Plumbing advice I want to be in HOT water

ocemeer

Myself and DH are renovating an 1800’s cottage in deepest Cornwall. At present the hot water is supplied by a direct hot water cylinder heated by Economy 7 that is sited in the very small kitchen. The cylinder has to be moved and DH would like to put it in the attic and change it to a “heat store” hot water tank so we could have hot water at mains pressure.
We want to use a solid fuel AGA or Rayburn to be the primary heat source but this is dependent on there being a usable chimney. There was one but after we hacked off the blown plaster some of the old granite wall had collapsed previously and been replaced with block work.
I’m after advice now;
First off, if the chimney can not be reinstated what other options do we have open to us, there is no natural gas available and I feel that oil or stored gas tanks would be expensive. I’d live to go green and use solar but there may be problems as we are in a conservation area.
Second; my DH is pretty handy with his tools and he’s planning on doing the majority of the hot water installation work himself, is fitting the heat store cylinder any more complicated than say fitting a central heating system. Can you direct us to any good websites, books etc that would show detailed diagrams and compulsory checks, components, inspections.

Thanks

moneysavingplumber

If you're referring to a thermal store then Gledhill are one of the main players. The units take up alot of room and I'm not a big fan of them. Personally I think you would be better off (assuming you have the room in the loft to stand one up as I don't think they can be modified to lay down) putting in an indirect unvented cylinder. This would have to be signed off by someone holding the G3 Unvented certificate.

If you are using a solid fuel Rayburn/AGA as the primary heat source, you would first need to check the boiler has a sufficient output for your property. The second problem is that of heat control and having a sufficient by-pass circuit to dissipate the heat, which would require a heat-leak rad at least. One of the best applications I've seen is a neutralizer system, which means you could interlink the solid fuel boiler with a conventional boiler that you can switch over to when you don't have the time or fuel to hand to light the solid fuel burner. If the property is relatively small you could consider a Heatrae Sadia Amptec electric boiler as the secondary unit, available up to 12KW.

http://www.dunsleyheat.co.uk/linkupsys.htm

http://www.heatraesadia.com/hs/heatraes.nsf

In terms of flueing, I'm not sure what pre-fabricated flue systems are available for solid-fuel purposes, you would need to enquire at the merchants, it will be expensive though.

ocemeer

Thanks moneysavingplumber lots of excellent information. I've discovered that the rayburn requires a vented cold water supply from a header tank, it will not operate conected to the mains.
Is it possible to combine a vented cold feed to the rayburn with a cold water tank in the attic with an indirect unvented hot water cylinder supplying mains presure hot water. There is a a whole heap of room in the attic and I'd prefer both tanks in the attic out of site.

moneysavingplumber

The problem with solid-fuel is the lack of thermostatic control, unlike a gas or oil burner, you use the flue dampers and air inlet to control the level of the burn. However, if the heating coil in the unvented cylinder is controlled by the zone valve supplied and the cylinder thermostat supplied, and a 'heat leak' circuit is correctly installed on the Rayburn primary circuit, I don't see why the arrangement should be a problem. It would be best to contact Aga-Rayburn and the unvented cylinder manufacturers just to check, as they may have special considerations.

andy_from_embsay

MS Plumber - why aren't you a fan of thermal stores? I want mains pressure hot water in our new house, and we'll have 3 bathrooms/showers, so was considering their combined boiler/thermal store - have also looked at Megaflow cyclinder, but was coming down on the side of the thermal store.

Canucklehead

Good afternoon: I can't answer your question (but my OH Corgi Guy could)...just wanted to let you know that Moneysavingplumber hasn't posted on this forum since last year...his contributions were spot on and sorely missed by us.
If you start a new thread with specific detail I'm sure you'll get advice...good and bad:D

HTH

Canucklehead