Need to replace the old Thorn EMI Apollo Fanfare 50/65 Si

[ozinuk]

G'day there,

I'm doing a renovation on a house and need to replace the old boiler (no not the wife) with a new one as it is, I think 27 years old and definitely not working

The system currently is a Thorn EMI Apollo Fanfare 50/65 Si boiler with a 190 L Hercal coil indirect cylinder in the airing cupboard upstairs. There is then a large cold water tank in the loft with a smaller one for the radiators.

At the moment most of the pipes are acessable due to having the down stairs floor / walls and ceiling removed.

The house has 16 radiators with 2 bathrooms.
It has ben suggested that I get a Valliant Ecotec plus 630 plus a Megaflo eco 2501 unvented indirect tank.

What do you think and can you give me some suggestions if this is the right approach or to do something entirely different .

I have attached a few pics below so you can see what I'm talking about.

Cheers,

Justin

[Dickie]

Hi Oz.
It depends on the size of the property, number of people living there & how many baths.
If it's a biggish family home, then yes the suggestion is a good one.
HTH

[LordCross]

sounds like a plan

ill have your old cylinder if you dont want it

[ozinuk]

It has two baths and is a 4/5 bedroom detached two story house built in 1985

[moderator6]

A system boiler and unvented cylinder would be a good way to go provided they've measured the incoming watermains pressure and flow

[ozinuk]

provided they've measured the incoming watermains pressure and flow

Haven't had anyone in to check that yet.


Why would you not recomend just replacing the boiler and keeping it an open vented system ??? I'm guessing that would be the cheapest option.

Where I'm living at the moment they have a combi system and while it's great and economical (I guess), if someone's having a shower while the washing machine is on and then it clicks onto the fill cycle you hear an almighty YELP from the bathroom as the pressure drops right off.

Would an unvented cylinder have the same effect as it is running on mains pressure or is it a matter of me needing some education on the difference between a vented and unvented HW system with CH and what pipe work would need to be changed to be compatible to a sealed system.

Thanks in advance.

Justin

[Razor]

Why would you not recomend just replacing the boiler and keeping it an open vented system ??? I'm guessing that would be the cheapest option.

Because you didn't ask that. You asked what we thought about a system boiler and unvented cylinder

If moneys a bit tight there's nothing stopping you fitting a new boiler either system or open vented and upgrading the cylinder either to another gravity fed one or unvented at a later date. However as the place is gutted at the moment this would be the ideal time (cheaper) to get the whole thing sorted out

BTW you can have an open vented boiler with an unvented cylinder and vice versa - confusing eh

The issue you had with the shower is why the guys were asking if the incoming main was tested. If it has sufficient flow you won't get the water dropping off assuming it's all installed properly

[ozinuk]

Cheers Razor,

Didn't realize I had left such an open question till I just read back over it


It's the parents in-laws property and money is a little tight as it's not an insurance job.

The shower question was just how it is at the property I'm living in not the one being worked on.

The cylinder is in good working condition from what I am told. It's just that the one person who came in suggested to the parents the system that I posted about in the 1st post

What pipe work needs to be changed over to suit what isn't there at the moment. This is all new to me this kind of plumbing as we don't have these systems on houses in Australia, most are just mains pressure gas/electric boiler tank combined. Heating is usually ducted gas heating - not radiators or underfloor heating.

And me... I'm an electrician by trade so playing with water is dangerous

If I was just to replace the boiler, what would be recomended.

[ozinuk]

Well I've been doing everything else on the house repair/replace wise and have finally come back to the boiler and heating system.

I have moved a few radiators due to walls being removed and an outside sliding door being installed where a window was once positioned. I have refilled and bled the CH system to check that all was water tight, this was all good. I then turned my attention to the boiler. I went right through the wiring of the electical system and diconnected the mains power to the boiler so I could see if the programmer/valves/pump/themostats would work. This all checked out fine.
I then reconnected mains to the boiler and powered it up with no gas supply, the fan came on and it tried to ignite with the gas valves operating = all good.
I then turned on the gas supply, checked all was good then flicked the switch to power up the programmer and boiler...

There was no BANG.... it did as it should and fired up. I had all 16 radiators open and it worked well, place was like a sauna before I shut it off for the night (I had removed all the radiators and flushed them and the pipes while doing other renovations).

Now today I started on the HW side of things... (I only tried this,this afternoon) The boiler fires up and starts heating the indirect cylinder, but after about 10 mins the flame goes out but the fan on the boiler keeps running. I shut it all down thinking it was maybe the boiler getting to hot ??? (It worked fine last night). The HW was warm but not hot, the thermostat was wound up for testing purposes. After about 20 mins, I went through the whole process again but had the same result - worked for 10 mins or so then the boiler flame went out.

Any ideas what it could be ??? valves/pump/themostats were all working properly in the airing cupboard. Shut it all down as I had to head home for the night, will look at it again tomorrow but thought someone on here might be able to give me a heads up as to what I should be looking for/at.

Cheers

Justin

[Agile]

Wow! As an electrician you seem to have accepted a suggestion of replacing an 18 kW boiler with a 30 kW boiler.

Why do you think you want a 67% more power from a new boiler?

You could replace it neatly with an 18 kW Viessmann or Intergas OV boiler.

Both can be used later on a sealed system and can use weather compensation controls. To supply and fit one should be about £1500 inc. The replacement rads need TRVs.

To supply and fit a 210 litre unvented cylinder needs a good dynamic flow rate and would be another £1300 or so. That can be done later providing you add a 28 mm copper vent pipe under the floor from the cyl cupboard now to the outside.

Tony Glaxier

[ozinuk]

Wow! As an electrician you seem to have accepted a suggestion of replacing an 18 kW boiler with a 30 kW boiler.

Yep... and even more amazing, I joined this forum for even more suggestions

Why do you think you want a 67% more power from a new boiler?

Well after using the various boiler calculators for the size of the house the Kw figures ranged from 26-32Kw's, so I'm guessing the 18 Kw boiler may have been under sized. In the 1st post the suggested system was actualy quoted to the mother in-law.

I have already fitted new TVR's to all 16 radiators when I replaced the floors.

Thanks for the heads up on rough prices though, I'm still learning what things cost over here in the UK. It's alot different from Australia.

Justin

[Agile]

Something seems to be wrong with the way you have used the heat calculator.

A three be semi is usually about 10-11 kW. A 4-5 bed detached about 13-18 kW!

The water heating is usually included in the calculation and even if it is not its only an etra 2 kW to add.

Another way to do a quick check is to add the heat outputs of all the rads together!

If the heat output has been almost half of what was needed the house would only have reached about 12 C on cold days. I doubt that was the case.

Tony