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Help please, adding a boiler, am I about to do it wrong?!

Discuss Help please, adding a boiler, am I about to do it wrong?! in the Plumbing Jobs | The Job-board area at PlumbersForums.net

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Hi guys, first post.

I'm renovating an old house, it had a back boiler heating a DHW tank in the loft, direct. I replaced it with an (uncontrolled) stove and a proper lagged indirect coil tank, with a seperate feed and expansion tank.

Now I've also put in a pumped radiator circuit and planned to connect this to the existing gravity circuit using one of those "dunsley neutraliser" header boxes. With a thermostat so that the return to the stove has to be hot before the radiators start, simple stuff.

OK so far?

Then I discovered I actually have mains gas (doh!) so now want to put in a boiler. I picked up a second hand glow-worm 18 HX (for vented systems) on ebay.

I think I can connect this to the dunsley header with its own pump, partial injection to the tank coil, to get heating and hot water from either source.

And I want the boiler to go in the loft, ideally.

But I'm having a bit of a crisis of confidence. Can anyone tell me if what I'm wanting to do sounds reasonable, and legal!? I'm aware it's perhaps not ideal but I need to work with what I've got now.
As I will be needing the boiler connected and commissioned I'll be paying a plumber to do that anyway but am a bit afraid they won't like the water side of it and say it all needs ripping out and doing another way.

Are there any regulations I need to be looking at for all this too?

Any advice appreciated and if there's any friendly plumbers in the Fife area want to take a look and give me some advice I'd be happy to pay for your time.
 
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Any advice appreciated and if there's any friendly plumbers in the Fife area want to take a look and give me some advice I'd be happy to pay for your time.

good advice given to self, yes get some one in to look, price the job up, most will not sign off a job like that unless its been installed by them, remember its our ticket that takes the bashing!!! regards.
 
Forget the Dunsley systems, they aren't very good, and what you propose is not suitable and would not be able to be signed off. Many gas registered technicians won't touch Ebay stuff as you don't know if there's anything wrong with it.

Before you do anything else, STOP!!! Get an expert.

What you need is a Heatstore / Heatbank cylinder which is far superior to what you describe, but there is a right and a wrong way to do anything.
 
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"what you propose is not suitable and would not be able to be signed off"

Thanks for the advice, could you explain what's wrong with it though? It would be identical to various schematics I've seen and even an installed system, apart from the boiler in the loft bit.

Cheers
 
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cjg said:
good advice given to self, yes get some one in to look, price the job up, most will not sign off a job like that unless its been installed by them, remember its our ticket that takes the bashing!!! regards.
Click to expand...

So, any offers? :)

My reluctance to contact a local one at random is that I need someone with a bit of creativity, not someone who wants to just start again and do everything in the one standard contemporary way that he's familiar with.

As I say, there's an existing system here. Dunsley setups are nothing that out of the ordinary, and I can't afford a heat store and replacing everything from scratch.

That's why I'm asking for advice here first, as I know there are some very knowledgeable types from reading in the past.

Thanks.
 
We have had a number of threads recently, relating to linking solid fuel to other heat sources. This is a complex task and requires much technical knowledge and expertises to get safe and right. Solid fuel appliances are a relatively uncontrolable heat source (onces lit, you can only damp down, it won't turn off) Therefore you are required to seperate your heat sources through something like a thermal store. I would not advice anyone to do this work unless they are fully up to date in training and qualifications. There are a number of HETAS approved courses runing at this time, which cover what you are proposing.
 
Reg, you're right, and I'm aware there are hazards. I am an engineer.
That's one of the reasons I wanted to keep it a simple open-vent system, which I know and understand!

My idea for expanding it actually came from this diagram:

link.jpg

(taken from solidfuel.co.uk)

And I can't see what's all that wrong with it. You get "s-plan" style control using the motorised valve and the CH pump, and the solid fuel appliance will gravity feed to the cylinder just as it does now (whether there is power or not), but with the added safety feature of an anti-boil stat turning on the CH pump if it gets too hot.

I know the devil is in the details but the comments so far have been "you can't do it like that!". I just want to get some sensible advice and facts before I involve a local plumber.

Anyway, thanks, I hope I'm not p*ssing everyone off bringing this up..
 
I know the devil is in the details but the comments so far have been "you can't do it like that!". I just want to get some sensible advice and facts before I involve a local plumber. Quote/:

I dont think anyone on this thread has quoted this.

I do not think this forum is in a position to help you with the large amount of design complexity in you request. The sensible advice and facts you require are available from a HETAS approved training course for wet systems.
 
Well, OK, "what you propose is not suitable" :)

I just want to know why not..
 
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