Hi

*** Preamble ************************************************** *****

The ongoing wibblings of moving my family in with Dad... [Dad's house is a
3 bedroom bungalow with roof converstion fitted with "evolved" CH, but new
boiler - vented type]

As some of the radiator pipework is poorly run (miles of 10mm supplying 2
large double panel rads :-( ) and there's much weirdness in the plumbing
due to previous add-ons and random work, I'm going to replace a fair bit
of the CH copper.

So, I thought I might as well consider a thermal store cylinder at the
same time. Good excuse to have the old cylinder out and rationalise all
the odd pipework round the back.

This solves the problem of insufficient hot water pressure upstairs
and gets rid of a massive tank in a little room that could be used as
decent storage space.

Disclaimer - I've done some basic plumbing on occasion but I'm not upto
date with modern practises.

*** Actual research and questions ************************************

Seems like a generally good idea to go for a thermal store system. His
incoming mains water pipe was changed recently back to the road to the
blue plastic stuff.

Q: would that imply it's 25mm? Looks fairly chunky.

And, Dad already changed the copper that meets this and feeds into the
house on the first leg to 22mm. And the mains water pressure is mentally
high - though I have yet to take a dynamic pressure reading. So I think
the house meets the criteria for such a system.

Q: But - which one? I've been all over the web and found:

McDonald Engineers' ThermFlow - simple cylinder, use 2 external pumps (boiler
primary and CH)

Gledhill BoilerMate2000/SysteMate2000 (can't work out what the difference
is yet - possible one is direct and the other indirect??) Very poncy
design with microprocessor control, 3 pumps (why there's a pump on the
mains water circuit I don't know) and lots of sensors to go wrong. Looks
pretty though. Expensive at 1200 squids up, but does include the controler
and all the pumps in a nice neat housing.

Heatweb - Also looks complicated like the Gledhill, but not as neat.

Albion - simple again, like the McDonalds'.

Q: Would I want direct or indirect? Direct seems simpler - pump the boiler
primary through the bulk of the tank and the rads.

*** Final and the ultimate question ***********************************

So - from people that fitted thermal store cylinders: are they any good
and which one did you use? Any general theories/opinions also most welcome
:-)

Ta very muchly.
Timbo

--
Tim Southerwood