Nickfromwales

Hello there and welcome, members old and new. I'm the top welsh plumber, with a few good tips for you! My name is Nick ( from Wales ). My background was firstly in electrics, but then I branched off into plumbing as I found it more interesting ( sorry ProDave ). After 18-20 years 'on the tools' I have seen and done just about everything that is pipe related, so I decided to join a discussion forum to share information, help others who have questions to ask, and to gain knowledge myself about the new ( to me ) and strangely niche world that is low energy and passive house technology. Many of these disciplines have been around for quite some time, but until around two and a half years ago, where I stumbled upon this forum's predecessor, I'd never even heard of some of the systems, and their benefits, and nor of the simple and sensible ethos of 'fabric first' and the huge rewards possible from installing and utilising such systems ( correctly ). My areas of 'expertise' ( I will be learning until I die btw so don't really like the term expert ) include all types of central ( space ) heating ( including underfloor / under-tile ), hot water systems, cold mains pressure boosters / reinforcement, general plumbing, electrics ( in particular heating and hot water systems and controls ), kitchen and bathroom fitting, tiling, and all their associated disciplines. Feel free to post in the topics here, and we, collectively, will be able to help and advise accordingly to the best of our knowledge. If we can't advise on it here, it probably hasn't been invented yet Enjoy the the forum, and I look forward to chatting with you. Regards, nick.

Some uber contemporary fireplaces / burners have an lcd TV at the rear which do just that. In a stove or fire I supposed they look pretty neat, but on the wall as a TV........ Not so sure

The first reply was..... What sort of heat exchanger does the thermal store have for DHW? Ours has an external heat exchanger (that needs a pump) rather than an internal coil in the tank. We loose a lot of heat from the extra pipework/pump despite attempts to insulate. Not sure about connecting via the solar coil. Is that coil at the right height? If so it might stop the boiler stirring the store. You would also need to check the solar coil power is large enough for the boiler or the return temperature to the boiler could be too high to keep it in condensing mode. Overall I think a direct connection might work better Go with a store that has two stats at different height so you can set up hysteresis. Some only have one which doesn't allow quite the same degree of control. If the store is set up right (stratified) what matters is the time it takes to recharge the bit you have just used not the whole store.

Excerpt from a previous thread. A member asked..... I am looking at an HTG thermal store for a DHW & Heating upgrade, I will be using a gas boiler heating the TS only, together with PV and immersion heater. The TS comes with a solar thermal coil fitted as standard. The gas boiler would normally be connected directly to the TS but I was wondering if I could use this solar coil for the system boiler to obtain some fluid separation ? The size of our home with # of radiators/bathrooms etc. would suggest I need a TS of around 300 litres but if I view the store as a battery should I install a larger store say 400 / 500 ltrs to help with the gaps in PV availability ? I guess there is a risk of oversizing as the volume should be within the capabilities of the immersion / gas boiler to recharge it ~ any thoughts or advice would be welcome. The TS is presently required for 12 radiators, 2 bathrooms & DHW, I am hoping to take advantage of my PV power hence the TS otherwise a fair size combo probably would have been the way to go. I am also building extra ground floor space so I also have been considering UFH but from your previous advice I am going to need more insulation to even consider going down this road. I have a beam & block floor with only 40mm poly then wyroc so not good, I am able to put 75mm underneath the floor between the beams which would help ~ but still not sufficient although if I am using this space underneath the ground floor as a store should I be too concerned. I have had experience with TS excessive heat in a flat some years ago, it was located in the centre of the flat off the hallway and I did ask engineers how to reduce the heat output but they looked blank at me. The small gas boiler was set at max heat output for efficiency as per the operating instructions but after not getting any useful help from heating guys, I had to turn the boiler down to half heat which totally made our lives much better, so JSH I appreciate this problem..... I presently have a traditional copper tank upstairs about 110 ltrs and is generally heated by the PV system and overall meets our requirements as there is only two of us. I am considering putting the TS in the utility room and using the heat to make a drying room etc. The TS is stainless steel and comes pre plumbed with a high efficient external heat exchanger (46lts per min, we have high water pressure) I could also add to this TS a similar external heat exchanger for UFH so it would give me scope for going the UFH direction. The additional copper header tank can be installed above the TS , is there any requirement for this to be higher than the radiators in the bedrooms or will it be ok ?

The first reply was..... A standard MVHR should provide enough ventilation. There's no toxic flue gases from burning bioethanol, it's probably the cleanest burning fuel there is. There will be some CO2 though, plus a bit of water vapour, but not enough to worry about with the amount of ventilation BRs requires. As a rule of thumb, then the CO2 and water vapour output from a bioethanol stove will be about the same as a few extra people in the house, at a rate of around 80 to 100W per person. So a 1kW output stove would be a bit like having ten extra house guests, something the ventilation system should deal with OK. If you opt for CO2 or humidity sensing in the MVHR extract duct, then the MVHR will automatically boost its rate if it detects an increase.

