Which system would work best??

[hoteldave]

Hi,
I have just joined and this therefore is my first query.
I am renovating a small guest house. It will end up with 8 en-suite bedrooms. It has been suggested that a "Highflow 55CDi boiler" with its high flow rate and recovery will be sufficient for the "Mains water showers" and the heating. Somebody else suggested two unvented cylinder's with a "Ultracom 38Hxi Boiler". The "Highflow" sounds a good idea and cheaper, but I dont want to end up with a lack of hot water to the showers and then its to late to change everything once its fitted.
Any suggestions welcome.
Dave

 

[doitmyself]

I doubt if any combi boiler would be suitable for eight showers all running at the same time - which is a possibility you have to take into consideration.

 

[stevetheplumber]

Hi,
I have just joined and this therefore is my first query.
I am renovating a small guest house. It will end up with 8 en-suite bedrooms. It has been suggested that a "Highflow 55CDi boiler" with its high flow rate and recovery will be sufficient for the "Mains water showers" and the heating. Somebody else suggested two unvented cylinder's with a "Ultracom 38Hxi Boiler". The "Highflow" sounds a good idea and cheaper, but I dont want to end up with a lack of hot water to the showers and then its to late to change everything once its fitted.
Any suggestions welcome.
Dave

any mains fed system is going to be dependent on you having enough mains water flow remember when full that will be 16 guests showering kitchen doing brekfast fushing loos all at the same time

 

[migoplumber]

no combi could manage it. you need several large storage cylinders. 2 300's by my guess and 2 boilers to reduce recovery time.

 

[Robtheplumb]

You need to work out your hot water demand when you have a full hotel, then match your system to it, take 8 showers running at once, this could happen but is unlikely but for a benchmark: 8 showers at 15 lpm = 120lpm, this is about 50/50 hot and cold, say each shower lasts 6 min, thats 720 liters total. You could need a couple of big hot water cylinders but you are also going to need an accumillator or two for that as your main will not cope!

Get someone in to do the maths for you, that way if it doesn't work then you can shoot them!!!

 

[hoteldave]

Hi
Just to clear up, neither of the boilers mentioned are combi,s.

Hi
I have a good mains pressure. I was going down the two unvented cylinders and a good boiler, until somebody else came around and said that unvented cylinders were dangerous and they suggested the "Highflow 55CDi boiler".
Thanks to everybody so far for there comments.

 

[justlead1]

Hi. You can purchase direct gas fire unvented cylinders for commercial situation as described. Names escape me at this time but i am sure someone will help us out.

 

[Bernie2]

Hi! hoteldave,

Have a look at the "Andrews water heater" site. They are well know and geared more toward small to medium commercial. As has been said find your flow rates out and shower use.

I assume breakfast is called at the same time for everybody, so it seems fair, depending on how many covers/guests you have, that all the showers will be in use at the same time.

 

[doitmyself]

Just to clear up, neither of the boilers mentioned are combi's.

If you mean the Worcester Bosch Highflow 550CDi, then that is a combi boiler. The Glow-worm is not a combi.

somebody else came around and said that unvented cylinders were dangerous

.
That means the person probably did not have the necessary certificate to install unvented cylinders and would therefore loose the job. Provided the installer has the G3 certificate, there is nothing dangerous with an unvented system. It does need an annual check-up to make sure the safety devices are working correctly; but that can be included in the annual service of the boiler.

 

[dleader]

I would definitely go for the unvented system - a combi even the highflow one may struggle if you have 8 showers in use at one time. The alternative is to fit a combi and then electric showers in the additional bathrooms but this would be more costly and not an elegant solution. With a good powerful boiler and two large tanks you should be able to deal with the high demand that you will get in the mornings in a guest house. The only draw back is the amount of space that the tanks take up, you also need to make sure that you have good mains pressure but this would be the case with any system.