Sorry for a long post but we have a complicated thermal store situation
Over the summer we had a new solid fuel stovax back boiler installed and upgraded our hot water storage tank to a thermal store.
We have not had reliable hot water since. Initially we only used the emersion and after couple of hours we could run a shallow bath.
Now we can run a bath when the fire is on but even the morning after the fire has been on we can only get a small amount of water. If left to run more than a couple of mins the water soon cools down. If left we can then get another bout of hot water 2p mins or so later.
The engineer is completely stumped. We have replaced the mixer, the tank has been tested and is up to temperature. We have insulated all the pipes to ensure minimal heat loss.
The engineer thinks that perhaps the mixer valve is again faulty but the hot water pipe leaving the tank before the mixer does not feel overly warm.
I'm pretty convinced there must be a fault with the copper heat exchange coil. Maybe small holes with water leaking out or some reason for inefficient heat exchange. The engineer seems confident this isn't the case as we get good hot water when the fire is on.
In summary low volume and short bursts of demands on the store does not seem to be a problem (ie when the water has been sat in the coil for a length of time) but any higher volume demand, the water is soon cold. The tank itself seems to cool pretty quickly too.
It's gone on so long I'm thinking about getting rid of the thermal store and reinstalling the header tank to go back to a conventional system
Over the summer we had a new solid fuel stovax back boiler installed and upgraded our hot water storage tank to a thermal store.
We have not had reliable hot water since. Initially we only used the emersion and after couple of hours we could run a shallow bath.
Now we can run a bath when the fire is on but even the morning after the fire has been on we can only get a small amount of water. If left to run more than a couple of mins the water soon cools down. If left we can then get another bout of hot water 2p mins or so later.
The engineer is completely stumped. We have replaced the mixer, the tank has been tested and is up to temperature. We have insulated all the pipes to ensure minimal heat loss.
The engineer thinks that perhaps the mixer valve is again faulty but the hot water pipe leaving the tank before the mixer does not feel overly warm.
I'm pretty convinced there must be a fault with the copper heat exchange coil. Maybe small holes with water leaking out or some reason for inefficient heat exchange. The engineer seems confident this isn't the case as we get good hot water when the fire is on.
In summary low volume and short bursts of demands on the store does not seem to be a problem (ie when the water has been sat in the coil for a length of time) but any higher volume demand, the water is soon cold. The tank itself seems to cool pretty quickly too.
It's gone on so long I'm thinking about getting rid of the thermal store and reinstalling the header tank to go back to a conventional system
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