Can I ask about heating for an extension to be built? I live in a modern
house with GCH. We're extending which I guess will increase the floor area
of the house by 25-30%. We've been chatting to someone who's done similar
about the heating. He has used modern storage heaters (Dimplex Duoheat) in
his extension. He feels these are fantastic but the main reason he did this
was that he was worried about extending his microbore central heating
system. He had heard that if you extend a microbore piped GCH system too
much, you can develop problems with balancing the system etc.
I like the look of these new storage heaters - but before I take the plunge,
any opinions on this as an option rather than extending the GCH system?
TIA, Paul

On Sat, 18 Dec 2004 14:11:34 -0000, "Paul"
strung together this:

Can I ask about heating for an extension to be built? I live in a modern
house with GCH. We're extending which I guess will increase the floor area
of the house by 25-30%. We've been chatting to someone who's done similar
about the heating. He has used modern storage heaters (Dimplex Duoheat) in
his extension. He feels these are fantastic but the main reason he did this
was that he was worried about extending his microbore central heating
system. He had heard that if you extend a microbore piped GCH system too
much, you can develop problems with balancing the system etc.
I like the look of these new storage heaters - but before I take the plunge,
any opinions on this as an option rather than extending the GCH system?

To be honest, any heating system can be over expanded. Your mate
obviously doesn't know too much about heating and rather than taking
advice on the subject decided to go for the far more inefficient and
not as controlable electric option.
Without knowing your system and how it is all piped up and what's in
at the minute I couldn't say what you can and can't do for what cost.
What I will say is that on most domestic extensions the limiting
factor is usually the boiler, the pipework is easily sorted to cope.
It may cost a little more to upgrade the boiler but after the initial
expense of this you'll recoup the cost in having a more economically
heated extension and depending on the age of your boiler it could also
be a great efficiency improvement in general.
--

SJW
Please reply to group or use 'usenet' in email subject

In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
Paul wrote:

Can I ask about heating for an extension to be built? I live in a
modern house with GCH. We're extending which I guess will increase
the floor area of the house by 25-30%. We've been chatting to someone
who's done similar about the heating. He has used modern storage
heaters (Dimplex Duoheat) in his extension. He feels these are
fantastic but the main reason he did this was that he was worried
about extending his microbore central heating system. He had heard
that if you extend a microbore piped GCH system too much, you can
develop problems with balancing the system etc.
I like the look of these new storage heaters - but before I take the
plunge, any opinions on this as an option rather than extending the
GCH system? TIA, Paul

Under no circumstances would I allow electric storage heaters anywhere near
my house! Not only are they expensive to run (even off-peak electricity is
dearer than gas) but they're also a nightmare to control - giving out heat
when you don't want it, and vice versa. The latest models are better than
their predecessors - but still not very good!

Assuming that you have adequate boiler capacity to heat the extension, it
would be a good idea to extend the main flow circuit into the extension in
22mm pipe - just using micro-bore for the final drop to each radiator. That
would be far better than having long runs in microbore.
--
Cheers,
Set Square
______
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In article ,
Lurch writes:
On Sat, 18 Dec 2004 14:11:34 -0000, "Paul"
strung together this:

Can I ask about heating for an extension to be built? I live in a modern
house with GCH. We're extending which I guess will increase the floor area
of the house by 25-30%. We've been chatting to someone who's done similar
about the heating. He has used modern storage heaters (Dimplex Duoheat) in
his extension. He feels these are fantastic but the main reason he did this
was that he was worried about extending his microbore central heating
system. He had heard that if you extend a microbore piped GCH system too
much, you can develop problems with balancing the system etc.

This is rubbish. The system will need rebalancing,
but that's part of fitting additional radiators anyway.
It might be necessary to use larger pipework for some
part of the new runs depending on heat load and distance,
but that wouldn't need wholesale replacement of any of
the existing microbore.

I like the look of these new storage heaters - but before I take the plunge,
any opinions on this as an option rather than extending the GCH system?

To be honest, any heating system can be over expanded. Your mate
obviously doesn't know too much about heating and rather than taking
advice on the subject decided to go for the far more inefficient and
not as controlable electric option.
Without knowing your system and how it is all piped up and what's in
at the minute I couldn't say what you can and can't do for what cost.
What I will say is that on most domestic extensions the limiting
factor is usually the boiler, the pipework is easily sorted to cope.
It may cost a little more to upgrade the boiler but after the initial
expense of this you'll recoup the cost in having a more economically
heated extension and depending on the age of your boiler it could also
be a great efficiency improvement in general.

If the boiler is a combi and house isn't enormous, chances are
it has plenty of spare heating capacity.

--
Andrew Gabriel

"Paul" wrote
| I like the look of these new storage heaters - but before I take
| the plunge, any opinions on this as an option rather than extending
| the GCH system?

Go for GCH. Storage heaters in the extension will look cheap and be
inconvenient.

Microbore is limited in the heat it can carry. Your existing microbore rads
will be plumbed individually back to a distribution point, either a manifold
or 'ordinary' flow and return pipes from the boiler. You will need to run
pipe from your extension back to this manifold (hopefully there will be
spare taps on it) or the ordinary flow and return pipes, rather than just
teeing into a nearby radiator.

Owain

Can I ask about heating for an extension to be built?
Thanks folks - I think that's pretty clear and I'm swinging back towards
extending the GCH system.
Paul

On Sun, 19 Dec 2004 17:48:11 -0000, "Paul"
strung together this:

Thanks folks - I think that's pretty clear and I'm swinging back towards
extending the GCH system.

Good man, you know it makes sense!
--

SJW
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