Why is the UK slow at moving forward
Why is the UK always so far behind the rest of Europe,
boilers have come a long way over the years, better, safer and more controllable and yet
unvented cylinders have not moved with the boilers, or maybe more to the point
Part G of the Building Regulations has not moved forward, my reason for
bringing this up is I recently fitted a Viessmann 100 system boiler, very good
boiler, now with these boilers and many other boilers on the market, you have the
option of purchasing a DHW sensor to allow the boiler to control the cylinder temperature
directly, this in my opinion is a far better and more accurate way to
control the cylinder temperature, rather than using an old fashioned bi-metal
strip as the way to control the temperature, Viessmann state that when using
the DHW sensor with their boiler no 2 port valve is required, now this is
correct in my opinion, the boiler management control will only heat the
cylinder to the required temperature, with the old system you were relying on
an external stat which could fail, so it needed to protect against the
production of heat which could over heat the cylinder, now the cylinder we were
installing, which was specified by the client, (otherwise this situation would
not of arisen as I would of used my preferred cylinder), was prewired on the
immersion and boiler overheat stat sides, I needed a port to insert my boiler sensor,
but all the ports were full, I rang the manufacturer to ask which was the
boiler over heat side as I wanted to remove it to install my sensor, but leaving the immersion overheat in place, they began
a lecture about I MUST use the 2 port valve, I hung up, not going to listen to
people who are stuck in their ways, I traced the wiring myself and removed the
sensor that was not needed and placed the Viessmann sensor in, works a treat.
What I find most annoying about all this is this
manufacturer and most other cylinder manufacturers who state Part G as a
safety part of their cylinder installation, are the very same companies who
when producing twin coil cylinders, for solar, provide you with two 2 port
valve, one for the boiler side and one for the solar side, now the 2 port valve
they supply is NOT suitable for the solar circuit, it cannot take the
temperature, nor can it take the glycol, so is of no use to the installer, they
also supply you with 2 x cylinder/overheat stats, now with the solar circuit
you do need to run the solar pump via the overheat stat, to shut off the solar
pump in the event of the cylinder reaching high temperatures, but why do they
supply you with a overheat stat that is linked to a cylinder stat, so that if
the stat gets adjusted the solar will stop its input early, the reason for this
in my opinion is they simply want to supply what they already have, to save
themselves costs, my other point is, as we all know heat rises, it’s not rocket
science, so I would like to know why when they manufacture twin coil cylinders
do they have a thermal cut out at the top for the boiler and a thermal cut out
at the bottom for the solar, in my opinion this is wrong and is why I object to
the technical of a manufacturer preaching to me about Part G safety, why have
the solar cut off (overheat stat) at the bottom, if say for example the boiler
stat failed and the boiler continued its input, at the set point the top
overheat stat will trip, stopping the heat input from the boiler, BUT the lower stat may not of
reached its trip temperature, which could allow solar input to continue which
could overheat the cylinder, why do they not have the solar overheat stat and
only a overheat stat at the top of the cylinder, so that it trips out at the
same time as the top overheat stat, seems simple to me, but I believe the
manufacturers just adapted their existing cylinders slightly to sell twin coils
where they had to spend the least money and make the least manufacturing
production changes to keep profits up, rather than starting from scratch with a
new design, a bit like the first condensing boilers from the UK, small changes
were made to try and produce condensing boilers with dire consequences, condense dripping onto the burner and causing
corrosion, but then finally bigger changes were made, but only after a lot of
installers switched to other brands from Europe who had already overcome these
problems, the UK need to move with the times more quickly, Building Regulations
need to be updated more frequently to accommodate changes in technology, we need to get rid of the old boy network who control things at the moment and are happy to cosy up to manufacturers to keep everything sweet and not rock the boat, changes are needed and if the UK ihas any chance to reach it CO reduction targets we need to embrace new technology, not sit on old school regulations that are outdated.
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