FAO PLUMBERS!! Can you please explain thermal heat stores ?
Discussion
Hi chaps,
We're currently rennovating a house, and I'm going to be installing water based underfloor heating downstairs (radiators upstairs). I've been on a course about how to fit it, and have spoken to a few plumbers, but I still don't think I've got it all straight in my head.
We have no gas in our village, so we will be using oil. I've been told I need a condensing combi boiler that runs off oil.
Now the underfloor heating works at a lower temperature than the hot water for radiators or the hot taps, so I was told I should look at a thermal store.
Is a thermal store just a big tank of water that the boiler holds at a certain temperature, then the pipes for the underfloor heating run through this body of water which therefore heats the water in the UFH pipes? I'm guessing its more efficient to just hold the body of water at a set temperature rather than having the underfloor heating cycling through the combi boiler and getting re-heated by that all the time?
Am I right in thinking that the boiler will split the hot water off into 3 'systems' - one for the hot taps, one for the upstairs radiators and one for the underfloor heating? If so, do they all come out at the same temperature? I presume the radiators are a sealed system so the water is continually cycled around the system?
I want to be able to use solar a few years down the line, (when the price comes down a bit) so would they be added onto the thermal heat store or the boiler itself?
I really need some advice here, as I feel like I don't understand the theory and principles behind the heating systems I am intending to use. Any advice, guidence or suggestions would be much apreciated.
Thanks in advance
We're currently rennovating a house, and I'm going to be installing water based underfloor heating downstairs (radiators upstairs). I've been on a course about how to fit it, and have spoken to a few plumbers, but I still don't think I've got it all straight in my head.
We have no gas in our village, so we will be using oil. I've been told I need a condensing combi boiler that runs off oil.
Now the underfloor heating works at a lower temperature than the hot water for radiators or the hot taps, so I was told I should look at a thermal store.
Is a thermal store just a big tank of water that the boiler holds at a certain temperature, then the pipes for the underfloor heating run through this body of water which therefore heats the water in the UFH pipes? I'm guessing its more efficient to just hold the body of water at a set temperature rather than having the underfloor heating cycling through the combi boiler and getting re-heated by that all the time?
Am I right in thinking that the boiler will split the hot water off into 3 'systems' - one for the hot taps, one for the upstairs radiators and one for the underfloor heating? If so, do they all come out at the same temperature? I presume the radiators are a sealed system so the water is continually cycled around the system?
I want to be able to use solar a few years down the line, (when the price comes down a bit) so would they be added onto the thermal heat store or the boiler itself?
I really need some advice here, as I feel like I don't understand the theory and principles behind the heating systems I am intending to use. Any advice, guidence or suggestions would be much apreciated.
Thanks in advance
Edited by ol on Tuesday 4th May 13:39
P.S.
Any suggestions of which oil boilers would be up to task would be much apreciated.
The ground floor is around 50 square meters at the moment, but we will be extending in 1 years time to double the house size, so lets say it's 100m2 floor space as I want to get a boiler that will be large enough for the finished house.
We'd have around 7 radiators upstairs, and 3 heated towel rails. There will be about 4-5 sinks, a large bath and 2 showers.
The underfloor heating will be split into 6-7 zones (covering 100m2 in total).
I literally have no idea where to start with brands of oil-boilers. We will also be having 2-3 wood burners, and I know some of them have a back burner, but is this making it all too complicated?
Cheers...
Any suggestions of which oil boilers would be up to task would be much apreciated.
The ground floor is around 50 square meters at the moment, but we will be extending in 1 years time to double the house size, so lets say it's 100m2 floor space as I want to get a boiler that will be large enough for the finished house.
We'd have around 7 radiators upstairs, and 3 heated towel rails. There will be about 4-5 sinks, a large bath and 2 showers.
The underfloor heating will be split into 6-7 zones (covering 100m2 in total).
I literally have no idea where to start with brands of oil-boilers. We will also be having 2-3 wood burners, and I know some of them have a back burner, but is this making it all too complicated?
Cheers...
Our newly installed underfloor appears to be plumbed directly to the boiler - the manifolds appear to have a thermostat and a cold water entry as well so i can only assume that HOT water comes from the boiler and is mixed with cold to get the ideal UF water temp.
NOt sure if that tit bit helps or not!
NOt sure if that tit bit helps or not!
DPS do thermal stores (mega money) and their website is excellent for explaining how they work, but theirs are ready-plumbed and expensive. Navitron, newark, advance, nuheat, there's loads out there.
Thermal stores are good as a neutral point - you can stick solar, oil, gas, wood energy in, and draw off energy to heat water, rads, or ufh. Can't use a wide range of heat sources anywhere near as easily without a store.
Nuheat use thermal stores in their ufh designs with a plate heat exchanger and shunt pump to supply hot water. My store is similar to a Nuheat one, and works well. Bestest bit is the boiler doesn't cycle as it would directly linked to roomstats etc - it's either flat out recharging the store or off.
Most boilers are now condensing (as distinct from combi) which means they are more efficient. Combis are best avoided as (generally) they're more complex and (generally) less reliable than a heat only boiler. If you're going to have a store, you won't need a combi boiler as it's easier to use the energy in the store to heat your water as Ferg says. A lot of people seem to get 'condensing' confused with 'combi' for some reason.
If you're off mains gas and are starting from scratch with a heating system anyway, rather than relying on oil, if you have a decent sized garden it might be worth looking at ground source heat pumps. Be cheaper than oil in the long run I would think.
Thermal stores are good as a neutral point - you can stick solar, oil, gas, wood energy in, and draw off energy to heat water, rads, or ufh. Can't use a wide range of heat sources anywhere near as easily without a store.
Nuheat use thermal stores in their ufh designs with a plate heat exchanger and shunt pump to supply hot water. My store is similar to a Nuheat one, and works well. Bestest bit is the boiler doesn't cycle as it would directly linked to roomstats etc - it's either flat out recharging the store or off.
Most boilers are now condensing (as distinct from combi) which means they are more efficient. Combis are best avoided as (generally) they're more complex and (generally) less reliable than a heat only boiler. If you're going to have a store, you won't need a combi boiler as it's easier to use the energy in the store to heat your water as Ferg says. A lot of people seem to get 'condensing' confused with 'combi' for some reason.
If you're off mains gas and are starting from scratch with a heating system anyway, rather than relying on oil, if you have a decent sized garden it might be worth looking at ground source heat pumps. Be cheaper than oil in the long run I would think.
Edited by andy43 on Wednesday 5th May 18:08
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