Christophe, otes_moi of a doubt:
- Your installation 'underfloor heating ", you bought it" with "the house?, In other words it already existed.
If I ask you this question it is because I have a similar installation in my timber frame house.
The differences are:
- Wall-mounted gas boiler ald DEOM stove.
- No power by solar collectors.
The temperature supplied by the boiler is set to the lowest possible (it is always set to the minimum, i.e. 40 to 45 ° C).
For the underfloor heating on the ground floor, I have a hot water outlet which goes into a 100 liter "buffer" tank. From this tank the hot water outlet arrives in a 3-way valve also supplied by the return from the floor. This valve is controlled automatically by a box with clock (and automatic day-night changeover). This box receives the information from 3 sensors: one outside (North to avoid false information given by the sun), 1 "flow to floor" sensor and a "return from floor" sensor.
A curve is programmed to optimize as well as possible the dosage of floor water return to be mixed with the hot water coming from the boiler via the "buffer" tank.
The circulator is located after the 3-way "floor outlet" valve.
If the demand for the floor is at its maximum (very cold or starting because of inertia of the floor), the floor return goes directly into the buffer tank.
And now, for 20 years everything has been going well EXCEPT:
- 10 years ago my regulator was "burned"; request for an estimate = 8000 francs (because everything had to be changed housing + 3-way valve servo-motor). Finally, after having adjusted the 3-way valve "on the spur of the moment" and by hand according to the outside t ° C, I (was able to have my regulator repaired inexpensively (what luck) my control (return to the factory) and since then it has worked well. .... here I am starting to have a problem of tilting day-night but it is mechanical I think (small plastic cleats which have worn out (it will be necessary to dismantle).
- last year, the 3-way valve got stuck: plumber quote 700 euros to dismantle + replace the valve with the risk that it could not connect to the servo motor housing (exact name ??) .......
In summer, I took my larger flat and claw wrenches and I dismantled the 3-way valve after closing all the valves to isolate the boiler and floor.
Inside it was stuffed with rouoille and a kind of muddy paste !!! after having unscrewed the front plate, impossible to take out anything. So I soaked the valve in gasoline (which I had on hand) for a few days until I succeeded in dismantling it, cleaning everything well, removing the rust, adding the grease, closing the smart box ...... and there I said "with the pressure it will leak and oh surprise, after reassembly very nickel (seals well in place) pa a drop of water has not come out and since then it works nickel .
All that to say that if you have electro-nuclear convectors, no worries of this type: broken 2 wires to connect + new convector and off we go .....
In addition, in terms of installation cost, it cost me around 100 francs (with 000 underfloor heating zones on the ground floor and 6 Acova "low temperature" steel radiators.
Knowing that my first Franco-Belgian GTL 1S condensing boiler (the top at the time) died 19 years ago after having tons of shit (too sophisticated like modern cars; electronic box and co. ; HS = 2 francs).
How can a household that wants to install the cheapest possible heating (convectors) go into such installations?
Nothing but my pbs of regulation, if I had not managed to bypass the classic circuit "plumber / we change everything" and we screw the big bill ......
Other than that everything is fine.
By the way the installer had put antifreeze in the circuit for safety at the heated floor level, and it seems that it is corrosive and that would explain the piercing of the heating body of my boiler n ° 1 + the blocking of the 3-way valve .... I don't know, but it proves that the savings made on heating have a counterpart, the cost of maintenance during the aging of the installation.
What I fear in a connection with solar adds risks of additional worries: it is better to be a connoisseur and a handyman ......
Only when he has brought down the last tree, the last river contaminated, the last fish caught that man will realize that money is not edible (Indian MOHAWK).
) in a few weeks but hey normally ... it should be fine ...
