Moving Hot Water Tank

hero001

I'm looking at putting in solar panels at present, which we will use to heat water. We have a 2 story bungalow, and the hot water tank is currently on the ground floor.

We heat hot water mainly from gas at present, but if I run the hot water only option on the boiler for 1 hour, it will only give you a half-full bath of hot water.

I was thinking of getting the hot water tank moved to the attic when I'm getting the solar panels done. I always thought that the hot water tank needed to be lower than the cold water tank, but I see a lot of horizontal tanks such as the ultrasteel 250L for sale, which are not cheep!!.

I assume that installing a tank is the attic in now acceptable, so the question is what sort of performance these tanks have? Will the flow be poor, will I need to add a pump etc?

Thanks for your reply in advance.

Sleeper12

Personally I'd never put a hot water tank in the attic. Electric immersions can & do catch fire. The fire burns longer in the attic before the homeowners realise there is a problem. I've seen it happen.

At the very least I'd install a wired smoke alarm, fire alarm or heat alarm.

hero001

thanks, Sleeper,

There will be a lot of electrics in the attic for the solar anyway, and we may also go with batteries, so this is very valid even if we don't move the tank.