Working very long days, our heating engineer has now got the new heating and hot water system commissioned. We are re-using our existing, relocated boiler, but this causes some last minute problems – it doesn’t fire. After sinking some new parts into it, we finally get it going again. The house took quite a few days to heat up – the new radiator sizes are tiny – sized to cope with the proposed thermal specification of the house, which is a little way off yet. But we’re warm and dry: perhaps not energy efficient yet, but as the heating has been off for the whole heating season so far, we’ll care more about efficiency at a later time – right now, it’s the warm that matters.

The hot water system is an OSO Twin Coil cylinder. At present it is indirectly fed from the boiler only – the solar collectors will follow when the budget allows!  The heating is served by three zones: one per floor, i.e. each floor can call the boiler for heat – they don’t have to be heated to the same temperature at the same time.

The photo shows the cylinder and valve station just prior to wiring/commissioning. There is more to do: remove temporary pipework; install insulation on new pipework; install lower ground floor heating. More to follow on this installation.