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Haven't had time to tinker much with my heating system since. Just been running it as normal. Racked up 60 hours boiler thermostat call time on the BEM and it's showing an overall saving of 17.5%.
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This is the average saving it does better on the upstairs than downstairs zone. Perhaps because running the upstairs the boiler is definitely oversized whereas it's just about right on the ground floor.
Still interested to carry out balancing when I get time. And to see if this new condensing boiler with BEM will get me through spring on 900L which would more than halve my regular winters oil bill!
Worth a read.Condensing is paramount to maximising efficiency. All oil boilers on the market today are condensing but for most oil boilers the similarities to their gas cousins stops there. The dew point for kerosene flue gases is a lot lower than mains gas. At ~ 47°c return temperature condensing will start but you are then relying on the secondary heat exchanger efficiency to make sure the water then returning to and through the primary heat exchanger is above dew point else you will get back end rot. There is ways to prevent this but it’s added parts, added cost and a bit of maths to make sure everything runs properly.
Gas boilers have higher dew point temperature but more importantly have the heat exchanger constructed of materials able to withstand lower water temperatures and not rot. The lower the return temperature can be the greater the level of condensing and therefore efficiency. Also gas modulating boilers are even more efficient at part load, whereas with oil you have to meet certain criteria on most boilers.
I know I’ve banged on about it a lot and I do apologise but the Sapphire boiler is an absolutely huge advancement in the oil world. Fully modulating, so can closely match the ever changing load with minimal cycling, excess fuel consumption and burner wear and tear.
For maximum efficiency you want good modulation and low flow temperatures. If a fixed rate burner like most oil burners I would consider a different system design approach to the common S and Y plans.
No I don’t have LED lighting in my flat. Should definitely make the transition.
So avoid white LED’s?I ended up going with warm white LED lights throughout the interior of my house. There are multiple studies out there indicating white LEDs may be detrimental to your health
Light Pollution - Human Health Impacts from LEDs
Light Pollution - Human Health Impacts from LEDs - Designing Buildings - Share your construction industry knowledge. A groundbreaking report released by the American Medical Association (AMA) Council on Science and Public Health affirms known and suspected impacts to human health and the...www.designingbuildings.co.uk
In any case I also simply prefer warm lights anyway so it was an easy decision. And LEDs give out alot more light typically.
Several of us on this forum have done the Hest Geek course 😉. A subject discussed on their website quite a lot.Worth a read.
What is Boiler Modulation and Boiler Cycling? - HeatGeek
www.heatgeek.com
This trend (from the above) doesn't make a lot of sense though as it doesn't give the total cycle time(s)
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So avoid white LED’s?
About four or five years ago, after some experimenting with types and makes I went for Philips 2700K LEDs throughout and they're great. In a couple of places I have the dimable ones and these reduce the colour temperature as you dim them (getting a touch more orange at lower levels), which is a nice touch. The whole exercise paid for itself in about 12-18 months.I ended up going with warm white LED lights throughout the interior of my house.
Hi @JC22024 again. I've been reading through a printed-out copy of this thread and regarding post #92, I feel a need to correct your misunderstanding of how smart pumps generally work. A proportional pressure pump (including Grundfos Autoadapt) seeks to keep the pressure drop constant across the radiators. It very slightly drops the pressure as TRVs close to try to compensate for the decreased pressure losses across the boiler primaries (so there is some truth in your understanding) but one TRV shutting should not cause other radiators to fall dead. It does not drop the pressure very much. Conversely, a 'dumb' pump cannot help but increase its pressure as TRVs throttle down, thus forcing more flow through any TRVs that remain partially open, sometime resulting in whistling. They (smart pumps) aren't without issues, particularly as the conventional automatic bypass valves often fitted to heating systems rely on an increase in pressure to open up as TRVs are shutting down.
Constant pressure will keep the pressure constant across the boiler (but not compensate for the primaries: that's the difference, plus CP is usually a much higher pressure setting).
The way most smart pumps do this is by monitoring power consumption to get an idea of how much drag is being created and then varying the speed of the impeller. Unlike the older pumps which ran at a fixed speed.
I've balanced my own house before and after replacing a pump. The new pump has proportional pressure and I thought I'd give it a go. It actually made balancing MUCH easier as, when I throttled back one radiator, that didn't then result in an increase in pressure and hence flow to the remaining radiators. So instead of going around the house several times tweaking as I went, I only really needed a couple of passes.
Re post #152, I wonder if you could help me follow your explanation better? Please let me know if I follow your understanding correctly or not... you say you think the Vector BEM works by allowing the boiler to first run to temp [i.e. until the boiler cuts out on its internal thermostat?] and then, [when the boiler decides to re-fire?] slightly delays [the next firing up of the boiler?] and then continues doing this while also monitoring the run time and stat call time? Which stat are we discussing? Room stat, I assume?
Are you saying that your understanding is that the BEM is monitoring the boiler duty cycle and delaying the boiler from firing for progressively longer times until it notices that this is reducing the system's ability to get the room temperature up to the required temperature? I'm struggling to get my head around how this works, but it would be interesting to be able to do so.
Thank you.
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