outlet pipes are larger.
If the water pressure to the house was low, introducing the water softener might cause a problem, I measured the pressure here at 2.8 bar (40psi) which is fine, a pressure gauge is available from Toolstation.
The activated resin chamber I mentioned earlier needs to be regenerated, (back flushing the beads with brine (salt solution)), with a single chamber, softened water will not be available during the regeneration process, we opted for a dual chamber unit so we always have a supply of softened water, however this does have a cost implication.
How does the softener know it needs to be regenerated?
Two methods, timed or metered. With a timed version, an electrically powered (low voltage via a transformer) timer will trigger the process, the main disadvantage apart from requiring a power source is that regeneration could occur if no softened water was used, but simply based on time.
A strong advantage of an electrically powered softener is the ability to have an alarm indication on low salt, with a mechanical only unit, you have to physically monitor this (but I’m working on it 🙂).
The softener we selected used actual metered soft water usage to mechanically trigger regeneration
The model which satisfied all our requirements including a 10 year warranty was the Kinetico Premier Compact HF which we bought from Aquastream Water Softeners Ltd who gave exceptional service, they responded to my emails quickly and are experts in their field, I would not hesitate in highly recommending them.
If you are a confident at DIY, the plumbing for the water softener is very easy, with only two pipes and a drain hose, the price of the softener included the 22mm Bypass kit which contains all the full bore valves, strainers and 0.75m flexible hoses to connect the houses fixed plumbing to the softener.
Due to the underneath of the kitchen sink base unit being full of other stuff, we decided to put the unit outside and to build a wooden insulated enclosure for it.
As we replaced the kitchen a few years ago, I knew where the incoming water pipes run, from the picture below you can see the rising main and stop cock, this tees off for the kitchen sink, with the 22mm copper pipe transitioning to John Guest 22mm push fit disappearing behind the dot & dab plaster boarded wall on its way to upstairs.
The kitchen base cabinets were a bit too ‘busy’ for the softener to fit but left enough room for me to access the buried pipes once a hole is made in the cabinet back .
Once the cabinets back was cut out and plasterboard removed to expose the 22mm plastic cold water pipe, two 32mm holes were drilled to outside, the holes then sleeved with 28mm copper pipes ready for the 22mm copper passing through these to outside.
The water supply to the Insinkerator hot water boiler is from the valve on the left of the picture, the boiler water feed will be moved from hard to soft.
It is important to keep the kitchen sink cold tap feed before the water softener for cooking and untreated drinking water, it is also advisable to supply any outside taps before the softener to save on salt usage and prevent damage plants over time.
I used ‘O’ rings around the 22mm pipes to keep them centralized within the through wall sleeves.
To make the plastic pipe to fitting connection, it is important to cut plastic pipe to leave a clean cut and to use superseal pipe inserts, marking the depth of the fitting on the pipe before pushing it onto the pipe ensures that it is fully seated.
The pipe cutter I used came from Lidl and cost £5.99
On the John Guest pipe their are fitting engagement marks already made to assist with ensuring the fitting is fully pushed over the pipe, but my fittings didn’t marry up with these, so I measured and marked the pipe to confirm the elbow and Tee were fully engaged before pushing them home and tightening the collet ring after which I pushed on the locking rings (Blue clips).
The 15mm copper pipe leaving the Tee in the picture below, is the new softened water supply to the hot water boiler, all the copper elbows (15mm for the water boiler and 22mm for the softener) are long street elbows, this reduces joints and saves space which was ideal in my situation.
To keep everything in place and to insulate the pipes I used expanding foam, two other pipes are in the picture, one is for the outside taps which I lagged internally when the kitchen was being fitted, the other is another plastic pipe, this time 15mm for the kitchen sinks hot water tap.
With the cover on, nobody would know the carnage 🙂
On the outside the bypass valves and copper runoff to drain installed.
The copper pipe is the regeneration drain for when the resin chambers are back flushed and must be air gapped from the waste system to avoid any cross contamination with the drinking water. The cold water inlet to the softener must have a a non return valve to prevent back flow.
Finished installation, the Kinetico softener is off the ground sitting on a 50mm polystyrene backed base, 22mm stainless steel braided hoses each have a strainer fitted and to ensure that the softener doesn’t freeze, I have taken the precaution of installing a 40 Watt thermostatically controlled tube heater from Toolstation.
Easily removeable frame, sides and top lined with 50mm polystyrene, access for checking salt is by lifting the top off.
Pipe Schematic
Schematic for planning valves and documenting modifications
What are the Running Costs
The cost of the softener including bypass valve arrangement and 2 x 8Kg blocks of salt including factory setup was £1,295.00 inc VAT which was as cheap as I could find.
The only consumable other than regeneration water is Kinetico Block salt, the cost varies tremendously and I have found Saltstore to be the most competitive with an excellent online ordering system and friendly staff.
I have mentioned water hardness and the metered chamber regenerations, the Kinetico uses different metering disc types in their machines depending on water hardness, this directly impacts on the number of regenerations.
For my areas water hardness a Type 6 disc, which regulates regeneration frequency based on flow through the softener, is installed, therefore after 327 litres of softened water has passed through the resin bed, the cylinder will regenerate using 20.5 litres of water and 0.34Kg of salt.
After referring to the specification table, I did query with Aquastream Water Softeners the reason for supplying a Type 6 disk with my softener as this is for up to 362ppm and in my area the maximum I have measured was 280ppm which would be within the scope of a Type 5 disc (305ppm).
The answer was based on their experience and knowledge in that the table values are factory test bench conditions and not real world, the water in Chatteris is typically around 300ppm and very low flow through the softener would not be metered, therefore their is a risk that we could have hard water before the softener regenerated which made perfect sense. Good to know.
The following spreadsheet shows the actual 2021/2022 annual costs based on current usage:
Actual Running Costs
The cost of 8Kg of salt increased to £6 in 2022, the softener uses ~ 11.35mm of salt per day based on my usage circumstances, therefore, the cost of salt per year is £78.00.
For two years before the softener was installed, my annual usage was steady at199m3, after a year in use of the softener, my metered water usage has risen to 127m3, therefore, the water used in the ‘Regeneration Cycle’ was 8m3 costing £13.47.
The total running cost is £91.47 per year or 25p per day.
The softened water is fine to drink with no trace of a salty taste, soap lathers well with either hot or cold water, skin no longer feels dry and Barneys cocker spaniels coat is nice and silky now.
I need to remember to put the softener in bypass when I top up the central heating pressure, so I have a reminder drawing in the softener cabinet.
The softener has performed faultlessly, salt block usage is consistent, however, the price of salt has increased marginally, probably to reflect the increased cost of fuel.
Two observations since the installation have been:
I record and upload water meter readings every time I replenish the salt blocks and this led to the discovery that my water meter was failing due to the low recorded water usage, Anglian Water replaced the meter and the blog on that is HERE.
I have not monitored the effectiveness of the 40watt tubular heater in cold weather until now, and I’m happy that the wattage is more than sufficient to keep the water in the pipes from freezing.
External water softener enclosure at -5.6oC, the internal 40W heater is ON and the picture shows where heat loss is occurring on the lid, internally the temperature is at +7.1oC, so all is good.
External temperature -5.6oC and has not got above freezing for a few days.
The ‘Sensor Blue’ within the softener cabinet shows a temperature of 7.10C indicating that the heater is working perfectly.
A blog about stuff that interests me or I have done.
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