Central Heating Advice

[stanlyp]

Good Evening,

Purchased a 1960's 4 bed semi in December 2011. Main family bathroom & on-suite upstairs both having showers installed. Downstairs has a W/C. The house is being fully refurbished and it has now come down to deciding on a new central heating system. Back in early January 2012 I had three different plumbers come round to offer advice on a new system.

Having just had a new kitchen installed the cold water pressure was extremely poor. After numerous visits from the local water company a new communication pipe was installed in the road and I've just had a new 25mm blue pipe (Replaced the old iron feed) installed into the kitchen in the property. We now have excellent cold water pressure into the property.

I'm undecided on what system to have installed:

1) Install a large Combi that will supply good hot water flow rates (Worcester Bosch CDi has been recommended)
2) Look at having a high pressure system installed - Megaflow

Any help/advice would be greatly received. I'd also be interested to understand if its possible to have the boiler installed in the kitchen and the Megaflow cylinder installed in the loft? Is it recommended to install boilers in the loft area? We have a utility room but this is washing machine/dishwater installed so no space for boiler/Megaflow cylinder.

The last point is around underfloor heating and if a High-pressure system can support hot water underfloor heating? We have concrete floors downstairs and one of the plumbers recommended a polypipe solution using overlay lite panels with 4 zones - lounge, dinner, kitchen & entrance hall. Has anyone installed this system and is it worth the extra expense? Are the manifolds usually hidden away under the stairs or behind kitchen units?

Thanks in advance

Kind Regards

Paul

 

[Mbear]

Unvented cylinder all the way.

Imo the best option is to get fairly big me combi and use the combi 'hot water' for the kitchen and 'zone in' an unvented cylinder to the combi heating circuit to supply the bathrooms/showers.

Best of both worlds.

 

[diamondgas]

Hi stanlyp :welcome: to the forum

I'd imagine you'll get as many ideas as there are plumbers to be honest Personally I wouldn't fit anything in the loft unless it's well insulated, boarded out and easily accessible for maintenance. Also need good supports coz there's a lot of weight in a cylinder full of water! Fitting something in a loft space is about the same as fitting it outside, by-the-way

I can't help you much with the other stuff as thankfully my installation days are just about over! I'd imagine though a visit would be the only way to determine best advice regards UFH manifolds although they too would require access for maintenance Good luck!

 

[AWheating]

unvented cylinder in A/C boiler in kitchen, fitting in the loft as mentioned would create some problems but can be done. I think you need to decide on a budget and then go for what fits.