Newbies at all this heat pump stuff and are progressing some heat pump quotations. We have been reading up on a lot of things and watching all the HeatGeek videos.
One of the companies that have quoted is British Gas and they just contacted me to say they would not install the Open Energy kit for me and if I got a third party to install it that would invalidate the warranty.
Has anyone else had this issue?
Is this just a British Gas thing or do other installers do this as well?
We ended up speaking to British Gas because a couple of the smaller independent installers we tried did not fill us with confidence.
If this is just a British Gas thing does anyone know a good installer in the Glasgow area?
Voiding the warranty for opening up the Daikin unit too hook up a third party widget is one thing. (an obnoxious, given how tried and tested it is but not unjustifiable one)
Voiding the warranty for there being an external electricity meter and heat meter is a flat out unfair clause in a consumer contract though.
Either way it probably says so you need to know about their expectations for performance of the installation and the return of it being measured objectively.
I think I will ask them for a copy of their warranty before progressing any further as there maybe other limitations that rule them out as it implies that if I get any work done by any qualified third party that essentially invalidates their warranty which means I am forced to use them for all heating and hot water services going forward… I don’t like the sound of that.
This is the first I’ve heard of a company claiming that installing a monitor would affect the warranty.
The only thing I can think of is that installing a heat meter will add resistance into the system that was not part of the installers index circuit calculation, therefore could affect performance if the heat meter was not correctly sized. This issue can be overcome by communication with the installer to ensure the heat meter pressure drop is included in the index circuit calculation and the heat meter correctly sized. We’re happy to help advise the installer about this.
Here’s a video on how the index circuit should be calculated, including the heat meter pressure drop:
Note: The video above uses the Sontex 789 which has a significantly higher pressure drop, than our current Axioma heat meters, see this spreadsheet to see the pressure drop of different heat meters at design flow rates
Hi Glyn, thanks for posting this spreadsheet. I note that the Sontex Superstatic 440 has the highest pressure drop of 0.6 M head at flow of 1.21 m3/h. I have a Sontex Superstatic 449 and if I have read the manual correctly, this has a staggering 1.45 M head pressure loss at 1.21 m3/h. This may partially explain why my flow rate for DHW is limited to 1.2 m3/h despite a 8 M head Grundfos pump. Have I got this right and should I be thinking about a different heat meter? https://www.dmsltd.com/upload/pdfs/71aff5cf11d94e98b23c027a130ce161.pdf
qp 1.5 m3/h. If I have understood this correctly, this is the maximum flow that it will measure, which is not very sensible given that I have a 12 kW Samsung and in theory would need a flow rate of at least 1.8 m3/h at design temperature.
Ah that’s a very small meter. The QP 1.5 meter will be able to measure higher flow rate than this, but the pressure drop will be very high. If your struggling to achieve the required flow rate this could be a significant contributing factor.
Yes, it was installed by Greener Living (no longer in business) as part of the RHI. I have since had the system upgraded to be single loop, including the relocation of the flow meter by another installer. Unfortunately, I have only recently looked into how much pressure drop the various components were responsible for as it might have been a good opportunity to replace it.
Ah yes, although not ideal that meter would have been ok if there was a buffer tank since there would have been a lot of available pump head on the primary pump, however if you’re now running open-loop without hydraulic separation the primary pump now needs to pump round the whole system, so pressure drop due to the meter is more significant.
Thanks for this I finally got the British Gas surveyor dealing with my quote to agree that fitting the Open Energy Monitoring kit would not invalidate any warranty but still insisting that British Gas would not install the kit for me instead she suggested I employ a third party plumber to do the installation after the British Gas team had commissioned the Heat Pump.
Since reading your post I have reached out to British Gas to ask why they will not install the kit in our case but have done for others.
