We're in the proess of buying a 3 storey house which has a combination
of heating sources including a gas aga, wood burner, economy 7 storage
heaters and an 824 turbomax combi boiler.
Presently, the boiler looks after the hot water and roughly 7 rads
split across the 3 floors. There are approx 5 other rooms on the 1st
floor (one on the 2nd floor actually) which have economy 7 in, which I
want to replace with extra rads.
The big question is, is the boiler going to be up to the job? Is there
a guideline to how many rads a sealed unit will support, or is it
subject to too many variables to give a useful answer?
All advice very much appreciated.

Thanks

Rich

"hightower" wrote in message
oups.com...

We're in the proess of buying a 3 storey house which has a combination
of heating sources including a gas aga, wood burner, economy 7 storage
heaters and an 824 turbomax combi boiler.
Presently, the boiler looks after the hot water and roughly 7 rads
split across the 3 floors. There are approx 5 other rooms on the 1st
floor (one on the 2nd floor actually) which have economy 7 in, which I
want to replace with extra rads.
The big question is, is the boiler going to be up to the job? Is there
a guideline to how many rads a sealed unit will support, or is it
subject to too many variables to give a useful answer?
All advice very much appreciated.

Calculate the total heat loss of the house. Then compare the boiler
"output" to your needs. I would find it odd that it does not cope, but
maybe your house is very big and hence the two systems. If it falls short,
consider extra insulation, double glazing, etc, to reduce heat loss. How
many bathrooms, showers, etc?

As the house is big, consider another combi. One doing one zone, maybe the
ground floor and the other combi the other floors. Each combi has a
Honeywell CM67 programmer/stat with optimisation, so the two are totally
independent of each other. In winter the upstairs can be off for most of
the day making it far cheaper to run. One combi does one shower, one the
other, so one shower does not influence the other. Combine the hot water
outlets for only the bath using non-return valves. This is probably the best
and most cost effective solution for you, giving you far more than what you
have now for little outlay. You will also have backup in case one combi
drops out.


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On Wed, 01 Jun 2005 09:05:00 -0700, hightower wrote:

We're in the proess of buying a 3 storey house which has a combination
of heating sources including a gas aga, wood burner, economy 7 storage
heaters and an 824 turbomax combi boiler.
Presently, the boiler looks after the hot water and roughly 7 rads
split across the 3 floors. There are approx 5 other rooms on the 1st
floor (one on the 2nd floor actually) which have economy 7 in, which I
want to replace with extra rads.
The big question is, is the boiler going to be up to the job? Is there
a guideline to how many rads a sealed unit will support, or is it
subject to too many variables to give a useful answer?
All advice very much appreciated.

The radiators would have to be very large on average for the boiler not to
support 12 radiators. The boiler has about 24kW output which should be
sufficient for a substantially larger than average house.

However I would suggest that for more than 8 radiators you consider having
an additional expansion vessel added (see the SealedCH faq).



--
Ed Sirett - Property maintainer and registered gas fitter.
The FAQ for uk.diy is at http://www.diyfaq.org.uk
Gas fitting FAQ http://www.makewrite.demon.co.uk/GasFitting.html
Sealed CH FAQ http://www.makewrite.demon.co.uk/SealedCH.html

Ed,

Thanks for the response. As a man in the know, any idea how much I
should expect to pay for a trade professional to fit an extra expansion
vessel and the extra rads, should I decide not to do it myself?

Cheers

Rich

Ed Sirett wrote:
On Wed, 01 Jun 2005 09:05:00 -0700, hightower wrote:

We're in the proess of buying a 3 storey house which has a combination
of heating sources including a gas aga, wood burner, economy 7 storage
heaters and an 824 turbomax combi boiler.
Presently, the boiler looks after the hot water and roughly 7 rads
split across the 3 floors. There are approx 5 other rooms on the 1st
floor (one on the 2nd floor actually) which have economy 7 in, which I
want to replace with extra rads.
The big question is, is the boiler going to be up to the job? Is there
a guideline to how many rads a sealed unit will support, or is it
subject to too many variables to give a useful answer?
All advice very much appreciated.

The radiators would have to be very large on average for the boiler not to
support 12 radiators. The boiler has about 24kW output which should be
sufficient for a substantially larger than average house.

However I would suggest that for more than 8 radiators you consider having
an additional expansion vessel added (see the SealedCH faq).



--
Ed Sirett - Property maintainer and registered gas fitter.
The FAQ for uk.diy is at http://www.diyfaq.org.uk
Gas fitting FAQ http://www.makewrite.demon.co.uk/GasFitting.html
Sealed CH FAQ http://www.makewrite.demon.co.uk/SealedCH.html

Doctor Evil (nice name by the way),

I think the existing setup is more to do with the piecemeal
installation over a period of time than anything else. The economy 7
was the original heating system, and the combi got added when an
extension was built on to the house.
I guess they decided to only put rads in the new rooms and leave the
storage heaters as they were.

"hightower" wrote in message
oups.com...

Doctor Evil (nice name by the way),

I think the existing setup is more to
do with the piecemeal installation
over a period of time than anything else.
The economy 7 was the original heating
system, and the combi got added when an
extension was built on to the house.
I guess they decided to only put rads in
the new rooms and leave the
storage heaters as they were.

The combi may well be big enough to heat the whole house. What heat the hot
water? Do you have a cylinder? Where does the combi come in? The DHW will
need sorting too.


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No cylinder. Mains pressure. Combi currently looks after all 7 rads and
all hot water for the house. Basically just wanting to add another 5
rads to it.

Cheers

Rich

On Wed, 01 Jun 2005 12:48:12 -0700, hightower wrote:

Ed,

Thanks for the response. As a man in the know, any idea how much I
should expect to pay for a trade professional to fit an extra expansion
vessel and the extra rads, should I decide not to do it myself?

Cheers

Rich


Well the materials using standard modest rads, TRVs of course,pipe,
fittings and sundries, would likely be 300-500.


The Labour is in all honesty a bit likely asking how long is a piece of
string.
House construction.
How much making good.
How accessible the things are.
Where are you? London and SE might be +50% or more on some areas?
Layout of the rooms.
Where you want the rads.
How (in)convenient the existing pipework is.
Does the existing have a good 'backbone' in 22 which you can T off or
extend. Or will a big section need upgrading to 22mm?

I think the absolute bottom would be 2 days but it could `be quite a pig
perhaps 5 days or maybe more in the worst case.

Then there's those storage heater to remove -seriously heavy work plus a
skip.

Due to top posting my sig's gone! Grr!