Weird boiler setup in house

[Luke1976]

Hi All,
I have recently moved into a 4 bed house (standard terraced Victorian property with a loft conversion in the Kingston area). There are two showers - one in the loft and one on the first floor and radiators in each room.

There is a glow worm boiler in the kitchen (pic 6) which seems to have two valves fitted (pic 7) and an external thermostat (pic 8). There is also a button/panel which sometimes comes on (pic 8) - I am assuming this is an override switch or something.

In the loft there is what looks like a megaflow (pic 4) as well as an immersion heater or something (pic 2) and a pump (pic 3)

.

I don't understand why there are so many boilers and am wondering whether we can lose the setup in the loft as its bloody noisy and takes up a lot of room.

I've attached pictures, but if someone can explain why we have so many bits of kit that would be really handy - three plumbers have come out, scratched their heads and gone away again. One plumber came back and said there's nothing that can be done as it will be to do with low water pressure?

 

[Scott_D]

You have a hot water cylinder - stelflow
A glow worm boiler with 2 zone valves
And a booster for low water pressure -tws

 

[rpm]

There is no pic.8 and only one boiler. As to the rest of your Q`s I`ll leave that to others to walk you through what you have there.
Imersion heaters are useful when the gas boiler doesn`t want to play.

 

[Riley]

With two showers you’d be daft to do away with any of it. Looks a good choice set up

 

[Luke1976]

ok thanks scott_d and rpm - is it possible to shift the whole lot down to the kitchen somehow (ie getting a megaflow installed and swapping the mains shower in the loft for an electric shower)?

 

[Riley]

An electric shower will be noticeably worse performance wise

 

[Luke1976]

Thanks Riley

 

[Riley]

I would be more inclined to investigate sound proofing

 

[Luke1976]

That's an option Riley - or we could move this setup elsewhere? Is there an option to stuff everything in the kitchen and just have a pump in the loft? Or is this just going to be bloody expensive..

 

[Riley]

If you have the funds then you can do what ever you want but I wouldnt have thought moving that lot will be cheap. If you move the whole setup then performance at the showers will not suffer. Just FYI you cannot Put a pump on the set up you have

 

[Luke1976]

Ok no probs - so its not just a question of getting a bigger boiler to cope with two showers? Its just that our neighbours don't have a problem with low pressure so I'm wondering whether all this gear in the loft is just to feed the shower up there or whether it serves the whole house

 

[Riley]

It will give you a balanced hot and cold performance at every outlet I would imagine.

If you are talking the combi route they are not designed to run two showers at the same time and you would definitely not get as good a performance . The setup you currently have Will give you the best performance when running two or more outlets at that same time.
I guess the only other thing you could do would be to run a new water main in possibly from the road all the way to where the hot water cylinder is then you could do away with the booster cylinder

 

[Riley]

I think your best option is to engage the services of an experienced heating engineer who can come round and give you Options

 

[Luke1976]

Ok thanks Riley - can I just pick your brains about Megaflow units? Would one of these negate the need for the setup in the loft?

 

[Riley]

How do you mean?? Megaflow is a brand it’s another version of the RM Stelflow cylinder that you already have. Megaflow and RM are brands. A lot of builders call all unvented cylinders megaflow

 

[Riley]

Do you understand what you have currently??

 

[Luke1976]

Could we move the loft setup down to the kitchen to replace the combi boiler?

 

[Riley]

I am getting confused now you have a combi boiler as well

 

[Luke1976]

I think so - we have a combi in the kitchen which serves the hot water/CH and the setup in the loft fills the gap when water pressure fails - is this right or have i got it completely wrong?

 

[Luke1976]

the glow worm i the kitchen - is this not a combi boiler?

 

[Riley]

It could possibly be what model is the glowworm boiler I can’t make it out

 

[Luke1976]

I think its a 30C which says it is a combi boiler on their website. What kind of boiler would it be if it wasn't a combi?

 

[Luke1976]

Its a Glow Worm FlexiCom CX

 

[Riley]

Okay that is a combi boiler however it sounds like it’s been adapted to heat the hot water cylinder in the loft. We can work out what it feeds fairly simply. There should be five main copper pipes coming down from the bottom of the boiler from left to right it should be Flow, hot water, gas, cold water, return. I noticed from one of your pictures that the hot water pipe may well be capped off is that the case.

 

[Riley]

The simple answer is you need the boiler as this provides the heat source for the Stelflow to heat your hot water

 

[Luke1976]

ok - and we can't move the Stelflow and other thing from the loft downstairs as it needs to be near the shower in the loft?

