Short course revision, in depth.
One in-depth guide per module of each PlumbMate short course, written to the standards the job is actually assessed against. Free to read, with a 10-question mock test at the end of every article.
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7 articles on heat pumps
One in-depth guide per module of the heat pumps course, from first principles to fault finding.
How Heat Pumps Work: Principles, the Refrigerant Cycle and Real Efficiency (With 10-Question Mock Test)
Moving heat instead of making it: the refrigerant cycle, defrost, COP against SCOP and SPF to BS EN 14511, and why temperature lift decides everything.
Heat Pump System Design: Heat Loss, Flow Rate, Emitters and Cylinders (With 10-Question Mock Test)
Room-by-room heat loss to BS EN 12831, flow rate and ΔT, pump duty points, emitter correction factors, buffers and system volume, cylinders and controls.
Heat Pump Regulations: Building Regs, MCS, Planning, F-Gas and the DNO (With 10-Question Mock Test)
Which Building Regs Parts apply, MIS 3005 and MCS 020a, England permitted development including the flat-roof 1 metre rule, the DNO and F-Gas.
The Heat Pump Survey: Sizing, Ground Arrays, Siting and Noise (With 10-Question Mock Test)
The pre-installation checklist, reading manufacturer data, sizing a ground array from extraction to loops, siting, noise, and assessing an existing system.
Heat Pump Installation Practice: Bases, Pipework, Collectors and Brine (With 10-Question Mock Test)
Concrete bases and clearances, oxygen barrier pipe and insulation, penetrations under Parts A, B and C, ground collectors, the brine circuit and glycol.
Heat Pump Commissioning and Handover: Flushing, Filling, Flow Rate and Records (With 10-Question Mock Test)
Confirming and correcting, not recording. What to check before you start, what to measure, what to set, and what to leave the customer with.
Heat Pump Fault Finding and Servicing: A Systematic Method (With 10-Question Mock Test)
A method beats a hunch. How to reason from the symptom to the cause, and why the commissioning record is the most useful thing in your van.
7 articles on underfloor heating
One in-depth guide per module of the underfloor heating course, from the comfort principles to commissioning and fault finding.
How Underfloor Heating Works: Low Temperatures, Comfort and the Standards (With 10-Question Mock Test)
The emitter is the building. Once you take that seriously, the flow temperature, the comfort, the thermal lag and the hard ceiling on output all follow from it.
Underfloor Heating Floor Constructions: Screed, Timber and Floating Floors (With 10-Question Mock Test)
The three standard constructions and what each costs you: solid screed build-up and curing, plated and foil timber floors, floating floors, and Part L.
Floor Coverings and Underfloor Heating: Tog, Resistance and the 27 °C Trap (With 10-Question Mock Test)
Design thermal resistances, the 1.5 tog ceiling covering and underlay share, contact against surface temperature caps, and whether a room can be heated.
Underfloor Heating Manifolds and Controls: Blending, Balancing and Switching (With 10-Question Mock Test)
What is on a manifold and what each part does, 3-port mixers against 2-port injectors, actuators, room control and weather compensation.
Underfloor Heating Design Calculations: Heat Loss to Flow Rate, Worked Through (With 10-Question Mock Test)
Watts per square metre, surface temperature limits and the emission formula behind them, pipe centres, flow rates and the performance chart check.
Underfloor Heating Installation Practice: Sequence, Siting and Getting It Right First Time (With 10-Question Mock Test)
The seven-step installation sequence, briefing the other trades, siting the manifold, edge strip and conduit, laying the tube, and the pressure test.
Underfloor Heating Commissioning and Fault Finding: From Cured Screed to the First Winter (With 10-Question Mock Test)
The commonest underfloor callout in the first winter is not a fault at all. Recognising that category is as much a part of diagnosis as any test instrument.
7 articles on low temperature heating & hot water
One in-depth guide per module of the low temperature heating & hot water course — heat loss, sizing emitters at 45/40, cylinders and coils for a low temperature source, pipework and pumps, and commissioning.
Low Temperature Heating Explained: Why the Return Temperature Decides Everything (With 10-Question Mock Test)
The emitter is left with 39% of the temperature difference it used to have. Every calculation in the subject exists to make that work.
