central heating zoning - and Brit Gas

Yes tomorrow the Brit Gas bloke is due to call and give me the blurb on their central heating installs (:-)) Just tonight I read that central heating systems *must* now be zoned! (sigh) Is this correct? Just when I though I had it sorted out - zoning pops up. Mr G.is sure to latch onto this point - so is is really mandatory? I was just going to put quality TRV's on every rad. Not too keen on some microprocessor system and motorized valves.

Reply to
dave
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I understand that this is correct. My ancient oil boiler failed recently and replacing it is looking like a nightmare since it will now require zoning and a configuration that fails safe when there is no electricity and the wood burning stove is running flat out.

The existing system used the gravity fed hot water tank and a single close coupled radiator as thermal ballast for the stove.

It can be advantageous if you can avoid heating the entire house all the time, but the valves can and do go wrong in interesting ways usually by dribbling water into something... at least that is what happens on my parents much more sophisticated but elderly zoned system.

Reply to
Martin Brown

Oh dear and you invited them so the cold caller regulations don't apply.

Define "zoned". AIUI systems must now have means of switching the boiler/pump off when there is no actual demand for heat. Ie you have a room stat. Most systems have a motorised valve(s) so you can have independant control of HW and CH. So you have two zones anyway...

Can't do that these days, boiler short cycles through the bypass when all the TRVs are shut.

Not a problem. As you are installing a new system go for a programable room stat. This allows you to set temperature according to time of day and/or day of week.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

Only a nightmare if your plumber doesn't understand how to integrate a passive/gravity wood burner with an active/pumped oil burner.

Can't that be retained? Was the olde oil burner gravity well?

They key is an equal pressure point where the flows and returns from the gravity wood burner, pumped oil burner, HW loop and CH loop all come together. This stops the pumps circulating through anything but their loops. The woodburner still has open pipes to allow the gravity flow when required. This equal pressure point has to be below the HW cylinder and rad as they are still the gravity heat dumps. The rad possibly connected via capilary thermostatic valve with the sensor on the HW cylinder so it's not dumping heat until the cylinder is fking hot.

The CH loop would need it's own pump and motorised valve controled via a room stat, valve contacts turn on the oil burner. As you don't have a significant thermal store I don't think there would be anything to gain by having a stat on the pipework from the wood burner to hold the oil burner off if the stove is hot. The "cold" water coming in from the rads on demand from the CH will soon cool everything down...

Google "Dunsley Neutralser"

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Other similar devices exist.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

No.

My advice is to cancel the appointment or just tell the BG man to f*ck off if he does turn up.

Reply to
ARW

Thanks Dave :-) It'll be interesting at least.

A device thought up by politicians that want to increase the value of companies they have an interest in so make it "the Law". That'll do for now. btw Honywell have plenty on "zoning" their definition will be better than mine!

I could always turn the boiler off - but perhaps I'm not qulified to do that. I'll enroll at the local ripoff place asap..

Actually it's the moronrized valves I hate the idea of. Noise pollution for starters [pun int.] Seriously though if I *have* to have mortorized noise generators spinning away at random during the night - I may well junk the project and just buy new energy-wasteful electric heaters and sod the expense and gas CH.

ta for the info anyway.

Reply to
dave

I found a programmable room stat is a useful addition to an existing system.

Reply to
Michael Chare

Needs to do it when you aren't there.

The only time I hear any of the ones here operate is the spring driven closing and only then if I'm in the cupboard with them. Don't hear them motor open and once open the motor is stalled.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

In article , ARW writes

Treat them like the telemarketing scammers, if one is chatting to you then that's a sale they're missing on some unsuspecting victim.

I'm still getting them in at a pal's place to give a quote and as well as the comedy effect of the teeth sucking and price, I will apply the

50% rule to check out the reasonable-ness or otherwise of other quotes.
Reply to
fred

Perhaps that's what irks him. Designed to run stalled, consuming 6W of that hideously expensive electricity.

Reply to
Graham.

It irked me when I discovered the 3 way honeywell motorised valve was warm to the touch whilst the CH & HW had been turned off at the Potterton2000 control panel and everything else was cold so I switched the mains off which cured the 6 watts waste of electricity.

