Pauls Blog: Henley Heat pump reinstall.

Because of the rainy weather I had an opportunity to fabricate necessary pipe work and valves in Mr Henley's new workshop! I was the proud first person to use the work bench.

As we have been upping the quality of our installs and I intended to change the Fernox Boiler buddies for Fernox TF1 dirt separator I had the opportunity to change the pipework and valves and simpifly the install original plumbers installation - which I was never happy with.

We will be using lever valves from now on. Easier to operate, less sore muscles trying to turn butterfly ball valves. Not Pegler - the Crane valves are a beauty to install, use and look at. Higher quality higher price but well worth it. They are also 'Climate Change Ready' - they will withstand operation under the sea!!!

Because of the ease of fabricating in a workshop one of our aims is to fabricate hydronic systems in a workshop and take it to site once tested and link one-piece Unipipe runs at the site into our completed hydronics, saving mess, increasing quality and reducing the amount of 'standard' plumbing required. Was that 'sub-standard standard plumbing'??? Or is it all like that.

Pauls Blog: Resolving lightning strikes and airlocks in the Isle of Sark

I was called out to Sark to resolve a life threatening emergency, no heating. During the week 18 inches of snow had fallen on Sark and lightning storms hit Clos Bourel, an energy project that has been running for 13 years and E-Si's offical R+D centre (renewables Research and Development). At the same time as 2 out of 3 controllers being taken out an airlock had developed leaving the two flats and main house without heating. First available boat I was able to get on was 8am Wed, with no hope of a day return to weather. I stayed on until Friday as the only other boat back was thurs at 11am. All resolved. Next job, hot water and battery upgrades.

Filled system, dearators whizzed out the air like a dream, switched on controls, more air out dearators, switched heat pump heat came through, switched parallel oil boiler all coming through, all circuits operating perfectly every flow massively hot, no air locks. Wonderful.

The excellent Spirovent dearator! We have and Mitsibushi ASHP and Worcester Bosch condensing oil boiler in parallel the oil boiler for backup in extreme cold weather only each with a Spirovent dearator.

The 28mm version of the Spirovent on the ASHP.

Paul commissioning the ASHP.

The scaffold ready for wind turbine erection.

Sarks main form of transport.

Further air eradication techniques. Watch the bubbles! Flush system with fresh water.

Simple but effective, look for bubbles and dirty water turning clear.

Bypass valve pushes water to heating system and back to purge outlet.

Leaving Sark harbour.

The magnificent Sark cliffs from the boat.

Leaving Sark with Jersey several miles in the background.

Arriving back at St Peter Port.

Radiator Upgrade

This is a typical issue with old central heating systems, badly fitted connection under floor gradually leaking for many years.  This leads to air in the system and to early boiler and radiator failure.

Paul connecting the hydronic supply to a new radiator at Millvues St Martins, Guernsey. We have just insulated loft and eaves spaces to increase comfort and efficiency now adding higher output and larger rads to increase comfort further. In turn this will make the condensing boiler we fitted 5 years ago work more efficiently.

Upgrading the oil condensing boiler connections to enable easy annual flushing and E-Si's bespoke easy fill, drain and air eradication system

Finished result

The new rad goes on

Heating and efficiency upgrade solution par excellence!

The filling loop exiting Air!

Pauls Blog - Les Hubits Farm Survey

Paul Fletcher visited Les Hubits Farm today and studied the energy and farming cycles of the farm with a view to implementing a renewable energy strategy. The first concept ideas are to cool the milk and heat the hot water required for the parlour cleaning process. Any further heat generated from a Water Source Heat Pump by incoming water from borehole would be diverted to heat the home’s hot water on 24hr standby.

On examination of the slurry pit it was thought we could use the slurry pit to obtain heat for the water source heat pump. We would divert between the borehole and the slurry pit depending upon heat source available and channel the slurry heat into the nearby home.

Cows and Slurry Collection

The Slurry Pit

Food Store

Heffers

Milk Cooler

Milk Transfer Container

What's the pay back? Seminar at the OGH.

Thank you to all those who attended our Exhibition, Seminar and Tutorial held last Thursday.  It was a great success and excellent turn out!  A video of the whole event will be up in the next week for those who missed it or if you want to see the interesting discussions again.  There will be videos of each of the panel giving there own view on what the payback is.

photo by Richard Lord

photo by Richard Lord

What you think the Payback is........

Following our distribution of our What's the payback? postcards.  We have received some more interesting answers to the question.  Here are some more answers we have received..........

The recipient needs to fill in the three answers and send it back FREEPOST to the address pre-printed on the postcard. We will compile and scan every entry card and post it on the “What’s the Payback?” Facebook page.  A collective world vision is required to take human society beyond its present situation. In one sense we’ve never had it better! However we could quickly go the route of other failed societies in the past.

The campaign will culminate in an evening seminar’s at the OGH, Guernsey with key note speaker Andrew Hillier, CEO of Ice Energy, the largest distributor of heat pumps in the UK. Doors will open at 4pm to the public where there will be an opportunity to view the latest renewable energy equipments from ground source heat pumps to solar photovoltaics and talk directly to UK technical staff as well as our Renewable Energy Engineers. Each speaker will be putting their personal spin on what they think the ‘payback’ for Renewables is. We will be filming the event and uploading the resultant informative film to You Tube.

Please turn up from 4pm onwards for the Exhibition and if you would like to book a place on the seminar please either email: payback@e-si.com or phone E-Si offices on 01481 200388.

Guernsey’s first water source heat pump!

We switched on Guernsey’s first water source heat pump. This system, powered by QuaarQ technology, developed and installed by E-Si heated radiators and hot water by circulating water through a ground source heat pump heat exchanger in what we call LTB’s (Low Temperature water Buffers), into the HTB (High Temperature Buffer), and then into the home. This is a bespoke design and now operational can be duplicated in many other homes not just in Guernsey, but across the world. Yet again we have installed advanced tech with the help of Ice Energy, our staff and most importantly our customers.

Looking for bubbles in Glycol

Gaggle of vans

Finishing Touches

Paul examines LTB's

HP Room

First Mitsubishi modulating ground source heat pump installation in Guernsey

First Mitsubishi modulating ground source heat pump installation in Guernsey and second in Channel Islands, Paul Fletcher CEO E-Si Ltd, is completing the plant room install.  Modulating heat pumps ensure flexibility in design and higher efficiency than other types of heat pumps. This is also a first for our partners Ice Energy in UK.

Paul Fletcher CEO working on hydronics

10 x 33m slinkies, one metre deep in the back garden of a home in St Andrew’s Guernsey.

System to be commissioned in two weeks time, the main controller, a Dataterm intelligent heating control will match the high efficiency of the Mitsubishi GSHP, making it the most efficient ground source heat pump package available in the world.