Le Plombier

Bob D Boss white is banned for gas, there are some jointing compounds but they must have the blue ATG logo to show they are approved Propane washers are soft red rubber and specific to Propane Unions are normally only approved for mains gas Le Plombier

Gosub You are completely , totally and utterley wrong in your statement that the regs only apply to mains gas Mains gas is supplied at 20mbar pressure, propane from a tank is supplied at 1.5bar pressure and it is much more devastating in an explosion The regs apply to all gas installations, mains, propane and butane Le Plombier

Bob Dee Ask Primagaz, they will have a copy of your Certificate of Conformity, they would not fill your gas tank if they did not have this document You should have it too, unless you purchased the property with the tank already present and the previous owners did not pass on the certificate It's not a department thing, it's national and the regs are in place to try to prevent all the idiots killing themselves each year The tank is the distributors responsibility, from the tank it is the responsibility of the plumber who issued the certificate, and yours of course should you make any alterations to the work described in the certificate The regs as posted by Big Mac are not commonsense but the legal requirement in France, no more no less The inspection prior to purchase would describe anything that did not conform to the regs, leaving you the choice whether you should proceed with the purchase No comment then you are probably ok but the survey is diagnostic only to provide information to the purchaser, if anything is wrong it will be noted but there will be no enforcement to put the problem right In the event of a major problem Qualigaz would have to be called in as they have the power to issue a DGI notice ( Danger, Grave and Immediate ) in which case they would shut off your gas and not allow it to be reinstated until they were satisfied the problem was resolved Le Plombier

Carbon Dioxide will be dealt with in the same way as all refrigerant gases Under UK, and I believe European legislation, any machine with more than 3kg of refrigerant gas has to be monitored for leakage When evacuating gas it has to be captured and not be allowed to escape to atmosphere The percentage of leakage and loss allowed is very low indeed Le Plombier

Brian You are correct in your statement I install geothermie and, whilst I am qualified to design the system, the manufacturer that I use will not allow this and thay take responsibilty for the design Whilst thay take responibilty for the overall design the design of the underfloor heating rests with the underfloor heating manufacturer It all comes together with the client getting a fully designed, warranted and insured installation which all parties are happy that a proper solution is being provided Properly designed and installed geothermie is the best route for alternative energy The manufacturer I use also tests and sets up the heat pump to the design performance and parameters before despatch from the factory so I and the client know a tested item of equipment is being delivered Watch out for the next generation of heat pumps, thay will use carbon dioxide as the refrigerant and will deliver hot water at an amazing 65C Le Plombier 

Dave and Olive I always wondered what Cliff Richards younger brother did for a living Having seen the video now I know Le Plombier

Be careful with the underfloor cooling in the summer, my insurer will not cover me for underfloor cooling and I am not alone Cooling is the best way to produce a cracked floor with underfloor, unusable with radiators etc due to surface condensation Geothermie is the best for heating, giving the best performance for the money in regard to running costs and definately my preferred green installation by a clear mile However air conditioning split systems are the best and safest method of cooling Le Plombier

Considering my guarantees and cost of decennal insurance I think I will leave that one for the amateurs to try When you read the troubleshooting section they list all the common problems encountered in jointing so I think a good percentage of joints will fail  With soldering you can get over most of the listed problems If it was that good why arn't all the professional outlets selling it Le Plombier

You have a leak on the heating circuit pipework inside the house Surface pipework can be visually inspected, underfloor circuits would need to individually pressure tested to establish the faulty circuit Is there any visible damp on the floors, have you drilled in to or disturbed any floors, how old is the installation, if less than 10 years you may be covered under the original installers decennal insurance provided it is a latent defect and not damage caused by you or any other party I assume the hot water tank quote is because you do not already have the facility for hot water supply with your present installation Le plombier

When you say the pressure in the pipes is dropping do you mean the underfloor or radiator heating circuit, if so you have a leak Additional water storage will have no effect on pressure whatsoever Can you be more specific with the detail to see if I can help you I do install geothermie Le Plombier

