Inspiration Birmingham 2020

The heating strategy for the project was to replace the inefficient gas back boiler (located in the rear lounge) with a new modern ‘A’ rated gas condensing boiler. The old system used a regular boiler with a hot water cylinder located on the first floor and the cold water cistern located on the top floor attic conversion. For the project we decided to replace the regular boiler with an ‘A’ rated condensing combination boiler. We also wanted to include a solar hot water system into the specification. This can be difficult with combination boilers as most do not accept pre-heated hot water. We decided to specify a heating packaged system by UK based Alpha Boilers that has been developed to work specifically with a combination boiler called SolarSmart. The most logical place to locate the heating plant was on the party wall in the top floor toilet. The original plan was to retain the toilet facility by moving the toilet and wash basin onto the bedroom partition wall. When the plant had been installed we realised that we had no option but to increase the size of the room by moving the partition wall forward onto the landing.

Unlike most conventional solar hot water systems the SolarSmart heating package developed by Alpha Boilers has been designed for use with combi-boilers. The package consists of a flat plate solar collector, a 90 litre unvented cylinder store (smaller and lighter than most solar cylinders thereby minimising the amount of space required) and a solar valve developed by Alpha that enables it to operate with a combination boiler. The system is a drain back rather than the more common pressurised system. A drainback system uses a pump to circulate water in the collector from a drainback vessel. If there is heat to collect from the collector the pump is activated and the water is pumped to the collector and then through a heat exchanger. When the pump switches off (for example at night) the fluid flows backwards under gravity, refilling the drainback vessel. This arrangement protects the solar fluid from temperature extremes that can occur in winter and in summer. As water is used as the heat transfer fluid it should not need changing unlike pressurised systems that use antifreeze.

The Gassaver is an innovative energy saving device that sits between a combi-boiler and flue. It works by storing the condensate normally expelled into the atmosphere via the flue and then uses this to pre-heat the cold water entering the boiler. In independent tests the device can save between 37 and 50 per cent of the gas used to heat hot water annually, depending on the efficiency of the boiler. Another advantage of the product is that it requires zero maintenance (it has no controls or moving parts). The product was developed by the British company Zenex Energy and the technology is now sold by a number of boiler manufacturers (Alpha and Baxi).

The image shows the 90 litre solar cylinder (unvented) and to the left the drainback unit. The solar cylinder is light enough to be wall hung. The manifold and circulation pump are factory fitted to ease installation.

To fit the heating plant in the top floor bathroom we had increase the room size by moving the partition wall forward.