Unconventional vent pipe what to do

[Spoonfire]

Hi all. I am a Hetas engineer generally fitting dry stoves but with the occasional small wet system (registered for both).

I recently visited a small stone cottage (Llanberis, North Wales) to quote. Customer wants a backboiler removing (leaking) and a new backboiler stove fitting.

Problem: Cylinder is filled from galvanised tanks placed uphill in the garden (stream fed). Vent for cylinder travels out the house and up the side of the chimney (higher than ridge tiles), terminating just high enough to be above water level in tank. This pipe is lead and visually awful at present and will need replacing. What the heck will building regs make of this? I imagine main concerns would be freezing and blocking; safe venting of overheated water and steam (onto roof at present). One thought is to insulate it very well and add both a pressure and heat relief valve to the vented cylinder itself.

Note: there is no place to fit a conventional in house header tank


Thanks in advance

 

[stani]

Now that is what I would call a problem!

 

[thereisawizza]

Sounds an oddun. Is there a real water supply to the property? I have seen a mains fed solid fuel system that uses an accumulator, wouldn't be cheap tho...

 

[stani]

Another plus would be to add heatrace to the pipe, but then I presume like all other rural properties they regularly lose electric in cold weather as well

 

[SimonG]

No idea, same as a church I went to, the header tank was outside and fed from the gutter! 🙂

 

[Simon F]

is there any space to fit another cold water tank inside the house ( loft space? )that gets its feed from the one outside?
then the cylinder vent could be inside.
it is a unusual situation, hope I am reading the post correctly.

 

[Nostrum]

Could you replace with a Fortic cylinder which is fed via a submersible pump and inline flow switch or similar?

 

[ecowarm]

Change the cylinder for a thermal store

 

[kay-jay]

change the customer for an easier one! :ihih: