Gas boiler in front of immersion heater ?

[nickandsal]

Hi all, new to the forum and have a question.... We run a small B&B in Portugal and have a madium/large electric immersion tank feeding 5 bathrooms. When everyone wants a shower the water hot runs out fairly quickly. We can't afford a boiler for every bathroom, so is it possible to put 1 large capacity gas boiler in front of the immersion, therefore giving hot water to the tank ?

 

[Dan Robinson]

How long is a bit of string?

Might be cheaper to fit electric showers. Although the guests might not appreciate it.

 

[Charnwood]

How about additional immersion tanks?
Would need extra header tank capacity, too.

 

[Agile]

There are several possibilities with a second hot tank probably being the cheapest! A few photos might help us.

But consider what you can do to encourage showering at different times!

Do you serve breakfast to everyone at the same time???

A smaller flow shower head might help too. About 6-7 litres per minute would probably be acceptable if its only a B&B !

Tony

 

[nickandsal]

Hi all.. Thanks for the replies....due to the electricity bill, an extra electric tank or electric showers are not an option ! I just wondered if anyone had done it, or if it was not possible/plausible...?

 

[Dan Robinson]

If you don't pay for it with electricity then you pay for it with gas. Don't know what your local prices are by comparison.

Also very hard to give you much more advice with the information you have given.

A gas boiler, plate heat exchanger and using the existing tank as a buffer might be an easy solution but we have no idea of the space, pressure, flow, and the type of tank you have.

 

[JohnD]

I stayed in a motel in Oz (they had solar heating, but ignore that)

each cabin had its own hot water cylinder. So if one guest used a lot, no-one else was inconvenienced. They were heated from a central pump, presumably with stats and valves on each cylinder to spread the available heat where it was wanted.

I think that was a great system.

You can do it without a huge boiler, and heat up the cylinders overnight and during the day as required.