Our central heating system
Below is a brief tour of our central heating and hot water system.
Boiler
Our gas boiler is a conventional Potterton Suprima 40 installed inside a kitchen cupboard when the house was built in 1998.
It hasn’t been the most reliable of things, pretty much guaranteed to break down at least once a year, which is why we have Home Care 200 from British Gas.
It also isn’t the most efficient thing in the world either, its rated as 76.8% efficient which puts it in the “E” Band. Modern condensing boilers can crack 90% efficiency so ours is lagging behind a bit now.
If you want to see how efficient your boiler is Boilers.org.uk has a handy database.
Radiators
We have 9 in total, all different shapes and sizes. We have 1 in each bedroom, 1 in the bathroom, 1 in the downstairs loo, 1 in the hall, 1 in the dinning room and 2 in the front room.
2 of our radiators are on an outside wall (1 in the spare bedroom and 1 in the front room).
All have Thermostatic Radiator Valves (TRV) on them except the one in the hall which is controlled by the Room Thermostat.
The kitchen has a Myson Kickspace 600 heater that’s sort of a horizontal radiator living in the plinth under the oven. It has a fan to blow the heat out into the kitchen (It can also just blow cold air) and is never used cos the kitchen is always warm.
Our conservatory has DeLonghi 3kw electric convection heater. Its quite capable of keeping the room warm and the thermostat on it cuts in and out once the desired temp has been reached.
Hot Water Tank
Is made by Hercal and holds a
maximum of 117 litres of hot water.
It is covered with factory fitted foam insulation and has a hot water thermostat controlling the temp of the water.
Controllers
Making sure all the above keeps the house warm are the Timer, Room Thermostat, TRVs and Hot Water Thermostat.
Timer
A Potterton EP2002 timer makes sure the boiler comes on at the times we want. These times can be different for weekdays and weekends.
Lives in the hall and is a Potterton PRT 100. Its currently set to 24°C and only be described as ok. It seems to be slow to register temperature changes meaning the house sometimes feels too warm and other times too cold, rather than remaining consistent.
Apparently is not advisable to have a TRV on the radiator that’s in the same room as the Room Thermostat, as that will confuse the heating system.
Thermostatic Radiator Valves (TRV)
These are fitted to 8 radiators, only the one in the hall doesn’t (See Room Thermostat). The TRVs switch the radiator off once they have reached the required temp.
They also have a “Frost” setting, marked by a “*” which will keep the temp to about 5°C.
All are currently set by what feels “right” for each room.
This is attached to the hot water tank and switches the water heating off once it reaches the required temp. Its currently set to 62°C.
Other Bits
The other bits of the system are the pipes that takes the hot water to the radiators, the pump that moves it around and various other unknown central heating bits live in the airing cupboard.