Retain your Combi Boiler with the benefits of an Unvented Hot water Cylinders. (Installation available).

Households can easily outgrow their Combi due to the limitations of the hot water supply. Fluctuations in water flow and temperature are common place particularly when showering. Many clients have been advised that the solution is to install a larger combi despite their Kilowatt demand for heating the home remaining the same.

Otter Heating can install a balanced Unvented hot water cylinder providing plenty of hot water at mains pressure and a constant temperature whilst retaining your existing Combi boiler. This allows the user to enjoy multiple loads on the hot water supply without temperature fluctuations and a power shower upgrade. If space is an issue horizontal cylinders are also available.

This upgrade also ensures that the heating system is not disturbed. Whenever there is a demand for hot water, such as running a bath, a shower or the washing machine, the Combi boiler will stop heating your home until the demand for instantaneous hot water has ended. When programmed correctly, there is no interruption of the heating system when hot water is supplied from a correctly sized cylinder. (Cylinder sized based on 45l per person per day).

Future proofing your system. (Installation available).

Nearly all Heat pump installations use a cylinder for hot water. This will be single coil cylinder. A twin coil hybrid cylinder allows 2 heat sources to heat the cylinder water. Should you decide to have a heat pump installed at later time, then you’ll be able to connect the heat pump to the second coil. The gas boiler will provide any shortfall whilst Solar can provide nearly all the hot water you may need. This helps to future proof your system as the working life of a Stainless steel cylinder can be over 20 years.

Heat pumps are very good at maintaining a stable home temperature with perhaps 3 degrees set back at night. They are not very good at responding to a sudden high demand for heat. Since it is likely you will use a cylinder of hot water per day, heat pump single coil cylinders rely on the electric immersion heaters to provide any short fall to reach the desired temperature especially in the winter. This can be expensive particularly for a large home. By using the gas boiler as your secondary heat source, or even your sole heat source for domestic hot water, clients can overcome the disadvantages of a heating hot water with a heat pump on a very cold day or when demand is high.

Designing an Efficient System. (

1). Before any system can be design, an accurate heat loss calculation must be done. Since your last boiler was fitted, double glazing, loft or wall insulation or an extension may have been added. These can all effect your homes U value.

2). Many typical homes will need a fraction of the boilers rated output. This may be in the region of 6-10Kw to heat the home. 3-4 of these may be losses and 3-6kw will be to raise the room temperatures. However, many gas boilers cannot be re-programmed to output a 1/5 of their rated size, in this case 30Kw. Always make sure that anyone offering to do a boiler swap completes a current heat loss calculation and ensures that the replacement boiler can provide no more heat or energy than is required.

3). Boilers do not heat your home, they provide hot water. Radiators provided with hot water heat your home. Only when the room temperature reaches its desired setting does the room stat then turn the boiler off.

Most efficient radiators are now convection type radiators, so called as they trap air within the fins and establish warm air convection currents within a room. Placing them under windows or covering them with a closed curtain is far from ideal.

The diagram opposite shows a typical Double panel, double fin radiator without end panels. The fins trap the air, heating it up as it passes through the radiator. However, there is a clear path between the fins from each side of the radiator. If your radiators are missing the end panels then much of the warming air will spill out as it expands rather than being trapped inside and forced through the heating process.

If you have old style radiators or missing end panels, replacing them is an effective and low cost step towards greater efficiency especially when combined with a heating service.