Starting to think about a possible upgrade of our CH system ...
currently we have a Vaillant boiler (probably getting towards the end
of its useful life, and undoubtedly not as efficient as a modern unit
would be) w/ a hot cylinder, running a total of 12 rads in three
zones. Just to add a complication, the boiler and hot cylinder
currently occupy a built-in wardrobe in a spare bedroom; the wardrobe
space also includes a *lot* of pipework, some of which is left over
from a previous owner who had an Aga in the kitchen which was used to
provide hot water. Fuel is LPG.

Possible plans:

- replace the Vaillant/tank in situ with a combi/condenser,
remove/re-rout as much as possible of the existing pipework to reduce
the amount of cupboard space taken up

- remove the Vaillant/tank, and put a combi/condenser in the kitchen
(which is directly below the current location - indeed, there is
evidence that at some point the boiler *was* in the kitchen and was
subsquently moved upstairs to its current location). Moving would be
a bit of a pain in the a**e, involving removal of at least one kitchen
wall unit and re-siting of the electricity meter / consumer unit; at
least there would be no major re-routing of the water or gas supplies.

[apart from the minor - but still significant - concern about having a
boiler in a bedroom, the noise that it produces could be enough to
disturb a light sleeper when the heating kicks in around 630am on
winters mornings].

One further issue is that house is unusually long (approx 21m
end-to-end) and the CH boiler is located at one end. The internal
structure means that it would be (just about) impossible to re-site
the boiler to a more central location without significant/structural
building work. We do, however, have a utility room at the opposite
end of the house, so one option might be to go for *two* smaller
combis, one in the current location (or the kitchen, below the current
position) and the second in the utilty room.

Any comments/ideas/suggestions?

Julian


--
Julian Fowler
julian (at) bellevue-barn (dot) org (dot) uk

Any comments/ideas/suggestions?

It sounds like a big house. I think a combi might be underspecified,
particularly if you expect to use several bathrooms at once. Higher output
combis tend to be quite large. You might consider keeping the storage
system, but putting a compact modern condensing system boiler in the
kitchen. Alternativley, get a compact combi and use its hot water system for
the kitchen tap only, keeping the storage system for bathrooms.

Also, you should probably consider changing to oil. I understand it is
cheaper than LPG.

Christian.

On Fri, 3 Oct 2003 11:12:48 +0100, "Christian McArdle"
wrote:

Any comments/ideas/suggestions?

Thanks for your input.

It sounds like a big house.

-ish ... typical barn conversion w/ two-storey hallway, large sitting
room, kitchen, dining room, utility room (these two in a one-storey
extension), 4 double bedrooms, 2 bathrooms.

I think a combi might be underspecified,
particularly if you expect to use several bathrooms at once.

Probably not an issue, since we have "work of the devil" (TM) electric
showers (bath tends to be used about once a week!), and use cold-fill
dish- and clothes-washing machines.

Higher output
combis tend to be quite large.

Indeed -- this was one of the drivers behind the thought of taking
advantage of the available space in the utility room (which has
accessible mains water and gas supplies) and put in two small(ish)
combis rather than one big one.

You might consider keeping the storage
system, but putting a compact modern condensing system boiler in the
kitchen. Alternativley, get a compact combi and use its hot water system for
the kitchen tap only, keeping the storage system for bathrooms.

With the two-combi's solution we'd thought of using a smaller one in
the kitchen to provide h/w to the kitchen and to the downstairs
bathroom (which is right next to the kitchen) and to heat about 2/3 of
the downstairs rads, with the 2nd (larger) combi providing h/w in the
utility room (which currently only has cold water), the upstairs
bathroom, and the remaining C/H zones (upstairs rads plus those in the
ground floor extension). This second combi would (hopefully) have
some spare capacity should we ever get round to our "dream project" of
putting a second floor on the existing extension (w/ additional rads
and an en-suite bathroom to a new master bedroom).

Also, you should probably consider changing to oil. I understand it is
cheaper than LPG.

We did some calculations on this and found out that it would be a
*little* cheaper, but not enough to really consider this as an
alternative given that we would be retaining the LPG for cooking -
taking into account the infrastructure costs necessary to install an
oil tank and piping.

Julian


--
Julian Fowler
julian (at) bellevue-barn (dot) org (dot) uk