British hot water systems

[F Murtz]

Is any one still installing gravity hot water systems in Britain? They are becoming non existent in Australia as most new and replacement systems are mains pressure.

[Mike Barnes]

F Murtz :

I'd replace our HW system with mains pressure if the mains pressure was good enough. But I get better flow by pumping the contents of the tank in the loft.

[Onetap]

Yes, they have a lot of advantages. Most of the existing water distribution= systems was installed with 1/2" service pipes to fill loft tanks and it is= not certain that you will get an adequate flow rate for a mains pressure s= ystem. The water suppliers only have to provide 1 bar pressure; they have b= een reducing the supply pressure to reduce mains leakage rates in some area= s.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Probably not in homes, but stored water systems are essential for businesses of any size, as otherwise failure of incoming supply for more than a few hours means you have to close the building down. I have worked in a 24x7 data centre where our water supply did fail, and the loft tanks meant we could stay open by having a tanker come and refill them once a day. A smaller business next door had to close their premises (no tanks I guess - their building didn't have a loft), and they got a skelton staff back in a couple of days later once they had a portaloo installed in their car park.

For the same reason, I'm quite pleased I do have 50 gallons stored in my loft, particularly when there was talk a month back of our drought possibly resulting in standpipes in the street (since when, it hasn't stopped raining).

[Rick Hughes]

I didn't ... it is still the way for budget installs, although many opt for Combi as it's cheaper again.

I went for mains pressure HW system via a Thermal Store.

Has benefit of mains pressure Hot Water at very high flow rates, as it's not dependent on boiler firing for HW it avoids short inefficient boiler cycles.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

I've justinstalled one in my place, owing to the unreliability of the public supply. If I were in town, it might be a different matter.

[ARWadsworth]

I have not seen one in a new build home for at last 10 years. However when I was wiring up grant scheme jobs a few years ago (the ones where the got free CH replacement or insallation) all the S and P plans used gravity hot water.