Gravity heating circuit

[thereisawizza]

Hi all.

Looking to fit addition all rad in each room of house so will have one off of combi & one of solid fuel fire, 4 rads tops going on. Want to have gravity rather than pumped so uses no electricity. House is a 30`s chalet bungalow, any idea on sys design (already thinking 28mm tube with pulled bends as much as possible etc
Cheers, Richard

 

[lame plumber]

Against regs to install gravity fed systems nowadays.

 

[tamz]

From the solid fuel i take it?

 

[Best]

Not sure what you mean to do by your post as it is not clear.
But for solid fuel gravity, remember that any rads or water cylinder need to be at a raised level although the rads will work if they are only slightly higher than the fire return.

 

[tamz]

It can be done with the rads on the same level or lower than the boiler if you have a solum.

 

[Dannypipe]

Solum? I feel I'm about learn something here!? I need to download your brain Tamz.

 

[lame plumber]

slum? cant see why anyone would pay more for an inefficient system

 

[thereisawizza]

Right. Now am using full size keyboard and not half asleep... House is already heated by my ever faithfull 837 Turbomax (8 yrs old and non-condensing but has never let me down yet!) so will be a secondary heat source. At the moment we have a Parkray room heater in the lounge and a contemporary stove in the dining room so on weekends and evenings I spend all night running between the two while the missus puts her feet up and coos over Prof Brian Cox (he played keys in D-Ream don't you know...). As we have a near free source of wood available am wanting to capitalise on this! The dining room stove is going to be replaced with a stove with boiler when I finally get round to starting the extension next year and will be the main room we use so may as well put it there. There will be two rads (poss three) above the boiler, with another two at least higher than the flow. If the gravity thing is out I have no dramas putting a G/fos Alpha on the return, would have been nice to be elec free tho! Hope this has cleared it up a tad. BTW, the existing htg system will be staying in and functional for those night when you just can't be bothered to make a fire!!

 

[SafeGasInstall]

On solid fuel , you can fit pump on the flow with temp sensor and fit prv on the return , get a large truck battery kits they are available from Italy .they charge battery when there is electricity and if electric stops you have ch for that night ! Or you could use a old stile install where you have a primary flow Str up and as it rich highest point in the house return it down and t off all rads on each floor to it and have the return larger size too like 1" 1/2 and all tee to rads

I have never installed it but have seen them , only Tamz will tell

 

[hasbean]

Hi I live in spain, I have wood burning stove, which heats a 300litre open vent cylinder with twin coils. The fire heats the water when the solar is not good enough, about 10 weeks a year, the fire is only lit late in the day.

This on a gravity system with one radiator which acts as a heat sink if the cylinder gets over heated. we have a lot of problems with the electric supply.
The problem with having electrical and mechecal equipment is at some time they are going to break down, sods law , you stocked the fire up so all is nice and warm when you return, you have a red hot stove and worse.
Stick to a simple, not so efficient but reliable system, that cost you nothing over the years.

Make sure you start off with the right size pipework min 28mm, only go down to 15mm to connect onto a rad. Remember in your mind that heated water rises and you need to get the air out of the system and you cannot go worn.

As a matter of interest one of my first jobs as a lad in 1957 was to screw inch and half BI to do a whole house heating system , properly why I have back back now.

I know I am going to a whole host of people I am wrong.

Richard