In the coming month I'll be fitting a new vented cylinder in my parent's house, as their boiler has given out, and they have decided to upgrade the entire system along with sorting out the controls so that they actually work.
There's a wet room with a 15-20m run from the cylinder, so it takes some time to get hot water through to the taps, especially in the winter when the pipework is particularly cold.
It seems to me that now would be the ideal time to install a secondary return to sort this problem out, although there's not a great deal of information for the DIYer on the 'net with regard to this type of installation.
My understanding is that I will need to come off the far end of the HW flow pipework at the wet room with another return pipe, for which I hope 15mm will suffice, as the return is purely for circulation and not intended to supply HW. This will then go back to the airing cupboard, where a bronze pump will be fitted, then onto a double check valve, and back into the tank via an Essex flange.
Hope you wont mind if I ask a few questions that I haven't been able to answer myself by searching the internet and the forums:
1. In a couple of other topics I've heard mention of balancing valves. Unless I've got myself in a muddle, can someone please explain the purpose of these, so that I can understand whether or not it's something I'll need to consider. I had assumed that I could simply tee off the flow leg to my draw off points, and then loop back the return at the final draw off point.
2. Where on the tank should I be fitting the Essex flange? I've read 3/4 of the way up from the base of the tank, but don't know how correct this is.
3. I've read that the Grundfos Comfort pump is available with integrated non-return valve, and the option of an integrated timer also seems useful. Has anyone any experience with these? Are they expensive? Reliable?
4. Anything else I should be aware of?
There's a wet room with a 15-20m run from the cylinder, so it takes some time to get hot water through to the taps, especially in the winter when the pipework is particularly cold.
It seems to me that now would be the ideal time to install a secondary return to sort this problem out, although there's not a great deal of information for the DIYer on the 'net with regard to this type of installation.
My understanding is that I will need to come off the far end of the HW flow pipework at the wet room with another return pipe, for which I hope 15mm will suffice, as the return is purely for circulation and not intended to supply HW. This will then go back to the airing cupboard, where a bronze pump will be fitted, then onto a double check valve, and back into the tank via an Essex flange.
Hope you wont mind if I ask a few questions that I haven't been able to answer myself by searching the internet and the forums:
1. In a couple of other topics I've heard mention of balancing valves. Unless I've got myself in a muddle, can someone please explain the purpose of these, so that I can understand whether or not it's something I'll need to consider. I had assumed that I could simply tee off the flow leg to my draw off points, and then loop back the return at the final draw off point.
2. Where on the tank should I be fitting the Essex flange? I've read 3/4 of the way up from the base of the tank, but don't know how correct this is.
3. I've read that the Grundfos Comfort pump is available with integrated non-return valve, and the option of an integrated timer also seems useful. Has anyone any experience with these? Are they expensive? Reliable?
4. Anything else I should be aware of?