Someone that does solar panels.

JohnnieK

vibe666 wrote: »

we had activ8 out and they really didn't impress us with the price or that they just assumed we'd be able to pull the cash out of thin air in one go.

it's also big and ugly compared to the LVP one and doesn't give you 100% of your hot water either for almost 3 times the price.

honestly, i felt like they were doing the hard sell and looking at this thread with the LVP info and quotes, i get the feeling activ8 have invested in a technology that the LVP system has made obsolete, inadequite and vastly over expensive by comparison and they're just trying really hard to make money out of it whilst it's all relatively new to the market and people don't know much about them to know any better.

I heard bad stories about Active8, being very pushy and aggressive in there manor. My brother had a run in with them. Called to his house, the usual story we are in the area and we can give you a discount if you sign up now. I'm qualified to install solar myself but I have not branched out into it yet, a lot of start up costs involved. I told him to tell him I would do it for him for free, see if he can match that.

You have to be mindful of the LVP system though. In the colder months you wont get much from the panel it self but the heat pump that's in it will be working over time so you should monitor the electricity bills. The system works very well in the hotter countries because it's hot at night too and when it's dull so the evaporator is making the most out of the environment.

Also not to have a back up coil is madness. It will break down at some stage and I wouldn't like heating a tank with my immersion.

JohnnieK

crookesa wrote: »

We are going for the 250 Litre tank with no back up coil. There will be an electric immersion in it in case we need that as back up.
There might be different costs regarding installation or different setup that you have that I may not.

Now all you need to do is change your boiler and fit a weather compensator to it and you will be saving a fortune on energy bills.

Paulw

JohnnieK wrote: »

You have to be mindful of the LVP system though. In the colder months you wont get much from the panel it self but the heat pump that's in it will be working over time so you should monitor the electricity bills.

That was a concern I had. But, from looking at the tech specs of the system, I thought it wouldn't be too bad, until the weather hits about -10c (which doesn't happen that much). Obviously, the colder it gets (below freezing) then the harder the system has to work to generate heat.

The power usage is definitely something I will keep an eye on, but of course, there is still the trade off between using an immersion all year round (summer and winter) to heat water, and then having to pay a bit extra in the very cold months to have hot water all the time with the LVP system.

Would you have any guides as to the temps it starts to work harder at, and what sort of extra power it may use?

crookesa

JohnnieK wrote: »

Now all you need to do is change your boiler and fit a weather compensator to it and you will be saving a fortune on energy bills.

LVP were quoting around €11k more approx to also connect up our heating system to theirs. They told us that the coil cannot be connected to the tank and would need to be removed, is that incorrect?

cathy01

Also not to have a back up coil is madness. It will break down at some stage and I wouldn't like heating a tank with my immersion.

We have power showers in case of emergancy, so hopefully we should be ok with them.We havent had an immersion for year.
Do you think Im mad and I should get one?Thanks for the advice?

JohnnieK

Paulw wrote: »

The power usage is definitely something I will keep an eye on, but of course, there is still the trade off between using an immersion all year round (summer and winter) to heat water, and then having to pay a bit extra in the very cold months to have hot water all the time with the LVP system.

Would you have any guides as to the temps it starts to work harder at, and what sort of extra power it may use?

Hi Paulw

I would hazard a guess that it would start working hard well before -10oC. I dont have figures unfortunatly but in essence it is a heat pump and the lower the temperature from the collector the harder the heat pump works in turn the more energy used to achive the temp you are looking for. Also the recommended storage temperature for domestic hot water is between 55-60oC and nearly all heat pumps become inefficient above an output temp of 45oC. Regarding how much energy used there should be a COP figure in the tech specs. this is the coefficient of performance ratio some thing like 3.5 to 1. It means for every 1 kW of electricity used you will get 3.5kW out of it. The higher the ratio the better the unit but unfortunatly the more expensive.
There is a poster called Heinbloed on here and he seems to know alot about figures about this, it might be usefull to make contact with him if you have any concerns.

In my opinion the evacuated tube system is probably the best for this country, they have a larger surface area because of the sape of them. With flat plates the orientation is critical but with tubes this is not the case also becauce of the shape, but thats not to say they can be put on a north facing roof which I have seen.

JohnnieK

crookesa wrote: »

LVP were quoting around €11k more approx to also connect up our heating system to theirs. They told us that the coil cannot be connected to the tank and would need to be removed, is that incorrect?

I dont see how it could cost an extra 11k to reconect the heating pipes which are already there back on to a seperate coil. It would only involve minor labour a few fittings and pipe and a thermal cut off device i.e. a zone valve and cylinder stat.

You might want to question them further on this.

JohnnieK

cathy01 wrote: »

Also not to have a back up coil is madness. It will break down at some stage and I wouldn't like heating a tank with my immersion.

