Moved house - advice on how central heating/water works..

[OasisFan79]

Hi all.

We've just moved house and the central heating/hot water equipment in the airing cupboard is different to what we had before (previously we had a Gledhill Boilermate in the airing cupboard and a Glow Worm boiler in the garage.

I was wondering if anyone could give me a basic overview of how a central heating/hot water system like this works, what each bit in the airing cupboard does.

It's a 4 bed detached, with an Ideal boiler in the kitchen.

Thanks very much in advance.

 

[dcawkwell]

You have an unvented hot water cylinder.
So mains cold goes straight into the cylinder and it is under pressure.

When you get the boiler serviced get a guy who is registered for
unvented cylinders and have him check the system at the same time.

Otherwise the boiler heats the central heating or cylinder as required depending on the timer and thermstats.

You have an immersion heater on the cylinder should you need to heat the cylinder up with electric in case of a boiler failure.

You also have a sealed central heating system so there will be a filling loop to keep the pressure at about 1 bar cold.

 

[Steve]

Just a query, on a system like this could you circulate a loop of DHW around the house so hot water is available close to every outlet? I know these are common in commercial premises and big houses in America, but how common are they in domestics in this country?

 

[St0rmer66]

Just a query, on a system like this could you circulate a loop of DHW around the house so hot water is available close to every outlet? I know these are common in commercial premises and big houses in America, but how common are they in domestics in this country?

It can absolutely be done but retro-fitting it to an existing house would be... "disruptive" to say the least!

 

[dcawkwell]

Just a query, on a system like this could you circulate a loop of DHW around the house so hot water is available close to every outlet? I know these are common in commercial premises and big houses in America, but how common are they in domestics in this country?

Unless it is a big house not really necessary.
Easiest way it to find the hot pipe at the furthest point and then it is a case of connecting this back to the cylinder. Depending on the layout of the house this may be easy or difficult.

 

[OasisFan79]

You have an unvented hot water cylinder.
So mains cold goes straight into the cylinder and it is under pressure.

When you get the boiler serviced get a guy who is registered for
unvented cylinders and have him check the system at the same time.

Otherwise the boiler heats the central heating or cylinder as required depending on the timer and thermstats.

You have an immersion heater on the cylinder should you need to heat the cylinder up with electric in case of a boiler failure.

You also have a sealed central heating system so there will be a filling loop to keep the pressure at about 1 bar cold.

Thanks very much for this. Very useful!