Heat Loss for Low Temperature Heating: Fabric, Ventilation and U-Values (With 10-Question Mock Test)
At 45 °C there is no margin left to absorb an error in the heat loss. Nothing downstream can correct it.
The Room-by-Room Heat Loss Calculation, Worked on a Real House (With 10-Question Mock Test)
Nine rooms, 4,337 watts, and every surface of every room on the sheet: a loss in the warmer room, the same watts as a gain in the cooler one.
Sizing Radiators at 45/40: The Correction Factor That Triples Your Schedule (With 10-Question Mock Test)
A radiator at 45/40 gives one third of its catalogue output. Everything a customer finds surprising about low temperature heating comes from that one number.
Hot Water on a Low Temperature System: Cylinders, Coils and the 60 °C Floor (With 10-Question Mock Test)
Everything else in the design pushed the temperature down. Hot water is the one place it cannot go.
Pipe Sizing and Pump Duty at 5 K ΔT: Four Times the Flow (With 10-Question Mock Test)
Four times the flow means sixteen times the pressure drop. This is where a low temperature retrofit quietly fails.
Low Temperature System Design: Separation, Controls and Commissioning (With 10-Question Mock Test)
A component fitted to be safe becomes a permanent charge on the efficiency the whole design was for.
7 articles on solar thermal
One in-depth guide per module of the solar thermal course, from the resource and the collectors to fault finding.
How Solar Thermal Works: The Resource, Orientation and Collectors (With 10-Question Mock Test)
What solar thermal actually delivers, the UK solar year, azimuth and tilt, flat plate against evacuated tube, and the aperture-versus-overall-area trap.
Solar Thermal System Types: Filled, Drain-back, Primaries and Controls (With 10-Question Mock Test)
Fully filled against drain-back, tidal volume, flow rate and pipe sizing to CIBSE and BS 5918, the pump station, differential control and the cylinder.
Solar Thermal Regulations: Building Regs, MCS, Planning and Safety (With 10-Question Mock Test)
Which Building Regs Parts apply, MIS 3001 and the MCS documents, permitted development and its exceptions, Water Regs and legionella, and work at height.
The Solar Thermal Survey: Demand, Sizing, Wind Loading and the MCS Calculation (With 10-Question Mock Test)
What the survey must establish, roof defects, dead snow and wind loads, uplift and ballast, hot water demand, and the MCS energy calculation.
Solar Thermal Installation Practice: Mounting, Weathering and Pipework (With 10-Question Mock Test)
Mounting systems and MCS 012, flashings and penetrations, pipework and insulation grade, the pump station and vessel, sensor positions and the wiring.
Solar Thermal Commissioning and Handover: Filling, Pressure, Glycol and Records (With 10-Question Mock Test)
Confirming and correcting, not recording. What to check before you fill, what to measure, what to set, and what the customer goes away with.
Solar Thermal Fault Finding and Servicing: Working From the Symptom (With 10-Question Mock Test)
Routine servicing to BS 5918, stagnation and fluid degradation, working a fault from the symptom, pressure loss with nothing discharging, and false callouts.
13 articles on the Water Regulations
One in-depth guide per module of the Water Regulations course, from Regulation 3 and notification through fluid categories and backflow to water efficiency and outside use.
The Water Regulations: What They Require, Who Enforces Them and When to Notify (With 10-Question Mock Test)
The five things Regulation 3 prohibits, how far the Regulations reach, which work is notifiable and which is not, approved contractors and enforcement.
Materials and Fittings Under the Water Regulations: Approval, Suitability and What Corrodes What (With 10-Question Mock Test)
Regulation 4's two tests, what happened to the approval schemes, the five suitability factors, and the corrosion mechanisms that ruin compliant work.
Installing Pipework to the Water Regulations: Depth, Ducts, Frost and Contaminated Ground (With 10-Question Mock Test)
Depth of cover and obstructions, what counts as concealed, how frost protection really works, and permeation through plastics in contaminated ground.