We have power showers in case of emergancy, so hopefully we should be ok with them.We havent had an immersion for year.
Do you think Im mad and I should get one?Thanks for the advice?

Hi Cathy

Do you have a hot and cold fed shower also? This is a major question for anyone considering solar. If you only have electric showers whats the point in spending all that money on a large cylinder full of hot water if you are not using it. If you have a lot of baths well then yes by all means or fit a power shower like a triton AS200 I think it is to utilize the hot water.

I have an eldery customer who I do work for and they hardly use any hot water at all (dishwasher, electric shower) and they are alone in the house. Some chancer tried to sell them a solar system one day when I was there servicing there boiler, the owner came out to me and asked my opinion so I went in and ran the rep from the door.

Anyway i'm going off on a tangent here, regarding the coil, the system will break down and need repair at some stage and if you are not using your electric shower for quite some time, 1 it might not work when you turn it on and 2 you will be suprized of your ESB bills if you had to use it for a week or so before they came toi fix it.

It's realy up to you but I wouldn't be with out one.

cathy01

My hubbie and son would use the shower and sometimes my teenage daughter.,Im a bath person , as is the current ungest, and witht he baby on the way we figure we will be bathing the baby till its about 4/5 and than move onto a shower.We currently have to boil the kettle for water for, a shave, wash out the bins, large pots etc.We use the dishwasher and have showers so we hope to save on the showers and I can finally move back into the bath.
I dont think we will need the back up coil as we have the showers and can just keep boiling the kettle but I honestly appricate all your advice.Thanks,cathy

cathy01

Ok, I got it in yesterday.Anyone that wants to come and have a look PM me,Im in Balbriggan.

Now , 1 negitive, the fecking noise of it.I had to get up and turn the whole unit off last ngiht.The vibration travel into the bedrooms.Im hoping that it stops.We had it on for about 6 hours last night and not even warm water.ill see how it goes today with the daylight.

Lads that put it in where lovely, no mess, arrived on time and where very helpful.

Any questions fire away.Cathy

Paulw

I would have expected that hot water would take a day or so to get up to temp, especially with the weather we've been having. I'm sure the system has to work fairly hard initially to bring the water up to temp, but then works a lot less to keep it hot.

Hopefully the noise will reduce for you, once it settles in.

I'm getting mine installed next week, so I'll let you know how mine goes. We've solid concrete floors so that should help reduce noise.

cathy01

yep, it settled down a bit .Good hot water.I have wooden floors which deffo doesnt help.Cathy

crookesa

cathy01 wrote: »

Now , 1 negitive, the fecking noise of it.I had to get up and turn the whole unit off last ngiht.The vibration travel into the bedrooms.Im hoping that it stops.We had it on for about 6 hours last night and not even warm water.ill see how it goes today with the daylight.

Lads that put it in where lovely, no mess, arrived on time and where very helpful.

That's great to hear we got ours in too last Tuesday and it's been going great plenty of hot water. Took about 7 hours to heat up we were told but the lads left around half 3 and we had a shower at 9 and it was fine.
It seems that the sound which is exactly like a fridge is on when it's topping up the system. I found that if you have a shower before bed or use a good bit of hot water it comes on and the same in the morning. We have it in the hot press upstairs so unless we're stopping and listening you get used to the background noise.
I rewired the electrics in the hot press today also and put in a Power Meter to see what it ends up on average costing up per day.
And as you said the lads were very good, friendly and tidy.

cathy01

Just to follow up , the noise , is gone, it was just starting to heat up, we should have left it till daylight instead of being soooo impatient.

We have lots of hot water , and I think my daughter is starting to grow fins, shes never out of the bath.:D

Any questions fire away.

vibe666

sorry if this is too cheeky and feel free to tell me to mind my own business, but do you mind me asking how much in total it cost to get it done? were you able to get a grant and if so how much that shaved off the overall cost?

i think my main priority is going to be minimising the heat wastage in our house first (improving insulation and minimising drafts etc.), then i was going to add solar for the water and hopefully the heating too if it's not too expensive and go from there.

crookesa

cathy01 wrote: »

Just to follow up , the noise , is gone, it was just starting to heat up, we should have left it till daylight instead of being soooo impatient.

We have lots of hot water , and I think my daughter is starting to grow fins, shes never out of the bath.:D

Any questions fire away.

Yeah we had a rattling noise when it was on but it happened to be the cover for the motor vibrating off the tank. I pushed some foam between them and it seems to have quietened it down.

I installed a energy meter for the tank to work out the cost and it seems to be costing us more per year than the told us at the start. We've contacted them and they're looking into it for us. I'll keep you posted but it's great having hot water on tap (pardon the pun!), they set ours at 55 degrees which seems to be hot enough for all of our needs.

