L
lewisgriffy
[Apologies if this thread is in the wrong forum - i think it includes questions related to several!] I'm trying to get my head around the hot water and central heating system which will best suit my needs for a second/holiday home (which may be let) which used to be my grandmother's and is 150 miles away from where I live. Any advice you might offer me will help me specify my requirements to a heating engineer (although I'll keep an open mind to their suggestions also). The substantial (by my standards!) double-fronted house's current h/w system includes a converted oil-fired Rayburn (which hasn't run since my grandmother passed away three and a half years ago) with back boiler which provides hot water to a cylinder on the first floor. The cylinder also has an immersion heater. The house has never been centrally heated apart from a single radiator fed from the Rayburn and several electric storage heaters (which I've thrown out). Since I have half a tank of heating oil, I've booked an engineer to get the Rayburn working on low over the winter, after which I'll decide what to do with it. The radiator is between the Rayburn and the cylinder. I haven't worked out whether the Rayburn heats the water in the cylinder directly or indirectly. If directly, I presume the water is replenished to the back boiler from the cold water cistern in the attic via the cylinder (I guess this would mean the hot water for a bath would have passed through the radiator?) If indirectly, then the radiator would be part of a closed system replenished by a direct feed pipe from the cold water cistern (there's no separate header tank). To the future I intend installing a new gas-fired boiler and replacing the hot water cylinder with a larger 200L one as part of a vented system. I'd be interested in your suggestions as to whether I could/should keep the Rayburn hot water connection to the cylinder as a back-up to the gas boiler or not bother (I'd also have an immersion heater in the cylinder). At present, I'm tending towards a Worcester Greenstar FS 42CDi which will need to heat 17 radiators and 5 towel rails (based on room sizes, I used an online BTU/kW calculator to work out I'll need up to 40050 BTU/hr or 11775kW). There will be 4 showers (one of which will be negative head in the attic), 1 bath, 5 wash basins, 2 sinks, a washing machine and a dishwasher. I'd like to know your thoughts on whether this boiler (or others) would do. One of my minimum requirements would be to have the capacity to have 3 simultaneous showers at flow rates of around 15l/min each (via 22mm pipe to the mixers). I've contacted a pump specialist (pumpexpress) who suggested two of the twin 3crm80 stainless steel pump brio on their website, one for the hot feed (to all outlets) and one for the cold. Does anyone have any advice regarding these pumps (or similar)? I don't mind paying more for components that will give me what I'm after (quality and reliability would be assumed to be part of the higher cost), although I'm obviously conscious of the replacement costs should they fail in future. I also like the thought of controlling room temperatures remotely through the internet maybe using Heat Genius' products (please see their website) - does anyone have any experience of this type of control? Although with the above, I've referred to a vented system, I recently visited a larger house than mine, served by a Vaillant unvented boiler/cylinder, with a larger number of radiators/towel radiators, but a similar number of outlets - I'd also appreciate your thoughts on whether an unvented system (assuming a decent mains water pressure) would serve my needs (e.g. 3 simultaneous showers) as well as/better than a vented system. Reliability, contingency, capacity, space and controllability are my other main considerations. Many, many thanks in advance for your advice - this is a rare opportunity to put in a system from scratch - I'd like it to be the best it can be for the next 20 or so years - tall order?! Ifan.