 

[Riley]

No I never said it couldn’t be moved just based on the install you will need the boiler cylinder and booster Still so I would suggest it would be prohibitively expensive unless you are planning other works. Only you know what you can afford though

 

[Luke1976]

Ok thanks Riley - so we could move the stuff from the loft down to the kitchen and it would do the same job?

 

[ShaunCorbs]

TBH I would look at sound proofing else your looking at a min of spending around 3k to move all that

 

[Luke1976]

Ok great - thanks Shaun

 

[Luke1976]

do we need the combi boiler in the kitchen, or can we just get a water heater for the hot water cylinder?

 

[ShaunCorbs]

Depends what that supplies do you have a bath in the loft ?

 

[Luke1976]

no - just a shower in the loft and a bath & shower in the room directly beneath the loft

 

[ShaunCorbs]

TBH I would get rid of the combi and move all the kit downstairs acceptable to you maybe upgrade the cylinder l depending on existing size etc

 

[Scott_D]

do we need the combi boiler in the kitchen, or can we just get a water heater for the hot water cylinder?

The boiler will be heating your radiators and hit water. What will provide heat if you get rid of it!

I think you are confusing yourself

 

[ShaunCorbs]

Any chance of a pic of said secondary boiler ?

 

[Scott_D]

Any chance of a pic of said secondary boiler ?

I think there is only one boiler.
The glow worm is a Combi used as a system boiler.

 

[ShaunCorbs]

I think there is only one boiler.
The glow worm is a Combi used as a system boiler.

Maybe but doesn't the gloworm have heating temp adjustment? Just hoteater ?

 

[Luke1976]

So is it theoretically possible just to move the kit from the loft down to the kitchen next to the combi boiler? (this is moving the stelflow and pump - not sure why we need the hot water cylinder). It just seems an awful lot of gear for a house with two showers. My parents have a larger house with more bathrooms and radiators and i think they just have a megaflow in a utility room somewhere?

 

[Scott_D]

So is it theoretically possible just to move the kit from the loft down to the kitchen next to the combi boiler? (this is moving the stelflow and pump - not sure why we need the hot water cylinder). It just seems an awful lot of gear for a house with two showers. My parents have a larger house with more bathrooms and radiators and i think they just have a megaflow in a utility room somewhere?

You would need a big cupboard to put it in.
Your parents might not have poor incoming pressure and flow

 

[ShaunCorbs]

In short you have a low incoming water main pressure and flow so it won't be able to do more than one outlet at the same time

 

[Riley]

I am pretty sure that the combi is not working as a combi. If you look at the pics I think (could be wrong) that the hot water has been capped off

 

[Riley]

So is it theoretically possible just to move the kit from the loft down to the kitchen next to the combi boiler? (this is moving the stelflow and pump - not sure why we need the hot water cylinder). It just seems an awful lot of gear for a house with two showers. My parents have a larger house with more bathrooms and radiators and i think they just have a megaflow in a utility room somewhere?

I bet they will still have a boiler heating the megaflow. Not cheap doing it on electric

 

[Riley]

I think you really need to get someone in to explain what you have and how it currently works. We can do it on here but it’s only words and without visual explanation it may not mean a lot

 

[Luke1976]

ok thanks guys - i have tried getting various plumbers in to explain the options but so far, the options are: "leave it alone" and "no idea". It just seems odd to have so many different systems in a relatively small building - unless there is something else going on like really low water pressure, but then that doesn't make sense if we're the only house experiencing this (unless there is a skinny lead pipe or something)

 

[Ben-gee]

Check for pipes feeding through to your next door neighbours!

 

[ShaunCorbs]

@Whn1 close to you ?

 

[Riley]

I would guess that the previous owner wanted two good showers and that was the only way to achieve the flow and pressure.

There is one system.

Mains water comes into the accumulator to achieve necessary flow and pressure. This then fills the Stelflow cylinder. In turn this is then heated by the Glowworm boiler by means of heat transfer from a coil which runs through the cylinder. As I said you could potentially upgrade your mains which would mean you could do away with the accumulator

 

[Luke1976]

Maybe - if there is anyone on here who is close to TW11 and fancies popping round for a peek (we also need a quote for sticking a toilet under some stairs which requires some creative drainage)!

 

[Scott_D]

Maybe - if there is anyone on here who is close to TW11 and fancies popping round for a peek (we also need a quote for sticking a toilet under some stairs which requires some creative drainage)!

I think you need to pay so e to carry out a proper survey.

 

[Luke1976]

Thank you all - thats really helpful! I will go and talk to the boss (wife)