Paulw

crookesa wrote: »

I installed a energy meter for the tank to work out the cost and it seems to be costing us more per year than the told us at the start. We've contacted them and they're looking into it for us. I'll keep you posted.

That's the part I'm curious about. I'm waiting on my first ESB bill to really judge how much it's currently costing. I was always a bit concerned about the electricity usage and cost for this system.

How much of a cost are you working it out at?

cathy01

same question.Im waiting for the guy to come back to put a normal plug on it so I can attatch a meter.

crookesa

Paulw wrote: »

That's the part I'm curious about. I'm waiting on my first ESB bill to really judge how much it's currently costing. I was always a bit concerned about the electricity usage and cost for this system.

How much of a cost are you working it out at?

It's working out at 62c a day which equates to €224 but we were told it would cost us €150 a year based on a household of 4 people. I know it's not much but I think it's the principle of it and recouping the investment of a shorter period.
Here's the energy meter I got. Bought 2 of them on ebay for €15 each and we have a night meter so you can put in the 2 rates and it calculates the total cost.

fullerand

Hi all of you who have installed the LVP system - are you still pretty happy with the output and savings?

Am thinking about getting it installed in the next month or so - still debating LVP vs evacuated tube, though...

Paulw

We have it since Aug last year.

It's great having so much hot water on tap. A prime example was last week, the Mrs and I got soaked, and both had full showers, with hot water left.

I've done the maths twice now on the power usage, and last calculation, based on the new ESB rates worked out at a running cost of €159 for the year.

In saying that, since we have more water available, I think we're using more hot water too.

Can't fault the system though.

Sandiego

Hi All,
I am about to part with my money to have a 500ltr cylinder installed,I am told that I will get 10 hot showers in the morning and 10 hot showers in the early evening,can this be possible! Not that I dont believe LVP but would be nice to get some user feedback on this.

Cardinal Richelieu

Sandiego wrote: »

Hi All,
I am about to part with my money to have a 500ltr cylinder installed,I am told that I will get 10 hot showers in the morning and 10 hot showers in the early evening,can this be possible! Not that I dont believe LVP but would be nice to get some user feedback on this.

Why would you need 10 hot showers?

vibe666

Cardinal Richelieu wrote: »

Why would you need 10 hot showers?

maybe he's VERY durty? :pac:

Paulw

Sandiego wrote: »

Hi All,
I am about to part with my money to have a 500ltr cylinder installed,I am told that I will get 10 hot showers in the morning and 10 hot showers in the early evening,can this be possible! Not that I dont believe LVP but would be nice to get some user feedback on this.

It depends on how much water you use having a shower. :rolleyes: If you only use 50l of hot water per shower, then it will work. If some use more and some use less, you may get 10. But, if people use more than 50l per shower, then you won't get 10 showers from it.

In short, there's no exact way to know. I take my time and enjoy a good long shower, so I certainly wouldn't get 10 showers from it, but my wife seems to barely get wet, so she probably would get 10.

Cardinal Richelieu wrote: »

Why would you need 10 hot showers?

Maybe they run a B&B??

mrpgri

I'm very interested in the LVP system, more so now that I have read through the above posts. As a summary it looks like about 5K for an install and €170 running cost per year. The one issue I would have is noise. Does the system quiet down completly after the initial switch on or does it continue to kick in and out like a fridge? Thanks for any replies. Mark

The Hill Billy

Hi Mark - If you wish to get reviews of Solar systems I suggest that you use try the Renewable Energies forum. This thread was started as the OP was looking for recommendations on local suppliers in North County Dublin.

tHB

SparkyCrk

Hi all,
I have just had an 'assessment' by an EnergyCentre rep.
He was very profeesional in his approach and explained every thing clearly.
Problem is, although the system sounds and looks good on paper, I have no way of knowing if their claims of 70% reduction in fuel bills is realistic. Also, he kept telling us that he wasnt here to sell us anything, but at the end of a 3 hour visit I felt we were put under pressure to sign up as he had other calls to make in the area, so we did pay a deposit.
The cost of the tank, all fitting and 1 solar panel is €8500.
Has any one else had this system fitted from this comapny and how successful is it.
Kind regards

Paulw

They quoted me first, and I ran a mile. Way, way too expensive.

I got my solar system from LVP Renewables, and it was HALF that price, excluding the €800 grant rebate.

My bills have dropped a good bit. We have hot water all the time, and we use it a lot more than before. 70% reduction in fuel costs .... no, but definitely a good reduction, and over the life of the system it will definitely pay for itself and more.

I hope that deposit you paid is refundable. You should definitely call LVP Renewables and have them come quote you too.

SparkyCrk

Thanks for the quick reply Paul,

Although I have browsed through all the posts on this thread, and yes many people seem to be talking about LVP, upto recently and indeed upto our recent assessment, I had never heard of them.

Will look them up and see what happens

Kind regards