Highly Commended

South East Highly Commended

Name: Michael Paini
Business: Option Energy Solutions Ltd

Please tell us about a project you are particularly proud of – what was the problem and how did you solve it for the customer?

I recently installed the heating and hot water services for a renovation in Hove. The 4-bedroom detached house was being extended to 275 m2, and the customer wanted a system that was as efficient and user friendly as possible. This was a deep retrofit with an extension and loft conversion, so budgeting constraints were a reality meaning we had to prioritise what would have maximum effect.

Ideally, they wanted an air source heat pump system, but this was out of budget at this point, so we agreed to my recommendations as follows. Our philosophy was based on installing a gas boiler, while minimising the work required to install a heat pump later. A small part of the downstairs and both upper floors were to have new radiators installed, which meant that we would need to meet the requirements of Building Regulation Document and design for a 55° C flow temp. This would make the radiators heat pump ready.  I proposed that we install the radiator circuit pipework with a heat pump in mind and sized this for a flow rate that could deliver a Delta T of 5° C making the pipework heat pump ready. The open plan extension and entrance hall area was to be underfloor heating with a design flow temp of 45° C – ideal for a heat pump. We also needed the hot water cylinder to follow this philosophy, so we specified a cylinder with a high coil output, making the cylinder heat pump ready. To ensure that the installation was truly heat pump ready, we installed pre-insulated heating pipe from the garage to the future ASHP location in the rear garden.

In terms of control strategy, I wanted the heating and hot water integrated into a single interface for the customer and made a conscious effort to avoid excessive zoning of UFH. A full heat loss calculation ensured we could deliver the output required in the UFH area at a uniform flow temperature, and this allowed us to fit the 9 port UFH manifold with no actuators and just a single smart thermostat controlling the UFH zone. I chose a smart thermostat system that had multi zone functionality for controlling hot water and 3 heating zones; UFH, downstairs rads, upstairs rads. As per the heat loss calculation, we installed an 18 kW system boiler with a low loss header, a mixed pump group for the UFH, and 2x unmixed pump groups for the radiators. An outdoor sensor was also fitted which meant that each zone could operate with a dynamic weather compensated flow temperature and the boiler would only heat to the highest temperature demand, conserving energy, maximising comfort and reliability, and condensing as much as possible. Several bathrooms were added so I specified a secondary hot water circuit controlled by a standalone timer and pipe stat to minimise pump operation and save energy. I’m proud of the design because it delivers peak gas boiler and system efficiency, while also being future-proofed for low carbon heat in the future.

Which products did you select for the job and why?

I chose an Atag boiler because of their build quality and their excellent multi-zone control functionality. Atag provided an integrated interface for all four zones using an Atag Zone smart control, two Atag Cube zone controllers, a hot water cylinder sensor, hot water priority diverter valve, and their Zone Manager wiring centre to bring these all together. The Atag Zone Manager uses the information from the controllers and circuit temperature sensors to control 3x Flamco Meiflow pump groups. While the customer doesn’t necessarily understand the full workings of the boiler room, their interface is simple, enabling them to control the times and temperatures of all zones from within a single app on their mobile device, as well as the ability to override the heating schedule at the individual zone thermostats. The hot water secondary circuit could not be integrated into this app, so it is controlled by a standalone Honeywell timer, with a Drayton pipe stat controlling a DAB bronze pump in short bursts of operation to keep the hot water circuit hot.

All outlets throughout the house have hot water delivered at the target temperature – and quickly, too. Plus, the pipework insulation throughout the circulation circuit minimises heat losses. The UFH was a 16mm pipe overlay system provided by Multipipe. This kept the build-up height of the floor low, to ensure continuity of floor heights throughout the ground floor. Multipipe also provided the heating and hot water pipework throughout the house (excluding the bathrooms), with their multi-layer composite pipe (MLCP) and we used a REMS V-Press system for this. This minimises the chance of any leaks occurring in the future and ensures compatibility with a secondary hot water circuit, as opposed to barrier pipe.

