My boiler is in the loft and the condensate leads pit to the roof guttering. I know it wasn't ideal but due to the location and the layout of the house it wasn't possible to have an internal condensate solution without pipes down stairwell and into cloakroom.
I am now thinking of tee'ing in an emergency winter by-pass so that if it freezes again I can drain off into a bucket in my airing cupboard.
If it freezes for just a few days in a cold spell like this I can cope with it - preferable to major external drain pipes.
Yes (saw it)- but the problem possibly starts in the guttering - snow gets in - turns to ice and then works its way to the outlet of the pipe. The pipe in the loft is well lagged.
Problem is the house is fairly square - double hipped roof. Boiler in centre where there is height - but still fairly low due to roof angles
It would not work then. It certainly would not have worked at mine, the fall pipe on the north side of the house froze solidly up this week. It was almost certainly the melting of the snow on the roof causing drips down the pipe that then froze causing an ice plug near the bottom.
Sensible. Make sure that the boiler has a water trap built in to prevent any chance of fumes escaping down the condensate pipe into the house. Of course if it doesn't have a trap one could construct one from bends etc...
I think I'd be tempted to make the T a "passive automatic"(*) one and have a container permenantly under the interior outlet, possibly with a moisture alarm.
If the normal outlet becomes blocked condensate backs up to the level of the inverted "U" then flows into the trap and out to the bucket. Just ensure that the top of the inverted "U" is well below the bottom of the boiler.
This should work but I don't know how boilers detect a blocked condensate drain.
Water level alarm:
formatting link
pop one of these in the bucket "FireAngel Water Alarm H20-1". =A36.98 from B&Q a search on that works, the URL is otherwise 5 lines long! I suspect that name and product code are B&Q only, google doesn't bring up much other than links back to B&Q. I'd be surprised if there are no other similar, cheap, Far Eastern orgin devices on the market.
Sensible. Make sure that the boiler has a water trap built in to prevent any chance of fumes escaping down the condensate pipe into the house. Of course if it doesn't have a trap one could construct one from bends etc...
I think I'd be tempted to make the T a "passive automatic"(*) one and have a container permenantly under the interior outlet, possibly with a moisture alarm.
If the normal outlet becomes blocked condensate backs up to the level of the inverted "U" then flows into the trap and out to the bucket. Just ensure that the top of the inverted "U" is well below the bottom of the boiler.
This should work but I don't know how boilers detect a blocked condensate drain.
Water level alarm:
formatting link
pop one of these in the bucket "FireAngel Water Alarm H20-1". £6.98 from B&Q a search on that works, the URL is otherwise 5 lines long! I suspect that name and product code are B&Q only, google doesn't bring up much other than links back to B&Q. I'd be surprised if there are no other similar, cheap, Far Eastern orgin devices on the market.
Well, natural gas is methane (CH4) innit, so the reaction is
CH4 + 2 O2 -> CO2 + 2 H2O
So each 16kg of gas will use up 64kg of oxygen and produce
44kg of CO2 and 36kg of water.
I don't know how efficient the condensation process is, in terms of how much of the water is condensed into liquid and how much goes out into the atmosphere. Suppose that roughly 2/3 is recovered and the other 1/3 escapes.
Methane density is around 0.7kg/m3, so I therefore reckon that you need to burn 10 m3 of gas to fill a typical (10l) bucket with water.
Sensible. Make sure that the boiler has a water trap built in to prevent any chance of fumes escaping down the condensate pipe into the house. Of course if it doesn't have a trap one could construct one from bends etc...
I think I'd be tempted to make the T a "passive automatic"(*) one and have a container permenantly under the interior outlet, possibly with a moisture alarm.
If the normal outlet becomes blocked condensate backs up to the level of the inverted "U" then flows into the trap and out to the bucket. Just ensure that the top of the inverted "U" is well below the bottom of the boiler.
This should work but I don't know how boilers detect a blocked condensate drain.
Water level alarm:
formatting link
pop one of these in the bucket "FireAngel Water Alarm H20-1". £6.98 from B&Q a search on that works, the URL is otherwise 5 lines long! I suspect that name and product code are B&Q only, google doesn't bring up much other than links back to B&Q. I'd be surprised if there are no other similar, cheap, Far Eastern orgin devices on the market.
Sensible. Make sure that the boiler has a water trap built in to prevent any chance of fumes escaping down the condensate pipe into the house. Of course if it doesn't have a trap one could construct one from bends etc...
I think I'd be tempted to make the T a "passive automatic"(*) one and have a container permenantly under the interior outlet, possibly with a moisture alarm.
If the normal outlet becomes blocked condensate backs up to the level of the inverted "U" then flows into the trap and out to the bucket. Just ensure that the top of the inverted "U" is well below the bottom of the boiler.
This should work but I don't know how boilers detect a blocked condensate drain.
Water level alarm:
formatting link
pop one of these in the bucket "FireAngel Water Alarm H20-1". £6.98 from B&Q a search on that works, the URL is otherwise 5 lines long! I suspect that name and product code are B&Q only, google doesn't bring up much other than links back to B&Q. I'd be surprised if there are no other similar, cheap, Far Eastern orgin devices on the market.
Just makes sure no flue gases can get out of that pipe. With the fans and things inside the boiler and the flue gases being forced out of the flue the inside of the boiler will be at a higher pressure than the room (airing cupboard).
Saw one of your other posts about access to the top of the soil stack. Is that an internal stack? Connecting into that would be better than the bucket and alarm, though not totaly sure about the regs.
We had a warning pipe connected into the top of an internal stack. Still worked as a warning as the junction into the stack leaked... Fortunately it didn't damage any ceilings or floors.
Remember that solvent weld does not come apart for the removal of blockages or retreival of items. Planning access to each run of pipe can save a lot of agro later.
It is external. It will require a longer pipe run across the loft and will be a source of annoyance to SWMBO. If I aim the pipe carefully it will only have about 8" external.
When I first installed mine, I ran it into a bucket just because I was interested to see. Heating upstairs only overnight generated about half a bucket. (I hadn't installed the downstairs circuit at that point.) Boilers vary enormouly in how much of it they collect verses how much plumes (even when it's all condensing). This one (a Keston Celcius 25) plumes quite little compared with most I see. Length of flue probably makes a significant difference too.
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