The Sandhu Family
South Woodford, London
Mr & Mrs Sandhu recently purchased their four bedroom house which was in need of some renovation. As part of planned works they decided to replace the heating system and incorporate some form of renewable technology.
When we conducted our site survey we found the Sandhu family home had a combination boiler in the kitchen with a Band D Energy Rating. A combination boiler is not able to service a four bedroom family home with consistent supplies of hot water and coupled with the low band energy rating we knew the boiler was both financially and environmentally inefficient to run. Furthermore, Mr & Mrs Sandhu were planning a new kitchen and were keen to have the boiler moved to a less obtrusive location.
It was clear it was not a simple matter of replacing the existing system for like and installing solar thermal heating in conjunction with it. Instead, the size of the property and the busy lifestyle of the growing family occupying it meant the house required an entirely new heating system installed in an entirely new location.
We installed a 37kW Vaillant condensing system boiler in the loft freeing up space for the new kitchen. We also installed a fully programmable electronic controller, wireless digital room thermostat and a magnetic filter system. A solar rated thermostatic temperature control valve was fitted to the outgoing hot water supply pipe and a secondary hot water circulation system was added to eliminate cold water dead legs in the hot water pipework.
The property has an easterly and westerly roof orientation so it was decided to fit two solar thermal heating circuits; one on each roof space of the property. Both systems were linked via their own solar pump units through into a 210 litre unvented twin coil hot water cylinder.
As an installer the installation provided many problems for us to overcome. A new 22mm cold water main had to be run into the loft space with 22mm balanced hot and cold supplies running back down into the bathroom locations. A separate hot water pipe was run around to the furthest hot water draw off point for the secondary hot water pump installation. Also a new gas supply pipe had to be run to the boiler location in the loft.
Preformance and estimated Fuel Saving
The solar thermal systems estimated performance is 3644.00kWh/year, combined with the new system boiler installation the Sandhu family have an estimated fuel saving of around £430 per year.
