by Perry525 »
Fri Mar 07, 2008 12:43 pm
Alyson, there is a lot that people can say about your system, mostly to encourage you to give them work and spend your money.
There is not a lot of difference between heating systems when it comes to the final bill. ie; Cost of buying and running say over five years. Against keeping your current system, with its perhaps higher running costs, and how much it ends up costing you over the same five years.
Having said all that, lets try a quick education to answer your questions.
A single pipe system. The hot water goes from one radiator to the next cooling as it goes. The hottest radiator is closest to the boiler.
With a twin pipe system, the hot pipe goes to each radiator in turn but, the return water goes into a separate pipe that goes back to the boiler to be reheated. So there is little difference in each radiators temperature.
A twin pipe system, enables radiators to be turned off and to have thermostat valves.
However, the more pipes you have the greater the heat loss from the pipes.
Combi's, there's a lot of advertising about these boilers, they are portrayed as being wonderful, in truth they are not suitable for everyone.
So much is made of the fact, that at start up they extract waste heat from the exhaust gas, that only lasts for a few minutes, then when the home is heated and running normally the 20 C degree difference disappears and they are the same as the one you have now.
Another very important point, they are difficult to live with if you have a family.
And very important. If you have a baby or young children. They have no back up store of water. If your water is cut off by design, work on a pipe up the road, or more likely cut because of an accident. You have NO WATER! You may be forced to drive to find an open supermarket and buy water to flush the toilet or wash yourself or the children.
When they do work, they only deliver water to one tap. If you live with someone who turns the tap on while you are showering you could be standing there soapy and no water.
The biggest problem when heating a home, is the wind. The wind blowing past and over a home, sucks the air out. Usually, the warm air you have paid to heat.
Your first priority is to go round and find every hole. Every gap round windows and doors to the outside, block them. Where pipes and things go through walls block the gaps. Check the upstairs light fittings, they are often badly fitted with nasty holes through the ceiling.
Once the holes are sorted, then check the insulation on the hot tank, pack as much insulation round it as you can find, old blankets work fine.
Check the upstairs ceiling in the loft, is it insulated? If so with what? And how much. If its fibreglass, is it in a plastic bag? If its not, the heat will just rise through it.
Hope thats of some help. Best of Luck
Perry
