Hi, new member looking for some advice, i'm a heating novice and have recently moved house. I am considering replacing the heating system.
The house is a 1914 detached dormer bungalow, 4 beds and 1 downstairs bathroom. We are a family with 2 young children. The existing heating system is a pretty old (>15 years). It's a conventional system with a non-condensing boiler and vented hot water cylinder fed from a cold water storage tank in the loft. There are two bedrooms upstairs. The cold water storage tanks are at floor level on this floor. There doesn't appear to be a working room thermostat, the boiler has a high or low thermostat setting, that appears to be it other than the timer for heating and hot water.
The heating system works fine but the hot water cylinder is quite small and running one bath means lukewarm water for half an hour or more while the cylinder reheats. There is no shower currently. Since the hot water is gravity fed and the storage tank is low the hot water pressure is poor.
Our mains supply is lead pipe I think, we get 4bar static pressure and a flow rate at the kitchen tap of around 16-17l/min, the pressure at the outside tap when the kitchen tap is going full bore is around 0.5bar. Using an additional tap noticeably affects the flow from an already open tap (subjectively), is this a useful thing to measure?
We'd like to have an upstairs en-suite shower room and a shower in the downstairs bathroom, both usable simultaneously at a decent flow rate. It would be good to be able to have a bath and still have hot water available.
Clearly the existing setup isn't going to meet our needs, but what would be the best approach to supplying decent showers and erratic demand for hot water? I'm willing to consider any approach, the key thing is to end up with an effective system.
Will it be possible to supply two decent showers with the supply i've got? If so would a larger unvented cylinder or a combi be the best approach? If not, should I be looking at a whole house pump or some other method?
Any advice would be gratefully received.
The house is a 1914 detached dormer bungalow, 4 beds and 1 downstairs bathroom. We are a family with 2 young children. The existing heating system is a pretty old (>15 years). It's a conventional system with a non-condensing boiler and vented hot water cylinder fed from a cold water storage tank in the loft. There are two bedrooms upstairs. The cold water storage tanks are at floor level on this floor. There doesn't appear to be a working room thermostat, the boiler has a high or low thermostat setting, that appears to be it other than the timer for heating and hot water.
The heating system works fine but the hot water cylinder is quite small and running one bath means lukewarm water for half an hour or more while the cylinder reheats. There is no shower currently. Since the hot water is gravity fed and the storage tank is low the hot water pressure is poor.
Our mains supply is lead pipe I think, we get 4bar static pressure and a flow rate at the kitchen tap of around 16-17l/min, the pressure at the outside tap when the kitchen tap is going full bore is around 0.5bar. Using an additional tap noticeably affects the flow from an already open tap (subjectively), is this a useful thing to measure?
We'd like to have an upstairs en-suite shower room and a shower in the downstairs bathroom, both usable simultaneously at a decent flow rate. It would be good to be able to have a bath and still have hot water available.
Clearly the existing setup isn't going to meet our needs, but what would be the best approach to supplying decent showers and erratic demand for hot water? I'm willing to consider any approach, the key thing is to end up with an effective system.
Will it be possible to supply two decent showers with the supply i've got? If so would a larger unvented cylinder or a combi be the best approach? If not, should I be looking at a whole house pump or some other method?
Any advice would be gratefully received.
.
