Gearing Up For A Temporary UFH Buffer

[Jeremy Harris]

1 minute ago, Onoff said:

 

How often do you clean them out?

 

I assume you just use the isolation valves on them, unscrew and empty the crud?

 

 

I used to do ours annually.  Took about 20 mins.  I also filled the case up with neat inhibitor when refitting it, to keep the concentration up in the system.  Seemed to work very well.

[Onoff]

23 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

 

 

I used to do ours annually.  Took about 20 mins.  I also filled the case up with neat inhibitor when refitting it, to keep the concentration up in the system.  Seemed to work very well.

 

Be interesting here. Never had a cleaner put through or inhibitor added and I've owned the place 20 years. I've drained and refilled a few times when modding the system / changing valves etc.

 

I can't even get to the cws or header tanks easily / safely. It's a cut roof at about 45deg. The beam at the angle on the left is one of the 5x2 rafters. The beam lower right is one of three 4x2s that the tanks sit on, decked with pallet wood first by the look of things. The 4x2s are NAILED each end to the 5×2 rafters. I can't physically get my shoulders up through the gap in the pipework to even look in the tanks / change the ball valves. The previous owner who did this was a short, slight chap. It also means working off steps and theres no proper floor to stand them on either. 

 

Knock down rebuild? If only! ? Think I might be going down with @pocster's man flu and the enormity of the tasks here are getting to me.....Christ who does that sound like?

 

 

 

 

 

[Nickfromwales]

2 hours ago, Onoff said:

 

That's out then!

You’ve drained the chuffing thing so many times it’ll be like Evian by now ?. 
 

 

2 hours ago, PeterW said:

put a decent magnaclean in the system to start with.  

+1. 
Contamination is moot afaic if there’s a filter in place and the water is correctly chemically treated. 
LLH all the way for me. Hydraulic separation is way OTT here sorry. 

[Pocster]

1 hour ago, Onoff said:

 

Be interesting here. Never had a cleaner put through or inhibitor added and I've owned the place 20 years. I've drained and refilled a few times when modding the system / changing valves etc.

 

I can't even get to the cws or header tanks easily / safely. It's a cut roof at about 45deg. The beam at the angle on the left is one of the 5x2 rafters. The beam lower right is one of three 4x2s that the tanks sit on, decked with pallet wood first by the look of things. The 4x2s are NAILED each end to the 5×2 rafters. I can't physically get my shoulders up through the gap in the pipework to even look in the tanks / change the ball valves. The previous owner who did this was a short, slight chap. It also means working off steps and theres no proper floor to stand them on either. 

 

Knock down rebuild? If only! ? Think I might be going down with @pocster's man flu and the enormity of the tasks here are getting to me.....Christ who does that sound like?

 

 

 

 

 

Man flu gets the best of us @Onoff ; oh and us !

[Onoff]

Like having a outside loo!

 

[Onoff]

The long term plan is to site a UFH manifold under the stairs, pretty much dead centre of the house in what we refer to as the stairs room. As it stands, with untouched original decor this is a video of the stairs room. (Beyond the curtain a study area, the old boot room I re-lined and brought the floor up). The stairs room is a junk room as is. Plan to have v.little floor space and big floor to ceiling storage cupboards. 

 

Rough plan is to clear this room entirely. Floor up, dig down and build back up with 150mm of pir. The UFH pipes I was thinking to lay through this room to all the other rooms within ducts within the floor. So this room will have no heating of it's own per se, just the pipes for the other rooms and the manifold and buffer tank under the stairs.

 

The floor construction is strange. Concrete, the colour of plaster & not very thick, maybe 75mm on loose "rubble". As the short clip shows. 

 

It looks like it would come up very easily in big lumps. 

 

It's 11'x11' this room. So around 11.25m2. If the room was clear that wouldn't take long would it to dig up with me and my lad at it? Barrows go straight through the hall and out the front door. Could be dusty once the slab is up and were into shovelling the dry "rubble".

 

At the moment the downstairs single pipe CH runs just under the floor surface. It's into this I'd break to heat my buffer tank indirectly:

 

 

Still not sure what the iron pipe crossing the white 22mm by the door is or whether it's live:

 

 

 

I ran that plastic length back when I "bypassed" the bathroom. Outside the stairs room it changes to old suspended floor on crumbling bricks and dirt floor. 

