Hot water tank location

Asdfgh2020

Doing a central heating upgrade…..we currently have the smallest size of copper cyclinder in the upstairs hot press. We have a fairly good sized utility room down stairs so thinking of locating the largest available (210 litre) hot water cyclinder here and replacing the cyclinder in the hot press with a radiator so that is remains a ‘hot press’..😀 Our current boiler/burner is in the utility also. Unfortunately we are not served by natural gas even though we are in an urban area……house too old and draughty for a heat pump. Anyone out there ever do something similar. Will ‘box in’ the new cylinder once installed to reduce its visual ugliness…!

monseiur

Locating cylinder in utility will work but you will have to fit a pump. Chances are that your current system is working by gravity only.

Asdfgh2020

Yes you are correct existing hot water set up is gravity fed……is a pumped hot water circuit expensive? Is it just a matter of installing a Pump that kicks in once a hot water tap is turned on.

Lenar3556

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121337034#Comment_121337034

Not necessarily.

The location of a cylinder should have no bearing on the flow/pressure delivered.

Your going to be surprised at how expensive this will turn out to be.

Asdfgh2020

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121337683#Comment_121337683

Could you put a figure on it/best guesstimate…?

niallb

Why do you need to store so much hot water?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121338500#Comment_121338500

I would guestimate about €2k.

whizbang

Blessing in disguise not having gas...;)

Is your heating system pressurised or open vent ? your hot water piping could handle gravity if the head is enough, and all piped in 3/4"

Having your tank next to boiler is probably the most efficient way to heat hot water only, but you may run into issues if you need a vented expansion pipe

Asdfgh2020

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121339858#Comment_121339858

Large family and all at age where they could have two showers per days sometimes….? At minute we have a 60 litre cylinder that is heated by an immersion and indirectly by the oil central heating. Constantly running out of hoy water😡

Asdfgh2020

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121339924#Comment_121339924

It’s an open / vented set up…..don’t think venting from the utility room would be an issue…

niallb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121340030#Comment_121340030

I feel for you, 60 litre tank is tiny!

If you have solar it makes sense to go for a tank big enough to dump any spare energy into.

I had three teens all sharing a bathroom for a few years - two of them twin girls who wanted to use it at exactly the same time!

Two things I did that helped were to try different shower heads that claimed to reduce flow and increase pressure. Most don't work on Irish water pressure, but it did drop the usage a bit.

The shower in their bathroom is a thermostatic mixer and I found that raising the temperature on the water tank thermostat so the water going into the mix was hotter meant the tank lasted longer since more of what was coming out was originally cold water. It's not much and my tank was bigger, but it made the difference between regular shouting matches and none (for that reason anyway :-) )

210 litres is a lot of water and a lot of space to give over permanently. That tank could be close to a grand and a suitable pump will be even more - and that's before you get them installed. I considered getting a combi boiler, but in the end didn't want to give up our tank because we have a back boiler on a stove. The immersion is handy for a boost when there's no oil too particularly on Saturday when I have a free electricity plan for a few hours.

How many showers do you have in the house? Could you change one of them to an electrically heated one for early risers?

You'd be a long time catching up on the cost of the tank changes even with the price of electricity.

I love your idea of putting the radiator in the hotpress to keep it so!