Which Hot water tank

amytomjerry

hi, I am installing a rain head shower which uses 15L of water a minute or 9L with diffuser...also installing boiler stove.

Theres two adults in house. Am getting different advice of hardware stores regarding size of hot water tank to install.

What size tank is sufficient to run this shower etc.? is 300L a ridiculous size for two adults and hard to heat??

And does anyone have rough guide to diameter sizes of tanks...

many thanks....

K.Flyer

Is your only way of heating water with a solid fuel stove?

amytomjerry

hi there....thanks for your reply...no, it also will be connected to oil....and am having immersion attached to it as well...

K.Flyer

300 l for two people is a bit excessive.
I put a 250 l into a friends house a few years ago. He has a large rainfall head and four body jets being fed with a speed controlled 4 bar pump and he has had no issues with hot water shortages with two of them in the house.
Granted he is on gas, but it would take a while and be costly using the immersion and I dont imagine you would be lighting fire in the summer. So in summer isolate your heating system and use the oil to heat the water.

antoinolachtnai

The cool kids nearly always call a hot water tank a 'cylinder' for obvious reasons. Of course it is a tank, but that's the jargon you will hear.

The size isn't the only thing. It's also how fast the cylinder 'recovers', i.e., how fast the water can be heated. This basically depends on how big the coil inside the cylinder is. Talk to the suppliers, but a smaller tank with a bigger coil could be an option. The great thing about this is that you will have hot water extremely quickly when you turn on the boiler. The drawback is that if you come home to a cold house, and turn on the heating, the house will take that bit longer to heat up because the heat is being absorbed by the cylinder. There is a common enough arrangement for gas systems to avoid this problem ('cylinder or hot water priority'), but not so common with oil as far as I know.

Re diameters, you can actually get cylinders made to different heights and diameters if you need them.

When there is solid fuel involved, it all gets very specialised, so you really need to follow the advice of your plumber who will hopefully have a lot of experience with such things.

Whatever else, make sure you have a big enough cold water tank in the attic to cover all eventualities, especially seeing as you have solid fuel involved. But the plumber should look after that.

Wearb

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

The cool kids nearly always call a hot water tank a 'cylinder' for obvious reasons. Of course it is a tank, but that's the jargon you will hear.

The size isn't the only thing. It's also how fast the cylinder 'recovers', i.e., how fast the water can be heated. This basically depends on how big the coil inside the cylinder is. Talk to the suppliers, but a smaller tank with a bigger coil could be an option. The great thing about this is that you will have hot water extremely quickly when you turn on the boiler. The drawback is that if you come home to a cold house, and turn on the heating, the house will take that bit longer to heat up because the heat is being absorbed by the cylinder. There is a common enough arrangement for gas systems to avoid this problem ('cylinder or hot water priority'), but not so common with oil as far as I know.

Re diameters, you can actually get cylinders made to different heights and diameters if you need them.

When there is solid fuel involved, it all gets very specialised, so you really need to follow the advice of your plumber who will hopefully have a lot of experience with such things.

Whatever else, make sure you have a big enough cold water tank in the attic to cover all eventualities, especially seeing as you have solid fuel involved. But the plumber should look after that.

Very common nowadays to have the cylinder:cool: zoned separately.

amytomjerry

thanks all for the replies...really appreciate the help!

antoinolachtnai

Wearb wrote: »

Very common nowadays to have the cylinder:cool: zoned separately.

Set up so that the hot water does not come on when the central heating comes on? I have not seen that done, but possible for sure.

Wearb

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

Set up so that the hot water does not come on when the central heating comes on? I have not seen that done, but possible for sure.

Yes. I see a lot of "newer" houses with 3 zones; sleeping, living and hotwater.
Some with just 2 zones, but same possibility for isolating heating and hotwater.

K.Flyer

I'm doing a 4 zone in a few weeks time, all wireless, independent zone operation and phone app connectivity.

Dardania

K.Flyer wrote: »

I'm doing a 4 zone in a few weeks time, all wireless, independent zone operation and phone app connectivity.

Splitting out bathrooms too?

K.Flyer

Dardania wrote: »

Splitting out bathrooms too?

No, its 2 separate rad circuits, 1 DHW, 1 U.Floor.
Although I have split bathrooms in the past where it was reasonably practical.

Dardania

K.Flyer wrote: »

Dardania wrote: »

Splitting out bathrooms too?

No, its 2 separate rad circuits, 1 DHW, 1 U.Floor.
Although I have split bathrooms in the past where it was reasonably practical.

Whenever I build my perfect house, it'll have a split out bathroom. Or a DHW return loop, set up as underfloor heating + towel rad in each bathroom, so it's always warm from the DHW (regardless of whether space heating is on). Many years hence before I'll do that!
Back on OP's topic, maybe they shouldn't use the boiler stove for DHW purposes, and instead use it only for space heating purposes. Reason being, one lights the boiler when the space is cold (generally) so it stands to reason the rest of the house is cold. Whereas DHW is needed all year round - why not just let it look after itself from the conventional boiler by itself...