house heating plan question
Turbo Mini Forums

Looking at a house the other day i saw this kit in the loft ..





close up of this thing ..




then , in the kitchen is on of these...


http://www.gasapplianceguide.co.uk/Gledhil...20ECO%20SOL.htm


its all brand new not completed installation ,i may be having to get this all working , am i correct in thinking he was planning solar panels and a boiler as well ?


is this all a bit dated now or still viable kit , i have no idea why the plug and glow is there .




thnks
regards
robert

Edited by robert on 14th Mar, 2021.

Medusa + injection = too much torque for the dyno ..https://youtu.be/qg5o0_tJxYM

The item in the kitchen allows multiple heat sources to warm the water in the heating system, known as an accumulator.
If you are going to keep multiple heat sources e.g thermal solar/boiler/biomass/stove with a back boiler then it is ideal. Think of it that this becomes the heat source, not the boiler.

The plug and glow appears to be a little electric water heater for heating the coil in the hot water tank.
Presumably if the accumulator is cold and there is no heat source.

If you are planning on having multiple methods of heating, e.g solar thermal and an oil boiler, then it may be worth keeping.
If you plan on going just for a boiler, then pop it all on eBay and have the benefit of the extra space and money to put towards the new system.

Edited by Nic on 14th Mar, 2021.

Solar water heating panels can be made really cheaply on a DIY basis. Just a coil of pipe in a black panel, a cheap thermostat, and small pump to intermittantly pump a fresh slug of water into the coil once the water in there has warmed up. The pump can be a little 12V item fed from a cheap solar EV panel.

The expensive part of solar water heating is all the kit you already have installed.

well that's good news , thank you chaps .

MT ,i thought the pump would be continuous?

Medusa + injection = too much torque for the dyno ..https://youtu.be/qg5o0_tJxYM

If you had a panel with a large enough surface area and relatively slow pump it could be continuous. A smaller panel would need a dwell time to allow the water time to heat up.

I'm sure if you really wanted to, a control system with a variable speed pump and temperature monitoring could be devised to give continuous flow at target outlet temp, or a recirculation system on the panel to ensure the outlet temp from the panel is higher than the water being pumped out of the cylinder.

The intermittent pump and a thermostat will be cheap as chips. Combined with a DIY black box with some pipework in it, it could be made for very little outlay.

I haven't actually made one, but I did research it a lot a few years ago when I was looking at buying a house where solar water heating would have made a lot of sense. The commercial systems cost a fortune at the time and used to give a little bit of income via RHI, but not enough to cover the extra expense over a DIY system. Prices may have tumbled since as I haven't looked at it in years.

Some good info here:

http://www.reuk.co.uk/wordpress/heating/di...-water-heating/

Thank you MT , weird thing is , he put in all this stuff , then got a electric aga !

made me think maybe he was intending to put in a big pv panel array , and heat the water with that immersion in the heat store ,and the also the plug and glow . those agas are v thirsty for leccy.

Edited by robert on 19th Mar, 2021.

Medusa + injection = too much torque for the dyno ..https://youtu.be/qg5o0_tJxYM

I have solar heating panels on my roof. Not home-made pipes in binbags though!

It was an entire system, rather than bodged together bits. But it only pumps when the temp of the roof is above the temp of the water tank.

Between April and September it means I use nearly no oil for hot water.

Fastest 998 mini in the world? 13.05 1/4 mile 106mph

www.twin-turbo.co.uk

thanks wil , good info .

Medusa + injection = too much torque for the dyno ..https://youtu.be/qg5o0_tJxYM