What's this and how does it work?

[Custom45]

Hi
Just moving into a property with a hit water cylinder/immersion heater and it has this fitted, can I ask what it does please? There's a timer unit wired into it too.

Cheers,

 

[jj4091]

Not a plumber but it looks like a pump to me, presumably it circulates your hot water to the taps.

 

[kidgreen61]

It's a pump, it circulates hot water around a loop so that when you turn on a hot tap you don't have to wait for the hot water to travel all the way from the cylinder.
Timer is to switch pump off during periods of no usage.

 

[Madrab]

Nothing lagged, that'll be super inefficient, all that will be doing is heating the space the hot water pipework circulates through when the pump is running. That being said I see it's set @ off.

Is it a large house with bathrooms far away?

 

[Custom45]

Thanks for replies. No, nothing is lagged here at all. I've just moved into the place, a large bungalow. Furthest bathroom is approx 16m away. Kitchen is 5m.

Hot water for taps is through this cylinder, both showers are electric and heating is oil boiler. It'll all be coming out within the year, underfloor heating throughout and electric combi for taps and showers.

Would an electric combi feed a kitchen and two bathrooms (both showers wouldn't ever be in use same time)? Two people living here.

 

[Madrab]

electric combi

Would never recommend one - £ for £ especially with current electricity prices, they are super expensive to run

 

[Custom45]

Our only option is oil or electric, don't want hassle of oil tank & deliveries so will put up with electric prices.

 

[Madrab]

Our only option is oil or electric, don't want hassle of oil tank & deliveries so will put up with electric prices.

LPG?

 

[muggles]

Electric will cost about 4x as much to run as oil, and you'll need a 3 phase electricity supply to run a decent electric combi boiler. The only electric solution I could really recommend is Tepeo ZEB, but it's only suitable for properties up to about 6kW heat loss

 

[monkeysballs]

and that house is gonna have way more than 6kW heat loss

heat pump it is then!

 

[Custom45]

We only need the boiler for hot water for kitchen tap and bathroom taps & shower.

Heating will be underfloor heating throughout (ideally). House is fairly well insulated, 350mm in loft, 50mm kingspan in walls (not done yet, may go 100mm).

 

[Madrab]

Would still look at LPG as an alternative, unless you installed PV and storage to augment it, all in all it's going to be expensive to install, especially with a 3 phase supply, as was suggested and it certainly won't be cheap to run.

Is your wallet tho.

 

[Custom45]

We will look at alternatives yes.

Another alternative is unvented hot water cylinder, isn't it? It doesn't solve the cost of electricity problem but as I say happy to suck that up for convenience, will be on economy 7 too.

There's 6 solar panels installed already, but fitted wrong place (north west facing) and don't appear to be connected to anything internally, so I'll look at sorting something with that soon.

 

[muggles]

Our only option is oil or electric, don't want hassle of oil tank & deliveries so will put up with electric prices.

Oil deliveries aren't usually much hassle - most areas have buying groups and you'll get topped up when they're in the area.