I had no idea that the 3 way control valve was implemented in such a crude fashion! It's amazing what you can learn from a group like this, just by 'lurking'. :-)

Reply to
Johny B Good

Two port ones use power while open and "the" waste is contributing to the heat output.

Its a lot better than TRVs and a room stat that need to run the pump a lot more often and need the room stat set higher than it needs to be to ensure any room calling for heat actually gets some.

You can get motorised return valves but they require two way switching at the stats and it appears to be too much for the plumbers.

Reply to
dennis

So far I have yet to meet one that does. There are a couple of other compli cations in that the old system involved a Heath Robinson certified Danish o il lifter and the old oil boiler is conveniently situated in the loft. Ther e is an historic combined Elson double feed hot water tank and CH header ta nk which also has them crossing themselves and running away quickly!

One output feed gravity for the hot water and pumped for the CH. Modern boi lers are now single output which seems to be the problem. Heating engineers so far want me to ruin the fairly new wood burning stove and fill it with sand. Then fit a hot water on demand oil boiler. Experience has shown that having a hot water tank and multiple ways to heat it is invaluable in our l ocation.

Main power loss and being cut off by snow or fallen trees is not unknown an d it always seems to happen when a delivery of oil is overdue!

The weakness with the present system is that the wood burning stove can mak e the hot water rather hotter than ideal if the CH thermostat is satisfied. This is now entirely academic as the oil boiler is completely shot - major fault.

There is a stat on the wood burning stove pipe to ensure that the CH pump w ill come on if the outlet temperature is approaching the point where there could be a risk of kettling in the stove heat exchanger.

Thanks for that Dave. We seem destined to have a weird CH system no matter what.

The other thing that the guys looking at our system have said is that havin g a CH boiler installed in the loft is now deprecated as a fire risk. This raises a problem of where else to put it and I am seriously considering out side...

Can't do much at the moment since the bats are in residence.

Regards, Martin Brown

Posting via GG because Teranews is borked.

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Interesting. I gues it also depends on how sensitive ones hearing is. Also sound transmission via the pipe is possible. I guess it comes down to whether sound is a factor for the individual.

Reply to
dave

2nd'd. This is prob. the best ng on usenet.
Reply to
dave

:-) visit has happened - will do a summary of what happened asap on this thread.

Reply to
dave

I'm really enjoying reading these replies. Mtg results coming soon :-)

Reply to
dave

Yeah, I appreciate that argument but, just the same, at 3 or 4 times the energy price? :-)

Still, I suppose it pales into insignificance when compared to the 70 to 120 watts consumed by the pump.

When we had the CH & HW installed some 30 years ago (still going strong) the installers never complexified it with a remote room stat, just relying on TRVs all round with a 'shunt' pipe and adjustment valve in the airing cupboard off the half landing just below the 1st floor where the pump and 3 way valve and HW cyclinder are installed (the large HW cylinder was already in place when we moved in and had an immersion heater element and unused heat exchanger coils already fitted - most convenient and rather serendipitious I thought).

I insisted that the boiler (an Ideal Mexico Super 100) be installed in the basement rather than consume kitchen or utility room space since it would help keep the basement that little bit warmer and less humid in the winter (besides, the waste heat would rise and assist the front lounge heating so not so great a heat loss as it might have first appeared). Also, of course, the floor standing boiler had easy access for maintenance and it reduced noise pollution in the more usual hall/utility/kitchen locations, plus a shorter run of gas pipe from the gas meter.

Well, I suppose it's a tidy enough pragmatic solution. I was just surprised that the motor remained energised in the stalled state when both CH and HW were shut off at the Potterton controller in the utlity room on the ground floor.

Having switched it off at the fused switch box, fed off the dedicated

15A Immersion heater circuit in the airing cupboard, I suppose I aught to take the opportunity to drain it down and overhaul the 3 way valve and replace the little Nicad backup battery in the control panel.

