Dear all,
we're planning an extension to the house (a 1960s bungalow), and have come up with a devious design after many attempts owing to proximity to the boundary causing restrictions. The design raises a few questions regarding possible regulations and also some environmental issues regarding hot water efficiency. Perhaps some of you here might have some opinions or ideas?
The original house was extended to include a utility room which enclosed the bathroom window so that the bathroom no longer has any external walls. The bath extractor fan is vented through the roof (where it meets the top of an external wall beyond the utility room) via a large plastic pipe. Our new plan sees an expansion of the utility room and therefore increases the distance from the bathroom to any external wall and therefore the required length of ventilation ducting. Are there any curious regulations about this?
Secondly, the new master bedroom will have an en-suite which will be right at the end of the house and a full seven meters from the existing hot cylinder and header tank (which are directly between the bathroom and kitchen). The concern here is that a silly quantity of water is wasted expelling all the cold water from seven meters of piping. This represents a waste of energy and water every time a bath or shower is taken or when hot water is used at the basin.
Is such waste acceptable? At which point does it become more sensible to have two separate hot water systems? Perhaps one of those heat-on-the-fly gas boilers for the ensuite combined with a bit of solar heating, to produce hot water on demand just for the en-suite? Alternatively, how powerful/useful/economical/environmental are electric showers these days?
The water/central heating is rather old but the hot cylinder works well still. The central heating system is ugly (only one thermostat circuit, pipes buried in concrete base, two bedrooms plumbed in series, not parallel!), so some improvements will be made for the extension, but it would be interesting to know whether people suggest changing the hot water cylinder for something modern, and if so, what?
Any thoughts, please?
Michael