Connecting hose to water butt

Serida

Savemoney: I like the idea of using bleach with butt water. How much bleach do you use in a 2 gallon watering can and is it as effective as using a pressure washer? I assume you use thick bleach as opposed to the thin stuff.

C_Mababejive

martinthebandit wrote: »

Hmmm, of course you would run of almost exactly the same amount of water while waiting for the hot water from your tank to come through.

Not quite..

With a combi ,as soon as you open the tap the boiler goes to full fire..at least 30Kw input. (this is the waste of gas bit). You then run off the initial volume of water contained i the pipework between the boiler and the tap. You continue to run off more water at gradually increasing temperature. Again the gas is burning all the time,this energy is transferred to the water and you export it down the drain as it isnt hot enough. The water finally reaches temp..you wash your hands/rinse a cup. Shut the tap. Boiler goes off.


Hot water tank. It is already full of hot water which has heated at a slightly leisurely pace of maybe 10 Kw. You have a nice big volume of stored hot water,hopefully in a well insulated foam lagged cylinder. You open the tap. No further gas is burned,you run off the initial volume in the pipe,then you get the hot water delivered from the cylinder..you wash..turn tap off.

Any heat loss from the cylinder and pipework stays within the home and isnt exported down the drain.

savemoney

I but what ever is on offer usually parazone for 50p a bottle and put some of it around 10-20% of the bottle in a large watering can with water from butt and use the rose and spray it on driveway to remove algae. I just done some of it today only after two butts got full of water from last night. Its better to do it on a warm sunny day I find as bleach reacts with suns rays but it works without too

I find if you use a jet washer you loose sand from block paving even when you are careful, so I try and avoid it when I can.

I tried the eco block paving its rubbish tried two different makes

Serida wrote: »

Savemoney: I like the idea of using bleach with butt water. How much bleach do you use in a 2 gallon watering can and is it as effective as using a pressure washer? I assume you use thick bleach as opposed to the thin stuff.

Serida

Thank you 'Savemoney'. I'll certainly give the bleach a try next year. I only started pressure washing about 6 years ago and sometimes I wish I'd never started. It did look amazing at first but now I find it seems to get dirtier quicker - I suppose it's gradually taking the surface off. Thank you again for your welcome advice.

martinthebandit

C_Mababejive wrote: »

Not quite..


Any heat loss from the cylinder and pipework stays within the home and isnt exported down the drain.

Hmmm not quite correct.

When you turn your tap on with a combi boiler, the gas fires up and begins heating the water, you have to wait till all the cold water has been pushed out of the pipe and hot water flows. You turn the tap off when finished and the gass turns off and the hot water remaining in the pipe cools down.

Its exactly the same with a hot water tank except that when you run hot water out of the tank it is replaced by cold water, this is then heated up by the rest of the hot water in the tank.

Just one of the reasons why combi boilers are far more energy efficient.

27col

You have only to operate your pressure washer into a bucket to see how little water it uses. As macman says, you are confusing pressure with flow rate.

C_Mababejive

martinthebandit wrote: »

Hmmm not quite correct.

When you turn your tap on with a combi boiler, the gas fires up and begins heating the water, you have to wait till all the cold water has been pushed out of the pipe and hot water flows.

Just one of the reasons why combi boilers are far more energy efficient.

True..you turn the tap on and the water between the boiler and the tap has to clear..but whilst that is happening,it is driven by fresh cold water entering the boiler from the mains and it is this new inflow which gradually increases in temp,assisted by upwards of 110,000 Btu/hr worth of gas to heat the water as it flows through a water to water heat exchanger where its flow is further restricted. Heat and therefore the gas used to create the heat,is exported down the drain as you fumble under the tap waiting for the water to get to usable temp. There is no such thing as instant hot water. I do not believe that combis are more efficient. They are wasteful and a threat to the environment.

martinthebandit

C_Mababejive wrote: »

True..you turn the tap on and the water between the boiler and the tap has to clear..but whilst that is happening,it is driven by fresh cold water entering the boiler from the mains and it is this new inflow which gradually increases in temp,assisted by upwards of 110,000 Btu/hr worth of gas to heat the water as it flows through a water to water heat exchanger where its flow is further restricted. Heat and therefore the gas used to create the heat,is exported down the drain as you fumble under the tap waiting for the water to get to usable temp. There is no such thing as instant hot water. I do not believe that combis are more efficient. They are wasteful and a threat to the environment.

And if you had bothered to read the other paragraphs in my quote you would have,perhaps, realised why your beliefs about combi boilers are wrong. Here you go I will repost it for you.

Its exactly the same with a hot water tank except that when you run hot water out of the tank it is replaced by cold water, this is then heated up by the rest of the hot water in the tank.

Just one of the reasons why combi boilers are far more energy efficient.

C_Mababejive

martinthebandit wrote: »

And if you had bothered to read the other paragraphs in my quote you would have,perhaps, realised why your beliefs about combi boilers are wrong. Here you go I will repost it for you.

Its exactly the same with a hot water tank except that when you run hot water out of the tank it is replaced by cold water, this is then heated up by the rest of the hot water in the tank.

Just one of the reasons why combi boilers are far more energy efficient.

In a traditional domestic hot water storage cylinder, the cold water inlet is at the bottom and the hot water outlet is at the top. The cold water inlet is often diffused to prevent un-necessary turbulence/mixing. The hot water stratifies at the top of the cylinder and the cold at the bottom,simply due to differing densities in the two volumes due to temperature. As a result,mixing of the already heated hot water at the top,and the new cold inflow is minimised.

Efficiency is a funny word and can often be misused in much the same way as ,for example ..Hi Fi systems. A manufacturer may quote his mass produced sound system as having a power output of 100 watts per channel but how is he measuring it? Typically he will be using a PEP measurement whereas "proper" Hi Fi amps will be quoted in RMS units against other parameters.

I would agree that when talking about combustion performance, a modern condensing combi with a forced draught burner would be more efficient than say, a cast iron conventionally flued natural draught burner but i would tend to disagree that overall,they are more efficient.

keystone

Handbags at dawn!

Cheers