Boiler & tank on/off during holiday???

wildesavings

The boiler is a potterton and the tank a boilermate 2000. Both 10 years old like the house..... And guess what, this morning the boiler started gushing water from the bottom! Thank goodness it didn't happen whilst we were away. Everything switched off, system drained, power supply off, car loaded 3 children almost ready to go and we're off on holiday where we'll be enjoying the showers and hot water a lot before we head home to face the music

Smiley_Dan

Bloody hell. That's lucky... kind of.

Pincher

I suspect it's the Boilermate that has rusted through, not the Potterton boiler.

I had a Gledhill thermal store, which was standard for all the apartments from new in the building. Ten years is spot on. Just about every Gledhill started leaking at the ten year point. The high temperature the thermal store operates at makes the lime scale aggressively corrosive.

Another three years to go before the next replacement, alas.

Thermal stores are good for the developers, because it does not have high pressure components. The building warranty only lasts three years, so when they start leaking in ten years, the developer is long gone.

bsod

Cardew wrote: »

Hot Water tanks are blah blah.

nice theory, perhaps you'd like to test it for a week to find the reality, you'll be lucky to get anything above tepid out of it after 30-36 hours, a vacuum flask, lasts perhaps 6 hours, what makes you think an inch of foam insulation with a cold water inlet at one end, and 2 or 3 other holes cut into the lagging, is 25 times better than a vacuum?

If you can heat (maintain) your hot water twice a day for a week for less than a pound, share the secret.

the simplest example even in your perfect insulation scenario is heat monday, cost 60p (20kwh x 3pence), heat sunday cost 60p, add electricity costs for pump/electronics, call it £1.50

Cardew

bsod wrote: »

nice theory, perhaps you'd like to test it for a week to find the reality, you'll be lucky to get anything above tepid out of it after 30-36 hours, a vacuum flask, lasts perhaps 6 hours, what makes you think an inch of foam insulation with a cold water inlet at one end, and 2 or 3 other holes cut into the lagging, is 25 times better than a vacuum?

If you can heat (maintain) your hot water twice a day for a week for less than a pound, share the secret.

the simplest example even in your perfect insulation scenario is heat monday, cost 60p (20kwh x 3pence), heat sunday cost 60p, add electricity costs for pump/electronics, call it £1.50

Not my theory - it is a British Standard test(BS EN 442) and many HW tanks have the figure for their loss stamped on the tank jacket.

This is from the Diplex website.

Cylinder size
125l


150l


210l


250l


300l

Storage capacity @ 65oC


water (ΔT55k)

7.1kWh


8.8kWh


12.7kWh


15.3kWh


18.4kWh

Heat loss over
24 hours (ΔT45k)
0.95kWh

1.1kWh

1.4kWh

1.55kWh

1.96kWh

[/FONT

]

Richie-from-the-Boro

Current Regs state that the 24-hour heat losses in kWh from insulated cylinders must be no more than:

120ltr = 1.84kWh
150ltr = 2.10kWh

Taking Cardew's #10 post of a """mid point of 2.0kWh""" I'd say that he was about spot on in a UK domestic average cylinder size of 150lts. Any counter assertion should include by what ± it varies under what ± conditions, but what would be the point the UK like or lump it has a standard and post #10 quoted the GOV standard and the £ heat loss, no disagreement as I see it.

1.28 x (0.2 + 0.051V2/3) where V is the nominal water capacity of the cylinder in litres.

Smiley_Dan

I'm not sure how many times you guys need to be told. There's a difference between manufacturer influenced theory and practice!

Richie-from-the-Boro

Smiley_Dan wrote: »

I'm not sure how many times you guys need to be told. There's a difference between manufacturer influenced theory and practice!

Hello again Smiley Dan,

I'm not sure 'you need to be told' - but I will. We don't need to be told at all - current Regs are what we quote, what we have, what everyone uses in the industry, is what the government of our country uses for legislation and is the understood equivalent language and translation that consumers use. That's good enough for me my friend.

This is MSE. UK materials and available public domain information for domestic space & water heating in our mixed and generally poor housing stock is what we have to work work with. The post #10 quoted the GOV standard and the £ heat loss, no disagreement as I see it.

bsod

instead of quoting some current manufacturing standards and trying to extrapolate some real world costs from it that apply to decade old systems, leave your water heating on, and quote your usage next time you go on holiday, or quote your usage now.

The age, size, and type of systems installed in a typical home can vary wildly, 33kwh to heat and then maintain a tankfull of water at 60 degrees for 168 hours with nothing but an inch of insulation is on the optimistic side, a pilot light alone can use 23kwh/week, there are plenty of those still about

alderpoint

bsod wrote: »

decade old systems

The OP said it is new build.

inch of insulation is on the optimistic side

Not on a new build.

a pilot light alone can use 23kwh/week, there are plenty of those still about

But the OP's is a new build.

Even our 20-year old system has about 3" of factory-applied insulation on the tank and the boiler (non-condensing) hasn't got a pilot light.