 

 

A couple of bits bugging me; should I leave as is the floor under the bottom stair landing? Did think about digging it up and maybe suspending the bottom landing /stairs from the ceiling joists temporarily.

 

If I run ducts for later UFH loops, am I going to be fighting to get the tails of the pex-al-pex pipes through them? Or would a pb, more flexible pipe be better?

 

Should the ducts be insulated where they pass through this room? I'd aim to have a 100mm concrete slab laid to screeding rails on the walls as it worked so well in the bathroom.

 

Maybe CAD up a plan of all the future loops planned? A case of jfdi perhaps? ?

 

Cheers

Edited October 28, 2019 by Onoff

[PeterW]

JFDI....

 

If you are planning on doing a thread on this, let me know and I’ll order some more storage for the server .... 

[Onoff]

5 hours ago, PeterW said:

JFDI....

 

If you are planning on doing a thread on this, let me know and I’ll order some more storage for the server .... 

 

Moving into petabytes are we?

[ProDave]

I would do this completely differently.

 

Dig up the floor now, and lay a temporary timber suspended floor with the boards just screwed down. Then as you do each room you lay it's UFH pipes in one go straight to the manifold.  Only when the whole lot is finished remove the timber floor and concrete / screed it.

 

The timber floor may be there a while......

 

Why not make it a permanent timber floor?

[Onoff]

28 minutes ago, ProDave said:

I would do this completely differently.

 

Dig up the floor now, and lay a temporary timber suspended floor with the boards just screwed down. Then as you do each room you lay it's UFH pipes in one go straight to the manifold.  Only when the whole lot is finished remove the timber floor and concrete / screed it.

 

The timber floor may be there a while......

 

Why not make it a permanent timber floor?

 

The voice of reason. I like that idea. I like it a lot. ?

 

Edit: The only downside is it will mean multiple room clearouts. I could do with a clear room & seperate storage area to shift stuff to / become a temporary "lounge" or whatever. The logistics always remind me of one of these puzzles ? Rough plan is stairs room next, then hall and large downstairs bedroom (all suspended floor). Large downstairs bedroom destined to be a kid's lounge with attached wc/shower room. Before that happens it'll become the temporary main lounge when I do the lounger / diner knock through. There IS a plan!

 

Edited October 29, 2019 by Onoff

[Onoff]

@PeterStarck, ref your question on the other thread. Fag packet sketch at the start here shows my musings to have a buffer tank (central to the house), fed from the oil boiler. Use that for any new UFH circuits to keep separate from the filthy old single pipe system here. 

[Gone West]

5 hours ago, Onoff said:

@PeterStarck, ref your question on the other thread. Fag packet sketch at the start here shows my musings to have a buffer tank (central to the house), fed from the oil boiler. Use that for any new UFH circuits to keep separate from the filthy old single pipe system here. 

Christ Almighty that's some project. We both understand the enormity of it now. I guess you just use electric heaters for now.

[CC45]

I'm just getting myself in the correct emotional place to be able to cope with another @Onoff thread.

 

 

[Onoff]

5 minutes ago, CC45 said:

I'm just getting myself in the correct emotional place to be able to cope with another @Onoff thread.

 

 

 

Relax and find something to bite down on! ?

 

Sitting here under a blanket in the (freezing) lounge,  fantasizing about ripping up the suspended floor, screed rails and pumped concrete!

[ProDave]

36 minutes ago, Onoff said:

 

Relax and find something to bite down on! ?

 

Sitting here under a blanket in the (freezing) lounge,  fantasizing about ripping up the suspended floor, screed rails and pumped concrete!

Do you not have any existing heating?

 

I had to take my pullover off, I was getting too hot.  The heating is off as all the thermostats are satisfied.

[Onoff]

11 minutes ago, ProDave said:

Do you not have any existing heating?

 

I had to take my pullover off, I was getting too hot.  The heating is off as all the thermostats are satisfied.

 

It's warming up via the rads but takes a while. Doesn't help some of the single pipe system runs, uninsulated, under the (again uninsulated), suspended floor which is vented to the outside via the air bricks. All cools down quick too.

Edited December 4, 2019 by Onoff

[Onoff]

Time to resurrect this and FINALLY get some heat in the bathroom. 

