Help wanted Typical Well - Plumbing setup ???

Malaka

Hi I would like to know what a Well water supply would cosist of

Would the Well supply or can the Well supply taps/toilets/sinks/showers etc directly with the aid of a pressure tank ?

Or would the Well and Pressure tank supply a combination of a 70 gallon coffin tank (for gravity) and some taps/showers directly.

Any info on additonal setups or just what most people do (pros and cons) would be appreciated as im a bit in the dark

Thanks

Outkast_IRE

Malaka wrote: »

Hi I would like to know what a Well water supply would cosist of

Would the Well supply or can the Well supply taps/toilets/sinks/showers etc directly with the aid of a pressure tank ?

Or would the Well and Pressure tank supply a combination of a 70 gallon coffin tank (for gravity) and some taps/showers directly.

Any info on additonal setups or just what most people do (pros and cons) would be appreciated as im a bit in the dark

Thanks

Generally the well would directly supply the kitchen area , maybe a outside tap , and then would supply a storage tank in the attic , which feeds bathroom toiets,taps , showers etc.

But depending if you go for a pressurised system for supplying showers and bathrooms etc it might change the sceanario.

Malaka

Hi thanks for info - My cylinder will ideally be a tripple coil open vented thermal store ( for stove and solar) stove flow and return not through coil but direct connection to top and just above solar not found one in Ireland yet seem to be plenty advertised on web from Britain/Germany. My showers will be pumped, hot water to be pumped through coil. My question is do pumped (power) showers need to have both supplies cold and hot water pumped - Would the cold be directly pumped from Well Pump or would I be better to go from Well to coffin tank and then pump to showers etc thanks any info aprreciated, also are well submersible pumps known to have a long life span if Well clean.

Outkast_IRE

Malaka wrote: »

Hi thanks for info - My cylinder will ideally be a tripple coil open vented thermal store ( for stove and solar) stove flow and return not through coil but direct connection to top and just above solar not found one in Ireland yet seem to be plenty advertised on web from Britain/Germany. My showers will be pumped, hot water to be pumped through coil. My question is do pumped (power) showers need to have both supplies cold and hot water pumped - Would the cold be directly pumped from Well Pump or would I be better to go from Well to coffin tank and then pump to showers etc thanks any info aprreciated, also are well submersible pumps known to have a long life span if Well clean.

Yes the well submersible pumps are usually fairly reliable there was a few jobs i have been on where they were put in 3-4 years ago and are still running perfect.
When i plumb the power showers we usually take the feeds off of the storage tank in the attic and the hot off the cylinder , this ensures equal presssure in both hot and cold , and would probably be the ideal way in most situations.
I wouldnt be familiar with a stove or cylinder where you are directly heating the hot water, is the stove heat exchanger made of stainless steel so to prevent corosion ? Most people would either just use a triple coil standard cylinder or else use a buffer/accumulator tank with a seperate cylinder in this situation.

heinbloed

The pressurised system has a lot of advantages. I'm using it for the entire house, all sources pressurised from the pump/expansion barrel onwards. Get a good plumber/engineer to set up the plans.
Make sure the pipe diameter from the well towards the house is correct, I have seen very thin pipes used which could not deliver a proper flow rate.

freddyuk

Malaka wrote: »

Hi thanks for info - My cylinder will ideally be a tripple coil open vented thermal store ( for stove and solar) stove flow and return not through coil but direct connection to top and just above solar not found one in Ireland yet seem to be plenty advertised on web from Britain/Germany. My showers will be pumped, hot water to be pumped through coil. My question is do pumped (power) showers need to have both supplies cold and hot water pumped - Would the cold be directly pumped from Well Pump or would I be better to go from Well to coffin tank and then pump to showers etc thanks any info aprreciated, also are well submersible pumps known to have a long life span if Well clean.