Checking the fernox label in the airing cupboard reveals that I charged it with 7 litres in Novemebr 1994! However, I'm pretty certain that I've topped up (or, more likely recharged it) a few years after the "94 Event" but I can't find any other fernox labels in the airing cupboard or by the header tank in the attic.

Checking for fernox labels by the boiler just reveals a duplicate of the Nov '94 label. :-( I noticed the box the replacement pump came in and the date on the invoice matched.

Obviously, the "Nov '94 Event" was when I splashed out on another Grundfoss Superselectric to replace the no name brand pump that had replaced the original and noisy Grundfoss Superselectric a few short years after installation (and a pair of gate isolator valves to replace the crappy ball valves that had gone seriously leaky by then).

The difference between the new (now 20 years old!) and the old Grundfoss pumps was like night and day. The new pump still works with a silent efficiency that should have applied in the first case.

This was my first experience of CH so it never occurred to me to complain to the installers and get them to fit a new pump (I suspect they'd used one recovered from an older system considering how noisy it was to start with and its rather short service life - no more than

4 or 5 years). Experience is something you don't get until after it's too late. :-(

I don't believe that the last time I drained down and recharged the system with Fernox B was as long ago as Nov 1994 but I can't find any evidence to say otherwise. The XYL seems convinced I'd recharged it long since then but she was on her way out when I posed the question so was unable to discuss it any further.

Casting my mind back, it seems to me that we must have had the CH installed around the time we had the kitchen extension built under a disability grant whilst we had SWMBI's parents living with us. This would have been just a year or two after moving in, sometime around

1981/82. It looks like the CH must be a good 30 years old[1].

It's served us quite well apart from the 'wilderness years' re the pumps I was using supplied by my Dad which were also noisy (but free). The initial experience with the installed Grundfoss pump rather put me off spending real money on yet 'another lemon'.

I'd purchased the current Grundfoss pump rather reluctantly and with a heavy heart but, after I'd installed it, you could have knocked me over with a feather! The new pump was a revelation in quietude that I still marvel at whenever I'm poking around in the airing cupboard whilst the CH or HW is on.

I think we've only had to resort to a CORGI registered gas fitter twice to repair boiler faults. The first was the obligatory thermocouple flame sensor and the second to replace the gas valve (and a precautionary thermocouple replacement). The boiler is about the only bit I leave to the experts. The rest of the system I know I'm quite capable of sorting out. I've never had any sort of maintenance contract on the system and the "Gamble" seems to have _really_ paid off. :-) [1] I've just noticed that the installation and service guide for the boiler is dated Nov 1983. I suppose the Stelrad Group had a good reputation for quality back then before beancounteritis put paid to good old fashioned 'over-engineering".

Reply to
Johny B Good

Sounds like one for Sarah Beeney!

Reply to
Davey

Well here a summary of the BG stuff as advertised. Hope it is of some use to anyone considering a BG CH system

Full install + combi, 3 bed house fixed price ~7k! The chap was ok and answered all the questions asked (thanks to diy-ng I knew the answers to most already). I have to say he was very helpful though, but did dodge a few things. For eg. I asked about having to leave at least one rad on as a load for the combi. He said this was not needed with modern boilers. Fine, except when it came to the bathroom towel rail, for some reason that had to be on all the time. i.e no thermo valve would be attached to that. So it would be off only when the boiler was off (of course). I still don't have an answer to it.

The costing of all the parts was high (as expected) but the boiler price was good and matched web prices. At the end of "Chat" I (mischievously) what if I put the pipework in an BG do the entire gas install, pipework install the boiler and and commissioning. He said "You can't do that". At this point the tone of the event changed! I kind of mentioned that I *CAN* do it etc etc - of course what he meant was that BG don't do it.

It funny how whenever BG do something then it's professional and all the rest of it, yet when you or I do it the task suddenly becomes "slap it on the wall" and "stick this here" etc and a whole new vocabulary appears, - one that doesn't exist if BG do the same task . It is both annoying very patronizing. 'suppose I asked for it though. He definitely hated the idea of A DIY approach - as expected. Anyway, apart from that it was worth talking to him. I'm off to read the details of that quote again.

Reply to
dave

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