Best hot water tank?

Reed_Richards · 21 October 2019 at 8:54AM

I plan to install a hot water tank. At present I have a combi boiler retrofitted to a house that used to have a tank but this made the pipe runs too long so you can fill a bucket with cold water before the hot flows through the tap. I figure this can be achieved by plumbing the feed to the tank as if it is a second radiator zone. I also have solar panels which could be used to heat the water in the tank via a 3 kW immersion heater in the summer. Because I will want to store heat in the tank on a sunny day for use when it's cloudy a big tank seems appropriate so I thought a 300 litre one. I want mains pressure hot water so I will either need a pressurized hot water tank or I could use a thermal store, which does not need to be pressurized. There is plenty of space in my loft, although perhaps the weight of 300 l of water could be an issue.

At this point I get stuck. Thermal stores seem to be either all-electric or have so many inputs they get very expensive. Hot water cylinders are more numerous but some regard the immersion heater as a backup and position it towards the top of the tank whereas I think I would need one at the bottom. And I'm not sure I can tell good well-insulated from bad. Does anyone have a recommendation? Manufacturer? Model?

tim_p · 21 October 2019 at 10:17AM

Try calling the local plumber merchants. I looked into this a while ago and found a suitable tank with upper and a lower immersion fittings and also an indirect hot water coil, so what I needed at the time. <£200. This was a couple of years ago and I never did get around to buying / installing. At the time it was intended to maximise use of solar PV to heat the tank. Still getting by using the long immersion fitted at top of tank.

mmmmikey · 21 October 2019 at 10:09PM

Hi Reed, unfortunately I'm away from home and don't have access to the manufacturers data I downloaded earlier in the year. A few thoughts though:

If my memory serves me correctly you'll pay a few hundred pounds more for a thermal store vs equivalent sized unvented cylinder, but this is offset by easier plumbing / no pressure vessel and the option to diy - unvented cylinders must be installed by qualified plumber to be legal.

I don't think there's enough difference in insulation between different manufacturers to make it worth worrying about - they're all made to comply with the same standards.

You can get immersion heaters in different lengths so top mounting shouldn't be an issue as long as it is pointing downwards i.e. Not at the top of the side of that makes sense

Access may well be an issue for loft installation so you will need to check the size of the loft hatch (sorry if this is obvious but easily overlooked)

You would need to install above load bearing wall which may be easy or might make loft installation a non starter

Sorry for vague answer and for not quite answering your question but hope this is of some help, Mike

Best hot water tank?

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