 

Discussing with SWMBO and got our mojo back hopefully to take on projects (bereavement etc). Plan then is to clear the "stairs room", that is central to the house, dig up the floor and build back up with insulation (like I did with the bathroom). 

 

Laddo back to uni so his delicate gaming rig is out of the way so I can't be moaned at for covering that in dust!

 

Digging up and barrowing is then then 12/15' straight run out the front door. 

 

To recap, plan is a manifold bolted to the wall under the stairs. One loop to the bathroom, another to the towel rail in there. Then I'll take loops off to all the other rooms in the house.

 

I "love" this shot from my clean  modern bathroom out into the rest of the bomb site house! ? Mind, that was always the plan to retreat to somewhere warm and comfortable. If I can now get it warm!

 

 

Under this strip of blue carpet tiles runs my single pipe 22mm CH pipe.

 

 

 

First question, bfo oil boiler, what size buffer tank to I need to serve the UFH? Intend to feed this buffer from the single pipe under the floor. SWMBO concerned about losing storage space under the stairs.

 

Cheers

 

(Hoarders, us? ?).

Edited October 4, 2020 by Onoff

[recoveringbuilder]

Hope that’s not you stockpiling toilet rolls ?

[PeterW]

Single pipe ..?? Explain ...

 

If it is temporary then just get any direct hot water tank off eBay (other auction sites are available) and then just pipe it into the system. If you get an indirect one, just use the cold in / hot out and loosely cap the coil. 

[Pocster]

29 minutes ago, Christine Walker said:

Hope that’s not you stockpiling toilet rolls ?

I want the super badge it and the radio controlled plane please 

[Onoff]

2 hours ago, PeterW said:

Single pipe ..?? Explain ...

 

If it is temporary then just get any direct hot water tank off eBay (other auction sites are available) and then just pipe it into the system. If you get an indirect one, just use the cold in / hot out and loosely cap the coil. 

 

This is MY temporary! ?

 

The downstairs CH is the old 3/4" nominal bore copper pipe that runs round at skirting level. It used to feed the downstairs bathroom but I bypassed that with the pipe that runs under the aforementioned blue carpet tiles above. 

 

 

It then runs up, under the suspended floor, in copper (in case of ?) to the small wc:

 

 

Then the single pipe continues left through the wall of the WC to the bedroom.

 

 

I do have an indirect hwc I bought on eBay/Gumtree with this project in mind. I think they took it out only as they had a combi.

 

 

Space is the thing though. I'm looking for the smallest, practical buffer tank. As below the stairs room is pretty much dead centre of the house as shown on the (unfinished ?) drawing below. Easy to take UFH pipes off to the other rooms. The "triangle" at the bottom of the pic below is the boiler room. Boiler is at the other end of that room. 

 

 

Back earlier in this thread I'd had the idea to feed the hwc/buffer coil with the old "dirty" single pipe system then use the volume of water in the tank for the UFH, I guess to feed the manifold / pump and the various loops, just the pump shown here. The "problem" was I believe the need for a header tank if an open system. 

 

 

 

Apologies resurrecting stuff that's been discussed before!

 

Any and all suggestions gratefully received. 

[Nickfromwales]

Any need to keep the UFH and CH hydraulically separated? Do you have a mag filter and clean inhibited water in the system atm? Should have with the number of times you’ve dropped it. 
Will there be any instance when the bathroom UFH will need to run WITHOUT ANY other CH running? If not, that reduces the buffer size hugely as the rest of the system will form part of the buffers duty. 
Something like this will suffice if so. Roughly twice the size of a shoebox.

Edited October 4, 2020 by Nickfromwales

[Onoff]

2 hours ago, Nickfromwales said:

Any need to keep the UFH and CH hydraulically separated? Do you have a mag filter and clean inhibited water in the system atm? Should have with the number of times you’ve dropped it. 

 

Ahem...erm...never, ever run a cleaner through it, no inhibitor in it and no, no Magnaclean fitted though I've looked at doing so a few times. Worried tbh that it might open up loads of little leaks in the old system. (I've bought cleaner before and it's now so old the label has worn off the container ?).

 

I've this half thought I might have actually bought a 28mm magnetic filter to go in but forgotten where it is...

