On 3 Jul 2003 12:02:28 GMT, (Andrew
Gabriel) wrote:


Yesterday morning my partner was using the hot water when the Main
Mersey kettled and the pressure increase blew apart one of the
compression joints on the water intake pipe. The resultant torrent of
water flooded the bathroom and kitchen underneath.

See: http://www.diyfaq.org.uk/humour.html#uninstalling


Yep, sounds very similar to what happened to mine!

I called out a local gas company who attended that afternoon. The
engineer suggested a replacement multi-point water heater as this
wouldn't be significantly more than any replacement parts. I was
happy with this as the heater is about 20 years old and clearly
outdated.

Unfortunately, the shock of the pipe rupturing appears to have caused
a small leak in the gas supply pipe to the water heater.

I doubt it -- leak was probably there before.


Yes, I think you're probably right.

I'd value any advice or guidance on what to do because at the moment I
have no hot water or heating at all :-(

It seems to me all you really need at the moment is a new multipoint
and a new gaspipe feeding it and the old one disconnect at the supply.
You don't have to rip the old gaspipe out, and you probably won't be
allowed to put the new pipe where the old one was anyway. If you change
the boiler later, you can still keep the multipoint either as a backup
for power cuts or boiler breakdowns, or for your regular hot water supply.
I did that, then you don't need a high flowrate combi boiler.

Good point. I didn't consider putting a new gaspipe in to feed the
new multipoint. Fairly easy route: straight up the inside of the
cupboard under the stairs from the meter to the landing then under the
bathroom floor and up to the multipoint.

It should take only a couple of hours to put in a new multipoint, plus
however long it takes routing a new gas pipe through. The current Main
multipoints are designed to be able to hang on the flues of their
predecessors, so that makes installation easy and you won't need a flue
kit. When I did it a few years ago, they had 3 models, and I would go
for at least the middle one with thermostatic control (sorry, don't
recall the names now).

Do you mean the Thames?
http://www.mainheating.co.uk/waterhe...thamespage.htm.

How easy was it to fit?

Thanks for your input Andrew.

Trevor.

On Thu, 3 Jul 2003 12:58:25 +0100, "Gary" wrote:

Snip..
I guess I could replace the warm air heater with a new, modern Johnson
& Starley model to eliminate any potential disruption. That still
leaves an issue with the hot water though.

The modern Johnson & Starley units can have hot water circulators fitted. We
had one retro-fitted to ours 14yrs ago and had never had a problem, they
have a website you can check out.

I didn't realise they could also heat water - very interesting!

I'd need to put a tank in somewhere but it's an attraction option.

Thanks,

Trevor.

In article ,
Trevor writes:
On 3 Jul 2003 12:02:28 GMT, (Andrew
Gabriel) wrote:

See: http://www.diyfaq.org.uk/humour.html#uninstalling

Yep, sounds very similar to what happened to mine!

New one has protection against boiling -- the pilot thermocouple
is connected via a thermal cutout which would cut off the gas
control valve if the temperature of the heat exchanger gets too hot.

Do you mean the Thames?
http://www.mainheating.co.uk/waterhe...thamespage.htm.

Actually I meant the Medway. The Thames is the top of the range
which I probably couldn't justify personally, but local supplier
didn't have the Thames in stock anyway and I needed it that day.

How easy was it to fit?

Very easy, but I'm afraid I don't recommend you fit it yourself
unless you are familiar with the Gas safety regs and fully
competent to do gas work, in which case you probably wouldn't ask.
The water and gas pipework needed rearranging as the inlets/outlets
were not in the same place as its predecessor (a Main Medina IIRC).

--
Andrew Gabriel

On Wed, 16 Jul 2003 18:09:03 +0100, "IMM" wrote:


Replace the old warm air unit with a new Johnson & Starley unit. The modern
quiet units are eons from the old clunkers. Some have variable speed fans,
electrostatic air filters (recommended for asthmatics) , precise electronic
temp control etc. Why install rads on walls when you already have a duct
system in place. You can also replace the grill registers to more modern
looking ones too. It will circulate air in the house in summer giving a
cooling effect. Very handy in this hot weather. Keep the warm air system.
If you can, the unit will take in fresh air, so have a duct from the outside
to mix fresh air wit the circulated air. It may already have this.


That's what I've decided to do. I'm waiting on a couple of quotes for
installation of a new J&S warm air unit.

Look at the Main range of Multi Points. You may find it is cheaper to buy a
small cased combi and use that for hot water only. Combi's have higher flow
rates than multi points.


The same idea had occurred to me. However, the gas engineer said it
was not possible to install a combi and only use the DHW circuit
because if the combi overheated it needed to dump the heat into the
radiator circuit.

Any views on this?

I would certainly update the air system. Putting in a cylinder may mean
having a power shower pump and other noisy, expensive, space consuming,
needless stuff. Keep what you have and just the latest replacement
equipment.


A combined header/DHW tank isn't that space consuming. The biggest
attraction for me is that a hot water cylinder has a backup electric
immersion for use if ever there's a problem with the gas.

Trevor.

"Trevor" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 16 Jul 2003 18:09:03 +0100, "IMM" wrote:

Replace the old warm air unit with a new Johnson & Starley unit. The
modern
quiet units are eons from the old clunkers. Some have variable speed
fans,
electrostatic air filters (recommended for asthmatics) , precise
electronic
temp control etc. Why install rads on walls when you already have a duct
system in place. You can also replace the grill registers to more modern
looking ones too. It will circulate air in the house in summer giving a
cooling effect. Very handy in this hot weather. Keep the warm air
system.
If you can, the unit will take in fresh air, so have a duct from the
outside
to mix fresh air wit the circulated air. It may already have this.

That's what I've decided to do. I'm waiting on a couple of quotes for
installation of a new J&S warm air unit.

You won't regret it.

Look at the Main range of Multi Points. You may find it is cheaper to
buy a
small cased combi and use that for hot water only. Combi's have higher
flow
rates than multi points.


The same idea had occurred to me. However, the gas engineer said it
was not possible to install a combi and only use the DHW circuit
because if the combi overheated it needed to dump the heat into the
radiator circuit.

Any views on this?

It depends on the model.

I would certainly update the air system. Putting in a cylinder may mean
having a power shower pump and other noisy, expensive, space consuming,
needless stuff. Keep what you have and just the latest replacement
equipment.

A combined header/DHW tank isn't that space consuming. The biggest
attraction for me is that a hot water cylinder has a backup electric
immersion for use if ever there's a problem with the gas.

You can do this by using an instant hot water heater. If you want back up
fit an in-line electric instant shower heater. This will give a trickle of
a shower, but fine for backup. Juts turn one valve and open another and it
is brought into action. It can be fitted in the loft, or in a cupboard, out
of the way. It can also be in the outlet line of a combi or muti-point with
hot combi water passing throught it when switched off, then no valves to
turn to bring it in, just switch it on. Piped up right, it can do the whole
house, but only supplying one tap at a time - fine for backup.



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