Jondeau Thats how it is done in france I am a practising plumber here so I guess I should know The safety controls are there to prevent the system overheating Look on the Morvan boilers web site and you can see a diagrammatic layout of the system I would not want to debate the detailed technicalities on an open forum as I personnaly believe this is not the type of installation an amateur should carry out because of the potential danger Either way I am sure you will agree that whichever method is employed, unless you really know what you are doing it is potentially very dangerous to undertake this type of installation Le Plombier 

The norm in France is the sealed system, devices are available to provide safety and prevent boiling Open vented systems also exist but in my experience it is unlikely a French artisan would agree to install an open vented system Whether a sealed or open vented system is installed they are both potentially dangerous if incorrectly installed If a system is not installed properly overheating can result in the production of steam with, as the worst consequence, an explosion Just installing an open vented system does not automatically make it safe The sealed system depends upon a thermostatically controlled damper on the combustion air supply to the fire and a heat exchange tank where mains cold water can pass through to cool the system water, again thermostatically controlled. In my opinion this is safer and more controllable than relying on a gravity circuit and a radiator or similar to dissipate heat as on the old UK systems In either event you should only proceed if you really know what you are doing As with gas installations my standard advice for this type of installation is use a professional Le Plombier

I have found a cheap solution for you  Look on Cedeo.fr website Search for Raccor Flex Seal , Code 1701803 It is a rubber connector with two jubilee clips, the reference is for the 32/40dia one but they do 42/50dia as well The joint is suitable for your application and will take a pressure of 0.5 bar Cost about  12/15 euros Cedeo are a national plumbing and heating outlet, they should have a branch near you Le Plombier

Does the steel pipe have a thread, if so a female iron to copper connector and run the waste in 42 copper instead of pvc, male iron to copper if a socket is present on the pipe The 42 copper will fit the standard plastic trap outlet You would have to be able to solder as joints in copper would need solder fittings If it's not threaded you can use a 42 metal connector and a 42 galvanised barrel nipple, the connector is a two peice clamp designed for jointing pipes where there is no thread With a solution such as this you will get proper watertight joints You would need to go to a professional plumbing and heating merchant as I doubt these fittings would be available in a brico Le Plombier

I wouldn't buy anything from brico depot Notwithstancing that are your two remote controllers set up on different frequencies I stayed in a hotel room in New York on a business trip many years ago, the room was huge and had two televisions This was great until I used the remote to switch one off and the other one came on Your problem may be just as simple as that Le Plombier

In a new well insulated and reasonably airtight house the use of reversible air conditioning split systems for heating is possibly a good option In an old stone house with draughts and far from air tight the choice of heating using air as the medium to deliver the heat needs careful consideratiion Without getting technical air delivered from an outlet, a grille or a room cassette unit will travel a certain distance and then dump ( not travel any further ) If you have a large room and it is draughty you may well find there are cold pockets when using air to heat Difficult to explain simply but be careful, you need to be sure the unit fan pressure and grille selection will give the air sufficient throw to travel the required distance to heat the room evenly With radiators and underfloor heating you do not have the same problems If you think about all the offices you have worked in, or still do, that are air conditioned they are most probably fairly airtight I might become an Irish fan in the near future, my mother was Irish Le Plombier

UlsterRugby1999 I am an England rugby man myself so maybe I shouldn't be talking to you but then you did have the best hooker in the world a few years back Split systems effectively only use refrigerant gas as a single medium The refrigerant gas passes through the external unit where it takes or rejects heat to the air ( assuming the unit is reversible for heating and cooling ) The refrigerant gas is the delivered to the room cassette where the hot or cool air is generated by heat exchange between the cassette coil and the room air Heat pumps use several mediums Either air (air to air - Aerothermie ) or water ( water to air - Geothermie ) interfaces with the heat exchanger in the heat pump to transfer heat in to the system The circuit in the heat pump contains refrigerant gas and the heat in the gas plus the heat of compression is transferred to a water system via a heat exchanger This a is very simplistic but hopefully explains the difference With an air conditioning split it is air to refrigerant gas-refrigerant gas to air With a heat pump it is air/water to refrigerant gas-refrigerant gas to water The principles of coefficient of performance apply to both systems Le plombier

