"Colin Chaplin" wrote in message
...
Hey All

I've got a new house with a "Boilermate II
from Gledhill Water Storage Ltd"

Nice. A class act. I have the Gledhill Systemate.

which resides in my upstairs airing cupboard.

A bad place to put it.

When your other half hoards as
much junk as mine, you need
every spare inch of space, and
when she spends as much as
she does, you need to save every penny ;-)

Stop her from wasting your money. Only give her 3/6d pocket money a week.

Therefore I was thinking about moving
it directly up into the loft.

Very sensible.

My plan of action was to stop the water,
drain the system, 'unplug' from
mains, cut a hole in the loft above it
then lift it up.

It is a matter of just extending the cables and pipes up above. Make sure
you insulate all the pipes to the Boilermate in the loft with the thickest
pipe insulation you can find.

When you refill make sure you put enough inhibitor in, which will be about 3
to 4 1 litre cans. Check with Gledhill. The installation instructions are
on their website.

Build a platform to
hold it (I presume it isn't light !)
then simply extend the pipework up into
the loft. Easy.

Make sure the support can take the weight. You may want to install a small
rad in the airing cupboard. Have this taken off the flow and return pipes
from the boiler top the Boilermate, so it always works in summer and winter.
You may want to put a straight in-line thermostat valve in the cupboard,
running vertically just behind the door frame where it hinges, at about 1.5
meters from the floor. it is then easy to regulate. Or, strip off the
insulation of the Boiler flow and return pipes as they run through the
airing cupboard. This will keep it warmish in there. Make sure you seal
all the pipe and cables with silicon as they run through to the loft and
have twice the insulation thickness over the cupboard.

One point is freezing in the loft in winter. You want to install a frost
pipe stat on the return to then boiler. If the temp get below 1C or so the
boiler kicks in to maintain it above theta temp. In reality frost
protection may be unnecessary, as Gledhill thermals store are "very" heavily
insulated., so keep the pipe wit the thickest insulation you can get.

Seems obvious. The only downside I can
see is that there's a timer and
winter/summer setting which we only
change occasionally so not a problem.

Keep the timer on 24/7 on the Boilermate. Replace the roomstat with a
Honeywell T6667B1085 CM67 Prog Room Stat With Optimum Start.
http://tinyurl.com/an9q8 Make sure you get the optimum start model - well
worth it. This will then replace the timer on the Boilermate, and give you
far more flexibility than the Boilermate timer, and save on fuel too. Also
easy to get at.

Gledhill advise to keep the DHW on, 24/7.

So why don't the builders do it, and is it something that I can ?

They are dickheads. I bet they put your boiler in the kitchen or utility
room too. If they had brain they would use a Gledhill Gulfstream 2000 in
the loft, saving space everywhere, and all in one box in the one place.
That is too easy isn't it?