Elctric Central heating and single pipe systems

[Steve Hart]

Can anyone give me some advice on Electric central heating please? I've currently got a solid fuel boiler which supplies a pumped single pipe system with 8 rads. All the rads work fine but the boiler has started to leak and rather than fork out £1500 for a new solif fuel boiler I'm thinking of replacing it with an electric boiler. Appreciate it will have higher operating costs than solid fuel but I think it will be a lot easier to operate and certainly a lot cheaper to buy.
Does anyone have experience of these boilers please and also would it be wise for me to convert the current one pipe system to two pipe or is the efficiency gain to be had probably not worth the effort?
Cheers
Steve

 

[croydoncorgi]

The only electric boiler I have direct experience of is a 6kW unit - which only drives 3 rads and a towel rail. First problem I think you may encounter is finding a boiler with enough power to equate to your current one.
Second problem will be cabling to it: say you fond a 20kW unit (which would still be relatively small compared with a typical gas-fired combi).
You would need 100Amp cable!!! That'll be thick and awkward.

Have you looked at gas (or LPG in the absence of a main)?

Whatever you do, converting to 2-pipe is probably essential. Electric boilers, as any other, need a good flow to prevent overheating and the return temperature must not rise too much. Remember that most modern boilers will have much lower water content than an old solid fuel boiler.

 

[Steve Hart]

Thanks for the advice. Unfortunately we are not on mains gas and we don't have the space for an LPG tank. I have sourced an electric boiler which is rated at 45kbtus and is around the same wattage as an electric shower so should be OK size wise but I'm still wondering if power flushing the system would be adequate rather then converting the whole think to 2 pipe.
Has anyone else got any experience of this please?
Cheers
Steve

 

[Slogger]

is it ok to do the work you mention and not put in thermostatic rad vavles and if you did when one shut off it would shut all off ? surely with a one pipe system the last rad would be cold just i was told recently that new regs require trv.s when you get work to upgrade your system or was that lies to get me to spend more ? or better still upgrade it all to 10 mm mini bore and 2 pipe would be a doddle i am sure one of these heating engineers will know

 

[Steve Hart]

I was planning on putting in some TRVs but I don't think what you describe would happen because even if all the rads shut down the water can still continue to circulate around the single loop.
Can anyone else advise on this please. I understand single pipe systems were fairly common in the seventies so presumambly there are plenty of these systems still around?
The bolier I have in mind is a HeatRae Sadia electric flow bolier. If I thoroughly power flush the system and fit TRVs would that do the trick or would it be wiser to switch to a 2 pipe system (maybe using microbore)?
Would appreciate any ideas please.