Water heaters advice needed...Please :)

[Agile]

If the gas main was lat used over a year ago then they can refuse to reconnect it.

But ask them to reconnect it asap so you find out. [ Don't ask them IF they will reconnect it! Just ask them TO reconnect it!

Water supply sounds really good!

300 li cylinders are usually the best value per litre. Also storing more water than apparently needed does no harm.

Push button showers just mean needing to hold them in all the time! It would also **** me off seeing those fitted!

Tony

 

[ziggy1979]

Agile

Thanks again for your help.

If they refuse to reconnect the meter, does that mean that we can't have gas or that they will want to charge for a brand new installation? This seems really unfair...anyone we can complain to like ombudsman or won't get anywhere with that?

It's your 20 min showers we want to avoid. Other than cost issues we are only having 3-4 showers in each changing room so we don't want ppl hogging them. There's also those annoying people who for some reason don't turn off the taps!

A local heating shop told us they would help spec a system. Out of curiosity though, can a domestic boiler handle the 2-3 300l tanks in our scenario as i think that would be way cheaper than the 85kW boiler option.

Thanks again!

Zigs

 

[mickyg]

Agile you talk some proper rubbish sometimes. We are talking about a shower block. 10l/min for 12mins? 12mins? This is not a bathroom where someone wants to relax. 6l/min would be adequate for maximum usage as the time usage of all showers at once would be 5% at best, especially with push valves.
Most people in this scenario only shower for 5-8mins.
that brings you down to a more modest 48l/min. you then have to counter in any other demands on the supply such as basins, toilets etc.. these can be tank fed however from a modest sized storage tank with a flow limiter on the ball valve.
If you have gas then 2-3 Rinnai water heaters would be ideal and provide reundancy/backup. They can be run off LPG as well, but sounds like you have a gas supply which would be preferable for cost reasons. LPG would require bulk storage, perfectly doable if space permits.
You need to get a professional in to quote and specify. Most of the people who reply on here havent even seen this type of system let alone installed it.
Stored hot water is risky without constant and effective reheat as with a gym you can't gauge well how many people will use them one after the other.

 

[ziggy1979]

Update. Just spoke to the National Grid. They said they need to do a live or dead check on the supply which they will hopefully do on Friday afternoon.

If pipe is live we then need to call (and pay) British Gas to connect a new meter. If its not live we need to pay £480 for a quote to fit a new gas supply.

What I don't understand is that if the pipe in the building connects to the gas main, why can't they just use that same pipe (ie turn it back on) rather than charge us for a quote and then to fit a new pipe?

Regards

Zigs

 

[Porque223]

Seems like this is not so easy.

 

[SimonH2]

Out of curiosity though, can a domestic boiler handle the 2-3 300l tanks in our scenario as i think that would be way cheaper than the 85kW boiler option.

There's nothing fundamentally different between a domestic and commercial boiler of the same type.
There is an argument for having several smaller boilers (especially if run from staging controls rather than "all on or all off") as it gives you some redundancy when you have a breakdown.
However, it's easy to design (or rather, throw together) a badly bodged system that doesn't really work effectively. We had that at my last place, and in hindsight if I'd known then what I know now I'd have insisted on having a buffer tank and separate pumps on each circuit - rather than a mish mash of stuff all run (badly) from the internal pumps in the boilers (cobbled together by professional plumbers who called themselves heating engineers).

As mickyg says, you need a professional in this type of installation to design it. It will cost, but you stand a chance of getting it right first time.

What I don't understand is that if the pipe in the building connects to the gas main, why can't they just use that same pipe (ie turn it back on) rather than charge us for a quote and then to fit a new pipe?

I think that's from page 1 of the "Because we can" manual

 

[Biggles..]

Go with option 4.

It'll be a direct fired water heater and buffer vessel being used for semi instantaneous hot water.
This will do what 2 -3 rinnai's can do but with a 1/2 to a 1/3 of the gas supply

New water useage/change of use in a commercial building may well need to go the breeam route.

 

[ziggy1979]

Hi Lee and thanks for your help...btw what's the breeam route?