The radiators are from a UK manufacturer and are the stunning Stelrad Horizontal/Vertical Line (AKA Vita Deco) radiators, at the request of the customer. We collaborated to ensure outputs were met as per our radiator schedule, adding additional radiators where required. This ensured the customer had the visual aesthetic they desired, with no loss of effectiveness or efficiency. The hot water cylinder is a Joule Cyclone Plus, which is a high-output coil unvented cylinder. We had initially ordered a Joule Cyclone High Gain, but due to the materials shortages brought about by covid, we had to make a change here and were delighted to report rapid heat up times and high hot water flow rates. This product is also made in the UK, which meant that a cylinder wasn’t imported from Joule’s factory in Portugal. We tried to use products as locally as possible. When looking for quality heating products, you do need to go to European manufacturers, but Dutch manufacturer Atag has a resident UK presence and ship from a local depot, Multipipe and Stelrad are UK companies, and Joule are based in Ireland. Every effort was made to minimise the embodied carbon in the retrofit.

Tell us what was different or unique about this job? Why does it stand out?

The project took about 7 months to complete, coming and going throughout the renovation. The house is spacious and stunning, in a beautiful location on a hill overlooking the Brighton and Hove seafront. I thought this project was particularly significant because it demonstrates the benefits of forward planning. The heating industry is buzzing with noise about net zero and heat pumps, and this feels really optimistic for the future of the trade and heating of buildings in general. However, the conversation is often played out as a duality, with one camp shouting that burning stuff is immoral, and the other camp scoffing that heat pumps are a fad. The fact is, heat pumps are here to stay. The productive thing to do is to embrace the technology and add it our repertoire as installers. Yes, they are more expensive in a lot of cases, and that can price people out of the market, but this project shows there is an answer to this.

As heating installers, we can present a gas option and a heat pump option, and any number of solutions in between that make a gas heating and hot water system more easily converted to a heat pump system at a later date. That’s what is best for homeowners and that’s what is best for the country and even the future of humanity. This project showed that heating installations don’t have to be binary – gas boilers on a high temp system OR heat pumps on a low temp system. Installers and homeowners can take part in productive activism of sorts, and make small nudges in the right direction towards low temperature, low carbon heat, combining mainstream technology currently on offer, with compatible systems for future technology. The Building Regulation Document update of June 2022 that stipulates flow temperatures of 55° C has made the task a no brainer. Install to regulation and you are halfway there. With some additional thought around pipe sizing and cylinder selection, we can lessen the financial burden for our customers in the future, as demonstrated on this project. If the customer wants an ASHP installed now, all that needs doing is an outdoor unit fitted, the boiler replaced with a buffer, and compatible controls installed. Everything else is good to go.

And finally, tell us what the end result was for your customer?

The customers are a professional couple with two daughters, so it is important to them that hot water is plentiful and available, and that the house is warm. The hot water has been perfect for them because it is on all day, meaning that as soon as the cylinder temperature drops due to usage, the boiler immediately reheats the hot water. It does this quickly due to the high-performance coil inside the cylinder. The secondary return also has time and temperature control on it, and the system is fully insulated so the cylinder and pipework have very small standing losses, and hot water is available all day at the outlets in a short space of time, which minimises water wastage. This is proving to be an effective, energy efficient and water efficient hot water system for them. The radiator temperatures are automatically regulated by the system’s weather compensation controls, but each room has TRVs throughout to enable the family to limit the temperature of their rooms to their preference. The system is also zoned so that they can schedule the heating operation around the building’s occupancy patterns. They love the app because the zones are configurable from within a single menu, and the app also contains an energy monitor which provides added visibility for them. This project was a deep retrofit, and was purchased as a renovation project, so the customers have no history of heating and hot water energy use, but we are all confident that every effort has been made to maximise efficiency with the use of efficiency controls, weather compensation, zoning, TRVs and pipework insulation.

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