 

I need to drain down sometime really as I've a long term weep on the side of the boiler from the drain cock:

 

 

2 hours ago, Nickfromwales said:

Will there be any instance when the bathroom UFH will need to run WITHOUT ANY other CH running?

 

I'm not sure tbh. Struggling to understand whether it would ever need to. I must be particularly thick today! Surely for the low loss header to be getting heat from the single pipe system then the downstairs CH must be running? I'd only then surely want to ONLY heat the bathroom IF the downstairs CH is running or I'd be running potentially "cold" through my slab and undoing all the work in heating it up. 

 

2 hours ago, Nickfromwales said:

If not, that reduces the buffer size hugely as the rest of the system will form part of the buffers duty. 
Something like this will suffice if so. Roughly twice the size of a shoebox.

 

That low loss header looks good size wise. So in there is a heat exchanger? Is it a sealed system? How does it deal with expansion on the separated side?

 

Cheers

[Nickfromwales]

7 minutes ago, Onoff said:

I'm not sure tbh. Struggling to understand whether it would ever need to. I must be particularly thick today!

It's going to be much easier to accept that the bathroom UFH will ONLY run after the heating timeclock / room stat are on, as to run the bathroom UFH independently is going to be a huge waste of heat and over-complicated.

13 minutes ago, Onoff said:

Surely for the low loss header to be getting heat from the single pipe system then the downstairs CH must be running?

No shit, Sherlock  

14 minutes ago, Onoff said:

I'd only then surely want to ONLY heat the bathroom IF the downstairs CH is running or I'd be running potentially "cold" through my slab and undoing all the work in heating it up. 

You been at the home-brew again? If the water / boiler are cold then the heating is off. No call for heat = nothing running, eg UFH pump not circulating  It would only heat up IF you run the D/S heating, ( unless you revert to your above choice and go for a big buffer fed off its own zone valve ), but you'd still have a huge amount of accumulative / associated heat to shed from the boiler etc firing up and heating up the cylinder you have, so think twice about heating up a 115L tank just to heat a few litres of UFH loops. 

 

32 minutes ago, Onoff said:

So in there is a heat exchanger? Is it a sealed system? How does it deal with expansion on the separated side?

It is just a tube with 4 unions, so even simpler than Forrest Gump, Jenny. You'd connect the existing single pipe heating system 22mm feed to flow straight though it via 2 unions, and then connect your UFH flow and return to the other 2. A simple pocket stat in the LLH tells the UFH pump that the LLH is warm and then it can circulate warm water to the bathroom so no cold input ever. 

( deep breath )......... when you looking at doing it as I'm pretty sure I still have that manifold plus actuators you can have for zilch.

[Onoff]

1 hour ago, Nickfromwales said:

It's going to be much easier to accept that the bathroom UFH will ONLY run after the heating timeclock / room stat are on, as to run the bathroom UFH independently is going to be a huge waste of heat and over-complicated.

No shit, Sherlock  

You been at the home-brew again? If the water / boiler are cold then the heating is off. No call for heat = nothing running, eg UFH pump not circulating  It would only heat up IF you run the D/S heating, ( unless you revert to your above choice and go for a big buffer fed off its own zone valve ), but you'd still have a huge amount of accumulative / associated heat to shed from the boiler etc firing up and heating up the cylinder you have, so think twice about heating up a 115L tank just to heat a few litres of UFH loops. 

 

It is just a tube with 4 unions, so even simpler than Forrest Gump, Jenny. You'd connect the existing single pipe heating system 22mm feed to flow straight though it via 2 unions, and then connect your UFH flow and return to the other 2. A simple pocket stat in the LLH tells the UFH pump that the LLH is warm and then it can circulate warm water to the bathroom so no cold input ever. 

( deep breath )......... when you looking at doing it as I'm pretty sure I still have that manifold plus actuators you can have for zilch.

 

Thinking maybe to sling in a double dose of cleaner this week and let run round, then drain down and fix the boiler drain cock next weekend, at the same time put in an inhibitor. A good time to add in a Magnaclean I guess.

 

 

At least it'll be cleaner. Got a couple of weeks off in Oct so I might aim to dig the floor up then. 

 

When are you coming to Kent again! I'll swap for a crate of Westerham Brewery's finest! ?