Oil Fired Heating and 3 ensuites Dillema

[Lisnisk]

Hope there is help available. I live in North Antrim and last year I purchased a house which had previously been extended to operate as a B&B. There is one side of the house with 3 bedrooms and 3 ensuites all with thermostatic gravity fed showers. Im sure you can see whats coming !!

There is a standard size cylinder and boiler dedicated to this side of the house that heats the radiators and the cylinder. The problem is that in no way does this provide enough hot water. There is the potential to have 6 guests all showering one after the other across the 3 bedrooms. The boiler the hot water cylinder and the showers are all on one level with the cold feed tank in the roof space above (single storey with roofspace extension so basically a bungallow).

How can I provide enough Hot water to keep the guests happy when I open in march?

My idea was to use the oil burner simply for the radiators and have some sort of standalone hot water system for the showers and sinks?

any advice greatly welcomed

 

[darrenangel]

have you thought about electric showers. these don,t use any stored hot water, just a cold mains supply.

 

[Lisnisk]

could still only have one on at a time. 10KW shower draws 40amps and the house is single phase only. The house is pretty rural and switching on a 2KW Iron dims the lights in the B&B. running our own electric shower in our part of the house reads an increase of 40amps on a clamp meter across the single phase.

Would be such an elegant solution but without a 3 phase supply its unworkable.

 

[dontknowitall]

Is there space for a second hot water cylinder? If so, perhaps there could be an arrangement where your existing system heats the radiators and one bathroom and the other switched on to supply the other two bathrooms when one/both are rented out (and turned off when not being used).

 

[Lisnisk]

There is certainly enough space for a 2nd cylinder but how is this system controlled or does it feed the original cylinder. I feel like upgrading the original cylinder to a larger unit and then fitting a 2nd identical cylinder beside it. I have also considered heating the water at night on a low electrical tarrif in the 2nd cylinder.

How would the system work Dont Know it All is a flow switch fitted to the shower supply or something?

 

[dontknowitall]

Something like that. In airing cupboards (usually) there is a zone valve which is an oblong box on a pipe. Normally this either on it's own supplying hot water from the boiler to the hot water cylinder, or central heating or both. Or there are two zone valves, one on the hot water circuit and the other on the central heating circuit.

When the hot water calls for heat the hot water zone valve opens and when the radiators call for heat the central heating zone valve opens. (Both closing when the respective part is satisfied.) The system above with one valve is a Y Plan and the one with two zone valves is an S Plan.

All the above is a normal setup (Y or S Plan) for a system with the boiler downstairs, hot water cylinder in the airing cupboard and water cisterns in the loft/attics.

My thought is if you have another system you have another zone valve installed which operates the second cylinder. The plumbing would tee off before your first cylinder or somehow linked to the primary flow and return from the boiler. The point of having a zone valve is it means you can turn the cylinder on and off via a newer programmer or an electric switch of sorts.

There would be a certain amount of plumbing involved but it would mean you don't have to heat loads of hot water up and then not use it. It also means that using gas/oil (whatever it is you use for your heating) is cheaper than using electric immersion heaters.

I'm not saying this is the ideal system but it should work (without looking at your property), be easy to use and give some flexibility on how much hot water is heated.

 

[mark_mc]

I live in antrim myself i could have a look at it for you and take you through the options. There is a lot of ways to provide hot water for your guests with a deicated heating circuit from your oil boiler to the hot water cylinder and with a stat and so that it always keeps it hot.
You could also have a bigger cylinder installed and therefore increase the amount of hot water storage

as said above the best way would be to zone your heating with deciated lines to the cylinder and put in a bigger cylinder and you will be sorted. give me a wee message and i will get back to you.
you could also put in a solar cylinder and then if in the future you have money £ you could invest in solar panels and that will help with the hot water demand.