The changes in refrigerant gases over the past twenty years have been driven in the main by environmental issues in regard to the emission of cfc's The Coefficient of Performance quoted for heat pumps by manufacturers is not a fixed ratio, they normally quote the best achievable or a very good average It all comes down to the basic laws of physics Heat exchange varies according to mass x specific gravity x temperature difference The heat pumps I install for geothermie vary from the worst case of 2.6 COP ( kW purchased to kW delivered ) to 5.6 COP with 4 being a good average The temperature difference in ground water through the year varies only a few degrees so the COP remains fairly consistent With Aerothermie, air to refrigerant heat exchange, the temperature difference varies considerably with a lower COP when you need heat the most which generally requires supplementary heat Heat pumps produce low grade heat ( lower temperature ) and the heat emitters such as radiators need to have about 15% greater surface area to achieve the same heat output as those installed on a conventional boiler system. This is vitally important if you are changing from a boiler to a heat pump on an existing installation. If your installer has not surveyed the size and output of the existing radiators and made changes or confirmed thay are the correct size you are probably wasting your money as you can never get sufficient heat in to your rooms, despite the performance of the heat pump  The standard size hopper available for wood pellet boilers is 600 litres which would supply a boiler for perhaps one week Larger hoppers in the main are site fabricated and very expensive to install In my region ( Dordogne ) there are no local suppliers of pellets in reasonable quantities, so it is necessary to purchase in bulk if you want the best prices The end result to make the best saving is bulk delivery, manually loading the hopper weekly and finding somewhere to dispose of the tons of ash produced in a year. Wood ash is good for roses but you will need a hell of a lot of roses I will never install a green system unless my clients are fully aware of the disadvantages as well as the advantages of such a system I would add that I am a committed supporter of green and alternative energy systems, they get better all the time but they do currently have limitations A couple of postings in this thread appear to refer to air conditionong split systems and not to heat pumps, althought he principals are the same Le Plombier

Whilst expensive Geothermie is by far the best of the systems available on the market for energy conservation This is the only alternative system I propose to my clients when central heating is required Aerothermie efficiency varies and invariably requires a back up of a conventional boiler or an electric heater to make good the energy shortfall so the running costs remain relatively high. You can also experience noise problems due to the condenser fan If you do not want the expense of Geothermie then you are best to have a conventional system and a well insulated house Wood burners work well and are cheap to run but you have to consider loading the pellets in to the hopper frequently and what you are going to do to dispose of all the ash Solar is good but only for hot water and swimming pools Le Plombier

Your heating engineer should be able to supply and install Much more expensive than an above ground tank Approx 3000euros for the tank alone compared to 600euros for an above ground tank Le Plombier

It would only be a problem with the DDS ( the valve by the cooker) if as you light the burners the flame on the lit burners reduces Normally if the DDS is undersized it automatically shuts down on reduced pressure and you have no gas at all until you reset it You only need the 4kg rated DDS for a large appliance, around 15Kw, for a normal cooker a 1.3kg DDS is correct If it is the same burners that consistently are a problem then it is most likely a problem with the safety protection device on the burner You would need a specialist to repair the appliance Le Plombier

Agree with you LesFlammards The liners I fit, bois haut rendement, are more like 80 euros per metre Le Plombier

Jonzjob you chose well, excellent boilers, I install a lot of them You should point out though they are not cheap, but they represent excellent value for money Le Plombier

You need to drain the system Do not go for the pipe freezing option, it might be ok for a single valve but is not an option for changing multiple valves Le Plombier

Thermostatic radiator valves should always be set in the fully open position for the summer If they stick thay are easily freed by just closing the valve when you want to use the system in the winter Do this and you will have none of the problems you describe As they are at the moment when you push the pin in if it does not spring back by itself immediately then the valve is still stuck A tap with a hammer or a replacement valve is probably the available choice You can strip out the valve body but and clean but from a professional point of view it is quicker and cheaper to replace if you are going to pay someone Le Plombier