extending central heating to a garden house (20 meters away)

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Has anyone done it or knows what's the best practice on this...
Thanks
 
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HarrogateGas said:
really not advised......electric is the answer here.
Thanks for your reply, thought so, but just to double check.
 
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No reason in principle why it shouldn't be done, but the pipe would have to be sized so as not to create too much resistance to flow (or a booster pump installed) and the external pipes would have to be insulated against heat losses and freezing, and protected against damage, possibly by burying in the ground (which would also help protect against freezing).

Whether it's worthwhile depends on how much heat you plan to put into the garden house. Gas heating is very much cheaper than electricity, but if you're only heating it very occasionally the capital cost of setting up the CH extension might not be justified by the savings. But you can calculate that quite easily if you know how many kW hrs of heat you need over the life of the installation.
 
@chrishutt
very good advise thanks, the garden house will function as a gym with shower and sauna (most probably). I know I can have all this done using electric, but since it will be used frequently(hopefully), I guess you are right, gas is cheaper. If I decide to go with gas I'll probably use plastic barrier pipes. But if I use bigger that 15mm pipes, won't that give me slower flow rate, hence less hot water circulating in that radiator?
But I can see your point, with 15mm I may have no water going to the garden house at all (well nearly), because of the resistance.
Thanks
 
If you're serious about all this you need to have all the calculations done (or learn to do them yourself) to ensure a reasonable performance. It might even be simpler to take a gas supply to the garden house and have one or two small wall heaters there. Only a heating engineer would be able to assess your needs and the best way of meeting them.
 
The cost is largely determined by how you can dig the trench to bury them and what you can use to insulate them.

You have two options, 15 mm and an extra punp or 22 mm and use the existing system.

A typical system would use 100 mm soil pipe containing two 22 mm plastic pipes with foam insulation.

Ideally, if the ground conditions allow, have a "fall" towards a drain off point to ensure water does not build up in the pipe. However if the pipe is properly installed it will be watertight and ventilated at each end so the heat will ensure it stays dry.

The cost will be about £10 per meter for materials plus digging!!!

Well worth doing IF its going to be used regularly.

WARNING. I go to a lot of properties to repair boilers. For every well used gym I see about 20 which are used for storage because the urge to take exercise has waned!

Tony Glazier
 
@Agile
Thanks Agile, most useful comment!
My garden is at a very slight angle, so I'll use that.
Appreciate your warning too, not too difficult to believe :LOL:
cheers
;)
 
I seroiusly belive you would be off your rocker using gas. The problems in the future could be frequent and expensive. 20 Metres is a fair distance, I can for see problems with air locking, blockages and freezing happening. If you use plastic then you have the problem of vermin knawing through pipes. Bear in mind that with the cost of Gas going up at the rate it is , it wont soon be long before electric is as cheap to run.

I also think that the size of the rad required (you say its a summer house) presumerbly made of timer or UpVC with many windows, will be massive. Why not just a small halogen heater to do the job. If its a gym/suana then its not likely to be used all day everyday, so a halogen heater could be put on a timer or even remote timer inside the house and you could have it warm in minutes before you wanted to use the summer house. All with out the fuss of digging, leaks,airlocks,and massive unsightly radiator taking up space.
 
Bearing in mind the usage might wane! How about buying a halogen electric heater and if you are still working out by the end of August then put in the heating then?

Digging a trench is wonderful exercise!

Tony
 
Hmm, :rolleyes: , good feedback, I'll have to re-consider.
Then again, it's a gym, if you need to get warm just keep running faster... :LOL:
cheers
 
Dont forget the additional cost of putting antifreeze in the system on a regualer basis...its not cheap stuff!
 
HarrogateGas said:
Dont forget the additional cost of putting antifreeze in the system on a regualer basis...its not cheap stuff!
:?: antifreeze? where does it normally go (I mean in my case above)?
 
To protect the garden house water pipes from freezing you would need a frost stat to operate the heating to keep the temperature above 0ºC. Don't even think about anti-freeze, HG is just being paranoid.
 

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