Using evented cylinder to heat heating.

[lucas121]

So we got a phone call from a gent saying his fuel bills were extremely high and his heating was not very warm at all.

On arrival today we found an "eco" flat.

He has an unvented twin coil 300l cylinder. Bottom coil is solar thermal, that happens to actually be blocked somewhere along the line. Then a dumpy little immersion heater. The top coil is the heating, but rather then using the coil to heat the cylinder, they have used to coil so the cylinder heats the heating, he has no boiler.

Felt sorry for him as we described that a little immersion is trying to heat his hot water and heating.

Anyone seen this before? My boss has been in the game for over 40 years and never seen it.

 

[Ermintrude]

Ridiculous. Sounds like a gleshill cock up.

 

[Worcester]

How many solar panels has he? What make panel, what make controller, what make pump station?

Just doing the design for a new build 360m2 code 4 plus property TOTAL heat load is less than 6kW....

There are some solar panels more than capable of heating the property when designed and installed PROPERLY, so don't condemn it yet.

 

[Ermintrude]

Hummmmmm. Yes but designed and installed correctly - Lucas isn't going to be that lucky

 

[BLOD]

Anyone seen this before? My boss has been in the game for over 40 years and never seen it.

Sounds like an Electrastream


[DLMURL]http://www.gah.co.uk/downloads/GAH-E...structions.pdf[/DLMURL]

 

[Worcester]

GAH - Electrastream Pre Assembled Unvented Electric Cylinder 🙂 That'll confuse a few people 🙂

 

[tamz]

There have been a few systems over the years that use a cylinder as a thermal store heated by immersions on off peak like this one The Electric Central Heating Company
Sound like this one is a hybrid with the solar supposed to take up most of the initial heating with the immersion to top it up which it won't do if the solar side is not working.

 

[stevetheplumber]

im yet to speak to anyone that has ec heating of any kind thats actually happy with it quite a few of the social housing jobs i went to had the solar disconnected as it did nothing but cause problems mostly they seem to be rich mans play things

 

[Worcester]

It doesn't add up.. Wether your are on or off gas grid, electric is the most expensive £ per kWh that you can get... (hence leccy multipliers aka heat pumps)

 

[markfxy]

sounds like a thermal store what make model no is it ?

 

[lucas121]

The solar is a Resol pump station, didnt have a close look at the panel. Have been given the go ahead to get the solar going again. Pretty confident it will not be making a difference through winter though.

The cylinder is Telford Tempest Solar.

 

[Nostrum]

Immersion should be on economy 7 at a guess? Tank should be heated at night (unless solar has already done so) and 300 litre's should provide heating and hot water for the day?

Is it a new build?

 

[Megaflo-Experts]

It doesn't add up.. Wether your are on or off gas grid, electric is the most expensive £ per kWh that you can get... (hence leccy multipliers aka heat pumps)

A customer has recently shown me figures which suggest it's cheaper to heat the hot water overnight with Economy7 instead of the gas boiler!
I was surprised, as I always though gas was the cheaper option.

 

[tamz]

It can work out cheaper if you get on the right tarriff and it suits your lifestyle.
The Hydro up here do economy 10 which is a bit more flexible.

 

[cr0ft]

There is a good boiler on the market which is designed on this basis. It has 3 or 4 immersion heaters in it and heats a large cylinder overnight and in the afternoon on off-peak Economy 10. The afternoon off-peak recharge period is what makes the system work well, even in Winter. The key to it is a properly sized cylinder, they do up to a 600L cylinder just for domestic properties.

Off-peak electric is cheaper than LPG and oil for sure. Not so sure about gas, I think gas is still the cheapest fuel. That may well change in the future though of course and then these boilers will really take off. With new-builds being electric only soon (supposedly) I am sure these boilers will become more and more popular.

 

[Worcester]

The solar is a Resol pump station, didnt have a close look at the panel. Have been given the go ahead to get the solar going again. Pretty confident it will not be making a difference through winter though.

The cylinder is Telford Tempest Solar.

It'll almost certainly need new heat transfer fluid at the correct proportions, if you aren't qualified in solar, don't touch it, we've seen stagnation temperatures in the collectors of over 150°C .... If you aren't trained then you'll scald yourself and make bad mistakes on the requirement re insulation, connections etc. Wrong glycol percentage and you'll b*****r the collectors..

 

[lucas121]

It'll almost certainly need new heat transfer fluid at the correct proportions, if you aren't qualified in solar, don't touch it, we've seen stagnation temperatures in the collectors of over 150°C .... If you aren't trained then you'll scald yourself and make bad mistakes on the requirement re insulation, connections etc. Wrong glycol percentage and you'll b*****r the collectors..

Cheers for the advice, im not officially solar trained, but my boss is. He actually did his training with you guys.