Excerpt from a previous thread. A member asked..... Following on from discussions regarding the desirability and availabilty of low output room sealed wood burners I have been looking at the alternatives. I need something that will satisfy our desire to have a "real fire" while at the same time having a controllable output of around about 2kW. Has anyone looked at using bioethanol burners as a compromise solution in this situation ? Do I need to make any special allowances for flue-less fires in the house or should a standard MVHR system be able to cope ? Are there any building regs to consider ?

The first reply was..... The biggest problem is getting one that can go down low enough. There is a huge dead zone between 'build regs' standard and passivhaus standard that is simply not served by the heating industry. The problem is that you need to have a boiler with a fair bit of power so that you aren't waiting days for a shower, but you then need it to modulate down very low to handle the highly insulated house. And it can't do that. So you end up with a boiler that is constantly cycling and on pump overrun, which isn't good for the boiler and isn't good for fuel economy. If you get to passivhaus standard then you can warm the house in the depths of winter with a small electric fan heater. So then you just go for a small boiler to warm the water up when you're not getting enough divert off your PV into your tank. But going all electric quickly gets very expensive if your power requirements are much above passive house standard. You seem to have to have a maximum demand of about 1000W or the next step up is 10000W (bearing in mind that most of the year you'll be well below the maximum power requirement). The Ideal Vogue 18 system boiler I'm looking at can deliver up to 19kW of power, but can only modulate down to 3.6kW. The 15 can only get down to 3.0kW

The first reply was..... I'm not really a plumbing expert, but found plastic a lot easier to work with wherever it was going to be out of sight, You need far fewer joints and that alone is a good thing. The downside is that exposed plastic pipework looks dreadful, it's pretty-near impossible to get tidy surface runs with the stuff, so what I've done is plumb with plastic for all the inaccessible pipe runs (no hidden joints) and convert to copper for all the exposed runs. Some words of caution about UFH. To work efficiently it needs a lot of good insulation underneath it to prevent heat loss to the ground. Secondly, the maximum heat output is restricted by the heated floor area and can be a lot lower than with radiators. If your house is being insulated and sealed to a reasonably high level then UFH should be fine, but otherwise you may well find that with an older house you just won't be able to keep it warm with UFH. As a guide, work out your heating requirement for the coldest weather you're likely to get and then divide that by the area of floor that actually has UFH pipes in. If the answer comes out at over about 50 to 60 W per square metre than you either need to reduce the heating requirement or switch to radiators. UFH is very good, but is always less efficient than radiators and has this potential limit on output, because you can't realistically run the heated floor area at much more than about 28 to 30 deg C (you can run radiators at 45 to 50 deg C, so get a great deal more heat out of them).

Excerpt from a previous thread. A member asked..... Hi, I'm currently in progress with gutting, extending and refitting my 50's semi including all plumbing, electrics etc. Stud partition walls have been ripped out, upstairs floors are (almost) up, ceilings down, downstairs ceilings coming down and concrete ground floor being dug up.. I pretty much have a blank canvas on which to work having moved out a few weeks ago. The idea is to have full UFH downstairs and radiators upstairs, with ideally an unvented cylinder to supply hot water to a bathroom and ensuite. The boiler and unvented cyclinder are to go in the loft. Due to the completely different location of the new boiler, and relocated mains water feed, all downstairs plumbing is to be re-done and the only worthwhile plumbing that could remain is the loop that feeds three radiators on the first floor. I have a couple of questions - Would it be best to re-do all plumbing for heating and dhw / cold water in plastic pipe or to reinstate in copper? What are the relative merits of doing either? It would be nice to have the visible pipework for the rads in copper and I'm guessing that with plastic I'd save quite a bit of time and cost not requiring earthing of all pipework. The other question is around the spec of a boiler. If I wish to have UFH and rad circuits along with an unvented cycinder (the latter is not critical but I think would be better due to wanting a power shower and such like) what kind of spec boiler am I going to be requiring? Any pointers on this lot would be very much appreciated.

Excerpt from a previous thread. A member asked..... "Starting our extension and renovation fairly soon so I am now looking at the type of heating system to go for. The house is roughly 100m² footprint and 450m³ volume. Insulation levels are expected to be better than building reg standard but not upto PH standard. Plan for heating and DHW in the house is as follows: UFH throughout with no rads, two towels warmers to be used though. One bath, two showers and four sinks (not decided whether both showers will be DHW or one electric yet but say both DHW for this example). Average usage of one shower and one bath per day From jsharris spreadsheet I figure that my worst month at minimum OAT heat input would be 1398kWh based on daily heat loss power of 1878W. Ideally we would like the boiler hidden from view and this could be house in either the garage or loft as both have ample space. We have both gas and electricity to the house so we are open to a wide range of possiblilities. Anyone have any thoughts on which type of boilers I should be considering? As far as manufacturers go I am willing to invest a little more for better quality (brands I have investigated so far are Valliant, Baxi and Ideal).