Fitting unvented hot water cylinder
Discussion
Having just installed an Evohome system to my boiler and radiators, it's time to sort out the hot water.
I currently have a basic oil-fired Worcester system boiler suppling the radiators. The boiler is in the attached garage of my 4 bed dormer bungalow.
A vented cylinder in the middle of the house, heated by just an immersion heater, supplies hot water. I have a shower room upstairs, bathroom with separate shower downstairs. Both showers are electric, cold feed from the mains.
The hot water flow rate to the bathroom and upstairs shower is very low (header tank in the loft is barely above the upstairs taps), so an unvented cylinder seems to be the answer.
It will probably be easier to connect the new cylinder if I get it fitted right next to the boiler, in the garage. I feel that it'll be easier to re-plumb the taps than put in the pipework for the primary circuit, and space in the airing cupboard is pretty tight.
The place that supplied the Evohome kit said I can add hot water to the setup easily, just fit a 2-port valve and the associated Evohome electronics. There are no zone valves at the moment, the Evohome kit is taking care of all that.
Access to the tap pipework in the loft looks to be OK.
I also need an automatic bypass valve fitting to the heating circuit, as I don't currently have one (1 radiator left open).
Does this sound like the way to proceed?
Any better ideas?
Rough idea of cost for parts and labour (Cornwall)?
I currently have a basic oil-fired Worcester system boiler suppling the radiators. The boiler is in the attached garage of my 4 bed dormer bungalow.
A vented cylinder in the middle of the house, heated by just an immersion heater, supplies hot water. I have a shower room upstairs, bathroom with separate shower downstairs. Both showers are electric, cold feed from the mains.
The hot water flow rate to the bathroom and upstairs shower is very low (header tank in the loft is barely above the upstairs taps), so an unvented cylinder seems to be the answer.
It will probably be easier to connect the new cylinder if I get it fitted right next to the boiler, in the garage. I feel that it'll be easier to re-plumb the taps than put in the pipework for the primary circuit, and space in the airing cupboard is pretty tight.
The place that supplied the Evohome kit said I can add hot water to the setup easily, just fit a 2-port valve and the associated Evohome electronics. There are no zone valves at the moment, the Evohome kit is taking care of all that.
Access to the tap pipework in the loft looks to be OK.
I also need an automatic bypass valve fitting to the heating circuit, as I don't currently have one (1 radiator left open).
Does this sound like the way to proceed?
Any better ideas?
Rough idea of cost for parts and labour (Cornwall)?
The bathroom and upstairs shower room would both be closer to a tank in the garage, less than half the distance for the bathroom. The kitchen tap would need an extra 5 metres of pipework, so about 30% longer.
The shower room tap is flowing 2 litres per minute, taking 75 seconds to show any sign of warmth, nearly 2 minutes to reach full temperature. The bathroom tap is a little faster flowing, but takes as long to warm up.
My original idea was to just fit a pump, but the builder who did some work on the kitchen suggested an unvented cylinder.
I'll be getting the work done by a suitably qualified plumber. I'm happy to fit radiators and other bits and bobs myself, but I'm not going to mess with a cylinder or boiler, even if the job didn't need signing off
The shower room tap is flowing 2 litres per minute, taking 75 seconds to show any sign of warmth, nearly 2 minutes to reach full temperature. The bathroom tap is a little faster flowing, but takes as long to warm up.
My original idea was to just fit a pump, but the builder who did some work on the kitchen suggested an unvented cylinder.
I'll be getting the work done by a suitably qualified plumber. I'm happy to fit radiators and other bits and bobs myself, but I'm not going to mess with a cylinder or boiler, even if the job didn't need signing off
I've had a quote to supply and fit an unvented cylinder, 2 port valve and bypass in the garage, just over £1200. The cylinder in the quote is a Centrestore 250, which is around £750 on line.
Is Centrestore a good make?
Do I need such a large cylinder?
It's a 4 bed dormer bungalow, main bathroom and a shower room. Both showers are electric. I don't want to underspec the cylinder for the size of the house, but a smaller one is cheaper to buy and presumably cheaper to heat.
Is Centrestore a good make?
Do I need such a large cylinder?
It's a 4 bed dormer bungalow, main bathroom and a shower room. Both showers are electric. I don't want to underspec the cylinder for the size of the house, but a smaller one is cheaper to buy and presumably cheaper to heat.
The water supply to the stopcock in the garage is plastic pipe (25mm?), which tees off to the loft (taps, header tanks, etc.) in plastic, and the garage, starting in plastic, then reducing to 15mm copper(outside tap, washing machine and boiler filling loop).
The flow rate from the outside tap is just shy of 30l/minute.
Presumably the unvented tank would be connected directly to the plastic pipe, not to the 15mm copper, or doesn't it matter?
The plumber is proposing to connect the hot outlet from the tank to the existing hot pipe in the garage, which is a 15mm pipe that was originally intended to be a washing machine supply. It hadn't occured to me that this would be an option. I thought that it would be a new 22mm pipe up into the loft, connecting to the existing outlet from the old tank (or to the pipes dropping to each tap, if that meant shorter pipe runs).
I feel that putting a length of 15mm between the tank and the bath tap isn't the best way to do it, but I guess that's relative?
The flow rate from the outside tap is just shy of 30l/minute.
Presumably the unvented tank would be connected directly to the plastic pipe, not to the 15mm copper, or doesn't it matter?
The plumber is proposing to connect the hot outlet from the tank to the existing hot pipe in the garage, which is a 15mm pipe that was originally intended to be a washing machine supply. It hadn't occured to me that this would be an option. I thought that it would be a new 22mm pipe up into the loft, connecting to the existing outlet from the old tank (or to the pipes dropping to each tap, if that meant shorter pipe runs).
I feel that putting a length of 15mm between the tank and the bath tap isn't the best way to do it, but I guess that's relative?
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