‘SCOP-Hunter’ Specifying ESBE Hydronics To Boost Heat Pump Performance

A Manchester based heating and renewables specialist is striving to grow his business based on delivering high standards of service and system performance, including specifying valves and other hydronic components from the ESBE range to optimise the Seasonally adjusted Coefficient of Performance (SCOP) for the air source heat pumps his company installs.

Liam Crosby set up his own business in 2019 having been a British Gas engineer for eight years and now heads a team of eight sub-contract installers under the Bee Warm Heating & Maintenance brand. Together they cover up to a 40 mile radius from North Manchester, serving private and commercial clients. In one of their most recent projects, Liam and one of his colleagues have installed a 7kW Vaillant heat pump along with underfloor heating throughout an 1,800 sq. ft. two-bed terraced house in the old mill-town of Helmshore.

The work included fitting the recently launched ESBE VTN102 frost protection valves, along with one of the manufacturer’s ARA 646 2-point diverter valves and a VRG mixing valve. The work was complicated by a previous contactor having fitted an unnecessary buffer vessel, a filter intended for conventional heating systems and other inappropriate features compromising output. Fortunately, having attended last September’s ESBE sponsored iNstallD heat pump training event and drawing on his longer term experience, the uplift is producing preliminary COP figures which indicate Liam has got the heat pump working efficiently during the coldest part of the heating season.

Liam commented: “We always look to achieve high quality and are very careful about whatever components we install. We have therefore been buying ESBE valves, pumps and other equipment ever since we got into heat pumps.  It’s a long-established company with a strong reputation for quality, while we are also very happy with the support we get from the manufacturer.  In the case of the Helmshore house, we were called in to give a second opinion after the owner was unhappy with the original set up." 

“As with all our projects we used the H2X CAD system to check the heat loss and size of pump required. The Vaillant is not a linear-graph (weather compensated) pump, but it loses its output towards zero degrees due to the dew point: it reduces down to about 4.8 kW which we decided would be ideal once the rest of the system had been set up correctly and that included an anti-frost valve which we fit as standard because all heat pumps are vulnerable if the power fails where, with the dash for electrification and the lack of infrastructure, means power cuts are looking more likely." 

"After fitting underfloor heating in place of the standard emitters, we also took steps like replacing the glycol with inhibited and tested water and balancing the system. We are now seeing a SCOP of 4 based on the five months since November and would expect this figure to rise close to 5 over a full year.  Because we designed it with a low flow temperature of 370 C, even when the outside temperature fell to -70 C the house stayed nice and toasty warm.  The client is buzzing.”

The VTN102 valve has been developed to fit DN25 and DN32 (28mm and 35mm) pipe diameters to automatically monitor the temperature of the water flow. It is designed to open when the temperature in the fluid falls below 30 C, releasing water and allowing warmer water to enter the system. The valve will then close again once the temperature rises above 40 C, while the valve’s operation is unaffected by other ambient conditions such as humidity and the actual volume of water drained down in frosty conditions is relatively low.  Importantly, no manual reset is needed after the valve e has been automatically activated.  Specifiers and heating engineers seeking further information on ESBE’s product range and services can call on the support of ESBE’s technical advisory service - or go online to view the manufacturer’s helpful and instructional videos.   https://esbe.eu/uk