Loft conversion

[Danjack0]

Hi

We are currently doing a loft conversion on our 2 bedroom 1 bathroom bungalow. Soon to be 4 bedroom 2 bathroom.

Anyway 2 years ago we replaced the conventional boiler with a Condensing Worcester greenstar 24ri. At the time not taking into consideration the future loft conversion.

We have a large cold water tank and a small feeder/ expansion tank in the loft space which we are converting.

The current shower is electric and the new loft shower can be either normal or electric depending on the choices we make.

My questions are.

1. Can we convert to a sealed central heating system using the same boiler.

2. If we do the above the cold water tank will still only be about 1m above the loft hot tap. Will we get enough pressure from this tap?

3. If I reduce the size of the cold water tank to the same as the current feeder tank (so I can get it as high as possible) will this affect the pressure?. I am limited on space as need it for room space!

4. Am I better off just replacing with a good quality combi assuming that I have the correct incoming pressure(how do I test this?). Currently we don't use hot water for anything apart from washing hands and heating the house. Plus the very occasional bath. the current shower, dishwasher and washing machine heat there own water.

Any help is much appreciated as I am half way through replacing kitchen and if changing to a combi then it has to be done soon.

 

[Bernie2]

I'll try and answer the questions as best I can. But would advise you check with Worcester on the first question.
It seems according to Worcesters Technical Instructions for the 24Ri series of boilers it can be used on a sealed system.
I assume of course you will check out all the usual additional requirements for a sealed system?

A 1 metre head isn't much but the minimum required for a shower fed off a tank/cistern is only a metre as well. A lot depends on the pipe run and the number of fittings in the supply to the hot tap.

I know this may sound soft, but get a hose and put it on a lower tap then go upstairs to the new tap position and turn on. That may give you a better visual idea of the likely flow rates perhaps.

Well you could reduce the size of cistern/tank but it would leave loads of hot water in the cylinder and you may keep running the cistern dry and entraining air into the cylinder cold feed giving you air locks. Also if you move house it may be classed as a sub standard system in your HIPS pack.

Before you can say regarding the combi you have go to know what pressure and flow you have at the moment. Its about a minimum of 30 seconds to fill a 4.5 litre bucket from the main cold tap. If you can do this especially upstairs you may have enough.

Hope this helps

 

[Danjack0]

well just did the test and it filled the bucket in 8 seconds

thanks for your help