Pressure Testing, Flushing and Disinfection: Proving an Installation to the Water Regulations (With 10-Question Mock Test)
Test pressure and surge, the rigid and plastics test regimes and why they differ, and the flushing and disinfection sequence paragraph 13 requires.
System Design and Valves Under the Water Regulations: Sizing, Isolation and Dead Legs (With 10-Question Mock Test)
Flow rates and supply arrangements, where stopvalves, servicing valves and drain taps must go, and why capping a redundant branch is not compliance.
Cross-Connection and Unwholesome Water: Rainwater, Greywater and Private Supplies (With 10-Question Mock Test)
Identifying non-wholesome fittings, the cross-connection prohibition, why harvested water is fluid category 5, and the air gap mains back-up requires.
Fluid Categories 1 to 5: How the Water Regulations Rank Contamination Risk (With 10-Question Mock Test)
The five fluid categories, the aesthetic line and the toxicity progression, and the principle that the category follows the use, not the appliance.
Backflow Prevention: Arrangements, Devices and What Each One Protects Against (With 10-Question Mock Test)
Backpressure and backsiphonage, paragraph 15, the air gaps and their real category ratings, and the mechanical devices with their ceilings and conditions.
Backflow Prevention in Practice: Choosing the Right Protection, Point by Point (With 10-Question Mock Test)
Baths, showers, bidets, sinks, washing machines, outside taps, irrigation and heating filling loops: the protection each needs and why it changes.
Cold Water Services and Storage Cisterns: Lids, Screens, Warning Pipes and Circulation (With 10-Question Mock Test)
Inlet valve closing levels, warning pipes, covers and insect screens, access and clearance, support, and the rules that stop stored water standing.
Hot Water Services and Safety Devices: Expansion, Temperature and Discharge (With 10-Question Mock Test)
The unvented safety stack, the 60/50/43 temperature regime and where each figure comes from, vent pipes, D1 and D2 discharge sizing, and dead legs.
WCs, Urinals and Flushing Devices: Capacity, Overflow and Urinal Control (With 10-Question Mock Test)
Flush volumes and the transitional dates, replacement and suite approval, flushing devices, overflows, the backflow position at a WC, and urinal rates.
Sanitary Appliances, Water Efficiency and Outside Use: Baths, Taps, Troughs and Hoses (With 10-Question Mock Test)
The drinking water tap, plugs, the consumption figures — and everything outside the building, where the fluid category jumps to 5 and stays there.
7 articles on unvented hot water
One in-depth guide per module of the unvented course, from why the hazard is heat rather than pressure through to commissioning and reading a discharge.
What an Unvented System Is, and Why the Danger Is Heat Rather Than Pressure (With 10-Question Mock Test)
A cold cylinder at pressure splits; a hot one explodes. Understanding why is what makes every safety control on an unvented system make sense.
Unvented Functional Controls: The Inlet Set, the Expansion Vessel and the Balanced Cold (With 10-Question Mock Test)
The inlet control set in order and the reason for each position, where the expansion vessel goes, PRV against pressure-limiting valve, and vacuum relief.
Unvented Safety Controls: Three Layers of Temperature Protection (With 10-Question Mock Test)
Thermostat, energy cut-out and T&P relief valve and what each is for, the motorised valve on indirect systems, and the temperatures people confuse.
Unvented Cylinders and Expansion: Materials, Anodes, Air Bubbles and Coils (With 10-Question Mock Test)
Copper, stainless and lined steel and what each means for servicing, direct against indirect, expansion vessels and air bubbles, and twin-coil solar.
Unvented Discharge Pipework: D1, the Tundish, D2 and a Safe Termination (With 10-Question Mock Test)
The part of an unvented installation that announces nothing when it is wrong — and has to work perfectly on the one day it is ever used.
Unvented Regulations, Siting and Self-Certification: G3, BBA Approval and Competent Person Schemes (With 10-Question Mock Test)
On unvented work the paperwork is part of the safety case — an approved package, a registered installer, and a system somebody can be held to.
Unvented Commissioning, Fault Finding and Servicing: Reading the Discharge (With 10-Question Mock Test)
Commissioning and fault finding are the same skill pointed in opposite directions — and on an unvented cylinder both start at the discharge.
Turn these guides into a pass.
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