by Perry525 »
Fri Dec 28, 2007 7:07 pm
Oh dear, I'm not sure anyone could claim to have fitted and used the majority of equipment out there.
So, let me give you my opinion.
The instant hot water heaters are a waste of money, why well they take an enormousness amount of heat to heat up a pathetic amount of water. Economic they are not.
The system heaters that use a stainless steel store are popular with their makers and sellers as they make so much money from them. They give you mains pressure hot water, OK if you live in a hole but, not so good in a lot of areas with low pressure. The tanks need to be large.
I have always preferred the traditional copper tank indirect setup. Fitted with correctly sized tanks and pipes they can deliver masses of water to several rooms at once. Try to avoid flexible couplings as they constrict the flow of water. Use 10mm pipes to hand basins. This system will accept a power shower, it needs its own direct cold feed from the header tank and from the hot, keep in mind the vast amount of water used and that you have to have a water meter fitted.
For the heating, a zoned system using 5 wire motorised valves, these only use power while opening or closing unlike the spring closed ones that use power the whole time they are held open and, therefore tend to burn out. Fit thermostatic valves to all radiators. For the bedrooms and other low temperature zones run correct sized pipes from as close to the boiler as possible to keep the lengths of hot pipe to a minimum. Keep in mind that these areas will be off most of the time, so there is no point in heating yards of pipe to no purpose. Each zone will need its own room thermostat consider using wireless stats one to each zone, as these can be moved into whichever room you are in.(Make sure to turn the radiator stats up when moving in)
Final points, improve the perimeter insulation, especially the upper floor ceilings. 50mm of polystyrene fixed to the upstairs ceilings will make a very large difference to your comfort, far more effective than fibre glass.
From a comfort and cost point try not to let the room temperatures drop more that a couple of degrees as this will cause condensation.