I am in process of setting up a solar/WBS system which is supplied from a well. The well is pumped to the kitchen tap and the utility room and then feeds a 50 gal storage tank for other services. I have a bungalow and existing DHW cylinder (ground floor) dual coil - one for the oil boiler which does rads and underfloor hybrid. The shower pump is fed from this DHW cylinder and the cold tank by gravity.
I then installed a dual coil 200 litre tank in the loft right over the WBS which then runs on gravity. One coil is fed by solar panel and the other coil feeds the downstairs cylinder on an indirect circuit.Well feeds the F&E tank above. The WBS is a direct feed into top tapping of the store and out of the cold feed tapping at the bottom. So Solar and WBS heat 200 litres which is then fed down to smaller cylinder for house. It will keep hot for a long time. I have just fired up the WBS and discovered it heats the 200 litres very effectively even though it is direct. I have not installed the indirect feed to the lower cylinder yet as i need a small expansion vessel and filling loop but it looks like it will work very well. Free heat in the top cylinder summer and winter but if it all fails the oil boiler will heat the working cylinder. There is a bypass circuit on the WBS to dump any excess heat into two rads. The solar has a bypass to dump into a rad in the loft if required.
I will want to pump the well supply from a cistern so as to have pressurised hot taps but this is a project later. I do not think you can run a pressurised system from the bore pump you should pump from a cistern to avoid potentially running the well dry.

A decent well pump should last years but they do not like being switched on and off so the reason for a storage tank. I am not sure pumping a decent shower through a cylinder coil will provide enough heat transfer if that is how I understand it? You need both supplies pumped from the house not rely on the well pump. I suspect this is against regs. Also remember you need a fibreglass F&E tank and a copper ball float in your WBS circuit.
In your plan I assume the third coil is the boiler?

Malaka

Thanks for information very helpful, I shall have to go away now but shall post latter answering questions and post one or two of my own

Malaka

Thanks Outkast for your input, my stove is made of heavy steel – Not sure exactly what the back boiler is made of but is from an long established name I trust. I do have a charging unit to reduce cold water shock to the back boiler so not concerned about its lifespan.
Thanks heinbloed – I must check the pipe size
Thanks Freddy UK – On other forums I have been reading for sometime now coils for heat DHW seem to be very popular in Scandinavian Countries and of course Germany, I could post one or two names but not sure if the moderators like that. They seem to big on insulation minimum of 4 inches, some even having barriers within cylinder to reduce mixing and diffusers on pumped circuit to limit cold and hot mixing in tank. Im toying with 500L thermal store to allow using the stored heat in cylinder for a blast of heat in rads in morning without the need of lighting stove in winter – A gasification boiler and a 1000l store would be pefect allowing efficient full burns and storage of heat but that’s just out of my budget for the foreseeable future. I’m therefore sizing my cylinder to two full burns of my stove at max output (cleaner burns). As for heat exchangers some seem to have a coil passing through the lower to upper part of cylinder others have external plate heat exchangers the flow rates for all are flexible depending on your choice/ desired flow rate does not seem to be a problem of meeting even for two power showers. I would like three coils for solar/rads and DHW coil. Direct entry needed for stove (gravity circuit) and another two direct entry points (no coils) to have flexibility of adding oil if needs must at a latter date. Thanks for info on the other end cistern to taps that’s the bit I need to get straight in my head.

Malaka

The idea of a pressrised system does seem to have it benefits - I could even store water on ground floor and pump everything from there - something to think about. Awkward Eaves space not that practical more food for thought. ( In my case the pressure would be maintained through DHW coil not tank ). Finally what size cistern are people using 50/70 gallon ??

freddyuk

Many modern taps will only work under pressure so this is worth considering.
I would not try to run my heating via radiators off a thermal store. I think the heat requirement will be too high as the system will cool the store before the house is warmed up. You need underfloor and a correctly sized thermal store and frankly I would not consider a retrofit on an older house. The WBS is used to heat a tank of water and any spare capacity is fed into a couple of rads to reduce the heat load and act as a heat dump it is not a primary heat source.
You could try some low water content radiators if you cannot retrofit underfloor to at least reduce the amount of fluid in the system.