House Getting renovated Do we still need Hot tank / Immersion and other suggestions

Irish Gunner

Ok as per the title

We have stripped out the upstairs of our house and taken out the hot tank and immersion. So previously we used the heating to heat up the water in the winter and the immersion in the summer. So looking at what other options we have

We have a walk through with the plumber soon and other than say the moving of rads and possible plumbing for american fridge and downstairs wet room wondering what options we have

Plan is to replace the electric shower in main bathroom and then new bathroom using water from tank

So any suggestions esp for instant hot water, dual boiler or do we need new tank etc or anything else open to suggestions

Irish Steve

I am going to stick my flag in the air here, and possibly upset some of the green proponents, and say that the present headlong rush towards doing everything with electricity, and having no resilience or backups or storage for almost everything seems to me to be a very dangerous route to be taking, as none of the people proposing this brave new world have said anything on record about how houses that are going down this route will actually operate when ( and note I say when, not if) the electricity supply to those houses is disrupted for a signifcant period of time, which could happen as a result of any number of scenarios, some that can be foreseen, and some that are not as predictable.

So, the scenarios that could lead to significant problems are things like significant weather events, (Snow, gales, flooding, lack of wind to drive turbines), strike action by significant unions, disruption of things like gas supply to generating companies, infrastructural failures of things like international underwater feeder cables, political changes in external sources of supply in other countries, and that's only some of the reasons.

So, if water is heated by electricity only, and there's no storage of any sort in the house, what are you supposed to use if the power is out. Same is true for roof storage tanks, if they go, and then the elecricity and maybe water supply is disrupted due to the power out meaning no pumps to deliver water to houses or even individual taps in the house, what do you use to flush toilets during the outage? If there's no power to even boil a kettle, no big deal? Maybe not, until you are a family that has to boil water before preparing baby food, or before performing some specific home medical procedure, what do they do? There are people that depend on electricity for things like home dialysis, and other life essential procedures, no power, or fresh running water? Move to the nearest hospital, and trust that their standby generators have fuel and are reliable for the duration of the emergency?

In the same vein, let's assume that the power is out over a wide area for a while. Can supermarkets and other retail still function, remembering that they need power to run tills, and freezers, and in many cases, they need lights as they are otherwise literally in the dark. Some have standby generators, so short term they are OK, but how long for in terms of fuel to keep them running for more than a few hours.

Heating systems, oil, gas or heat exchangers, it matters not, they all need power to operate to a greater or lesser extent, and modern homes don't have any chimneys or facilities for open fires, and using things like Gas heaters indoors in a modern house could be very dangerous due to the much reduced ventilation in order to get the new BER ratings that are legally required, so an open flame heater of any sort could become a source of lethal concentrations of carbon monoxide very easily.

OK, so leave home and go and visit a family member or relative in another area that's not affected? Maybe, but if your car is electric, and was charging or due to charge when the power went out, you might not be going very far, and good luck finding a working charger on the way, depending on how wide an area is affected. In the same vein, if the power is out over a wide area, what sources of petrol or diesel will be available to keep vehicles operating?

The trip to and from work may not be possible, and depending on how much resilience has been built into the phone and internet network, working from home over the internet may not be possible for too long, as the newer faster fibre based broadband depends on power at a local level being available to allow the home devices to work, and to allow the devices in the cabinets in the street to work, so even services like 999 may not be working from your home phone, and it's not guaranteed to be there on mobile either (assuming that the mobile still has charge in the battery), and that's something we've been used to for over 50 years, 999 calls from any phone just worked, because the local exchange had massive backup battery power to keep it working for a long time if the power went out.

Yes, I'm painting a very bleak picture, partly because way too many people have become used to not having to even think about where their heating and water and all the other essentials come from, they have always been there, and work, 99% of the time without having to think about it, and in urban areas, signficant disruptions have not been happening for a long time. During the first miners strike in the UK, (1972) power was off for up to 18 hours a day on a rolling rota basis for a number of weeks, and I resolved at that time I would never again be completely dependent on single source power, the rented house we were in was all electric at that time, so coming home from work to a dark house with no heat, light or facility to prepare hot food before the next morning became very wearing very quickly. Huge numbers of people now won't be able to remember those times, so they don't have the aversion to the risks that present policy represents.

Think very carefully about the future plans, too much of what's been proposed by people like Green activists is based on the propeganda of snake oil salesmen, and many of the proposals they are putting forward as the answer to all the problems are far from proven, and not in any way guaranteed to be a reliable and long term solution.

Just changing the heating system without looking very carefully at the overall house insulation could end up becoming very expensive, and it's significant that even now, the only proposals that are certain from government are extra carbon taxes and prohibition of new gas and oil boilers (over a period of time), but there's been a deafening silence about any meaningful grant aid to updrade insulation and the like to make it feasible to install things like air to water heat pumps, and just installing the external devices on an existing oil or gas system is almost certainly going to be a failure, due to the differences between the systems, air to water operates at much lower temperature differentials, so existing radiator systems won't be adequate, and hot water systems won't be heated to a safe temperature without additional (electric ) boosting, to ensure that the system regularly reaches 60 Centigrade to prevent disease issues, and that's without considering the heat losses that are significant in older houses.

Yes, and apoiogies for doing so, I've ranged over wider areas than just hot water tanks and heating systems, but the level of changes you are looking at means that a wider perspective view is needed to ensure that you don't end up regretting a significant spend that doesn't then deliver the sort of upgrade you were hoping for.