Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Can't maintain the status quo,
its unworkable as we have to heat the entire house to get hot water to the taps/shower.
Does that mean the existing equipment NEEDS to be replaced?
Or (as said in the first post) that the problem is limited to hot water in the summer?
If/when it's time to replace the boiler... do that.
If you have natural gas available use it. For HW as well.
It will prove the least expensive fuel in nearly any instance.
Quote:
...still not entirely comfortable with having tanks of gas in the house
THAT is not natural gas.
---
As regards providing hot water for the 4-5 months of the year you don't need heat...
adding a simple electric WH is the least expense equipment cost and a reasonable fuel cost.
NOT a heat pump. Not a tankless either. Keep it Simple and Basic.
We don't have natural gas available, already said that.
The existing boiler is fine for a few more years at least but the pipe system goes through the radiators before it reaches the taps so using that system for summer hot water isn't workable but the whole thing doesn't need replacing yet (and can't afford to replace it all now anyway, but it will need replacing in the next decade)
the pipe system goes through the radiators before it reaches the taps
I really doubt that is so.
If actually true then you need to re-pipe the house to isolate the heat pipes from the potable water.
Have you had any actual plumbers into the house yet?
After he shows you, maybe makes a diagram, you'll understand better.
A couple of valves and a meter of pipe... and you have a bypass set up.
Install the supplemental heater into the bypass.
It's not the least bit complicated or unusual.
Can't maintain the status quo, its unworkable as we have to heat the entire house to get hot water to the taps/shower.
You shouldn't have much heat in the house unless it's not insulated and/or set up wrong. We run our coal boiler year round, you can do this with coal because you can idle it down to almost nothing. It's also insulated, whatever heat you get into the house is form the flue pipe and that is very little.
The domestic hot water should be separate than the boiler water. It should have a coil in it like this:
If you do not have a coil like that and you're siphoning hot water off the heating pipes....not good. Water has dissolved oxygen and other gases in it. If you pour yourself a glass of water and come back later there will usually be little bubbles in the water on the glass, that is the oxygen and other gases that were dissolved. Inside a boiler that oxygen will rust metal. In a closed system like a boiler(should be) a lot of it is purged through air bleeders after being freshly introduced and the rest is consumed. As long as you are not introducing fresh water there will be no more rusting, this is why you should not change boiler water. This is why it's also important to make sure a boiler does not leak, even a very small leak will introduce new water.
If you do have a coil like that I guess we can presume this is gravity sytem and the heat is moved without pumps? There should be valves to turn off the heat in the summer so it's just heating water.
If is not insulated and just bare metal, insulate it. Whether you are going with a alternative way to heat the domestic hot water or not it should be insulated unless you want to heat the space it occupies.
On a side note if that is wood boiler with oil add on it is probably not very efficient with oil. They have the same thing for some coal boilers but they aren't intended for long term use, it's something you might use if you were going away for two weeks in the middle of the winter.
------------------
As for solving this problem I would suggest the heat pump hot water heater, you mentioned the one you were looking at uses outside air but they usually require relatively high air temperatures. Much higher than heat pumps used to heat houses.
These are great in the summer because it heats water and cools the house when using inside air. Not so good in the winter because it's robbing heat from the living space and could never be efficient as simply heating the water directly.
I really doubt that is so.
If actually true then you need to re-pipe the house to isolate the heat pipes from the potable water.
Have you had any actual plumbers into the house yet?
After he shows you, maybe makes a diagram, you'll understand better.
A couple of valves and a meter of pipe... and you have a bypass set up.
Install the supplemental heater into the bypass.
It's not the least bit complicated or unusual.
My guess is the OP doesn't realize they have a hot water coil in the boiler.
A good plumber should be your first call, not a web forum.
Quote:
Originally Posted by thecoalman
You shouldn't have much heat in the house unless it's not insulated and/or set up wrong. We run our coal boiler year round, you can do this with coal because you can idle it down to almost nothing. It's also insulated, whatever heat you get into the house is form the flue pipe and that is very little.
. . .
These are great in the summer because it heats water and cools the house when using inside air. Not so good in the winter because it's robbing heat from the living space and could never be efficient as simply heating the water directly.
That's what I would do -- add electric powered heat to the existing system (e.g. a tank which has both a resistive electric element for the summer and also a boiler-powered coil for the winter, or a heat-pump type) to the existing system.
A good local plumber should be able to give you an idea of how your current system should be working, and also your options to be more efficient.
Heat pumps have improved but they still don't work in subzero F / -18C. The new Mitsubushi stuff can work at that temperature with very degraded efficiency before having to switch over to very expensive resistive heat. In Finland, I imagine you'd have 4 winter months where an outside air heat pump doesn't work very well or doesn't work at all. You'd have to use some kind of groundwater-based system where the heat you're pumping is groundwater that is at least 50F / 10C.
Me? I have a very low tech State natural gas water heater. I don't use much hot water. I prefer to use something that requires minimal maintenance and will last 20 years if I keep an eye on the anode and replace it when it gets eaten away. The State propane water heater at my other place is from 2002.
Heat pumps have improved but they still don't work in subzero F / -18C.
Domestic hot Water heat pumps typically use the indoor air and typically require around a minimum 50 to 55 degrees. They also require X amount of cubic feet of room space, you can't put them in a really small room. It's fantastic for warm weather when extracting heat from the room air is desirable, you're killing two birds with one stone. Not a good idea during colder weather.
If the heat pump extracts 3000 BTU's from the air it might use 1000 BTU's of energy to do that, in the winter time the total energy expended is 4000 BTU's. It's simply more efficient to directly heat the hot water with the 3000 BTU's to begin with. If you live in a colder climate find one that is hybrid that you can switch to standard electric during colder weather.
I am really not sure how my system works now. I thought the hot water would be separate from the radiator water and figured there was some switch to flick but didn't see one anywhere and OH, who spoke to the previous owner to find out all the info, thinks its all connected. Maybe there was some misunderstanding or maybe the system was set up wrong. Have been trying to figure out what pipe goes where but there's too many pipes, too confusing. Need to call a plumber then.
The air to water heat pump I'm looking at (its a Nibe) works down to -20C which is good enough for most of the winter in my area, can use the wood or oil when its colder. Reckon you're right about the oil not being efficient thecoalman as we've gone through a full tank of oil already since October.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
A good plumber should be your first call, not a web forum.
