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Plumbing, combi boilers and unvented tanks

7 replies

Bymyfingertips · 26/09/2015 17:49

I'm hoping for some wisdom and confess that I am an ignoramus so forgive me if I get the terminology wrong. We're in the process of renovating a large old house - it will never be finished but that's a whole other thread. We put in a new water main - from memory I think 32mm as it's a long drive. The water coming out the outside tap seems pretty good, inside taps not good but they're all very old. We have mains gas and a Worcester combi boiler. We want to install 2 thermostatic showers. Are we going to suffer loss of pressure in the showers if there are too many things drawing on the water at once? Eg shower, washing machine, dishwasher? Is it possible to have a pressurised system with a tank together with a combi boiler? Would it make sense? We have 5 children and it's inevitable that there'll often be more than 1 bathroom being used plus other appliances. Sorry for the essay and the plumbing ignorance. Any advice gratefully received!

OP posts:
MrsCampbellBlack · 26/09/2015 17:51

I am having a boiler and an unvented cylinder - you need pigletjohn!

I wouldn't have thought a combi-boiler was suitable for a family your size - my plumber said it wouldn't work for our family of 5.

RandomMess · 26/09/2015 17:54

I asked PigletJohn about what I needed - 3 storey house 4 children 2/3 showers eventually

You need a boiler and unvented tank system, combi boiler will not be sufficient.

We get mains pressure showers out of £50 thermostatic showers.

Bymyfingertips · 26/09/2015 18:22

I was scared that might be the case. The boiler was here when we bought the house and is fairly new I think. It's a Worcester 42CDi if that means anything to anybody

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PigletJohn · 26/09/2015 18:23

you can use a combi boiler to heat an unvented cylinder if for some reason you want to, for example if you already have one. A conventional boiler will be less complex and have less to go wrong. Modern boilers are (almost) exclusively all condensing so are all very efficient.

Poor flow (not pressure) from your old taps is probably because they are fed from old half-inch or 15mm pipes. To get the best flow out of your new supply pipe, the stop-cocks and service valves, especially, need to be changed to full-bore ones, and from the incoming stopcock you should run a short piece of 28mm copper or 32mm plastic, connected to which are a 22mm pipe to your unvented cylinder, and another 22mm pipe for your cold supply, with the individual pipes tee'd off it. Bath taps should be fed in 22mm pipe. By supplying each of the users from a larger supply, you can turn on any of the loads and the supply will still be big enough to feed the other users.

Each pipe size has about twice the capacity of the next size down (28mm, 22mm, 15mm) so you can feed two of the smaller pipes from it and still get good flow. However, if you tried to feed two 15mm pipes from one 15mm supply, the flow would be roughly halved for each of them.

Look for full bore valves made by Pegler. If you look inside them and compare them with common cheap ones you will see they do not constrict the flow.

Any of your taps fed from a cold-water tank in the loft will have low pressure.

PigletJohn · 26/09/2015 18:30

btw if you have flashy stylish little one-hole mixers in your sink and basin, look underneath and you will see they have 10mm copper pipes the size of a pencil, or braided flexible hoses, often with service valves on them. These will greatly reduce the flow. Your garden tap is doubtless a simple traditional bib-tap of British design and permits great flow. If you want to fill a bath really fast, a British pillar tap on a 22mm pipe is the way to do it.

Bymyfingertips · 26/09/2015 18:32

Thank you! I need to re-read that about 5 times and concentrate v hard and maybe I'll grasp it. Im taking the broad summary as yes to unvented system with existing boiler and that is probably the right thing to do but also pay attention to internal pipes - that's the bit I need to study Blush-is that roughly right?

OP posts:
RandomMess · 26/09/2015 19:27

Yes roughly. If the combi is reasonably old you would probably be better of replacing it at the same time anyway tbh.

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