System Boiler and Megaflo Sizing

Soldato
Joined
21 Jul 2004
Posts
6,360
Location
Harrow, UK
We are currently doing up a property and just wanted to find out what kilowatt boiler and megaflo capacity those more experienced than me would suggest for the below:
  • 5 Residents
  • 4 Bedrooms
  • Ground Floor Water Underfloor Heating - 5 Zones / ~100m2
  • 4 Radiators
  • 1 Shower
  • 1 Bathtub

Note: potential of having 2 more radiators and 1 additional shower in the loft space if we get that done up in the future


I'm currently thinking:
  • Worcester Bosch Greenstar 4000 Gas System Boiler 24kW
  • Heatrae Sadia Megaflo Eco Slimline 170i Indirect Unvented Hot Water Cylinder 170ltr
 
I dunno about the boiler but our tank is 210ltr and I wouldn't go lower, if anything the next one up as at times we have gone through that - family of four.

We have solar and it diverts excess to the immersion on that so the bigger the tank the more you can store, if you ever think about getting solar panels.
 
We have a WB 8000 Life 35kw with 300litre Gledhill tank
  • 4 Residents
  • 4 Bedrooms
  • Ground Floor Water Underfloor Heating - 4 Zones / ~100m2
  • 10 Radiators
  • 3 Showers
  • 1 Bathtub
Works very well, we've never run out of hot water. If you've got the space I'd fit the biggest you can, couple £100 between a 170l and 300l.
 
We have a WB 8000 Life 35kw with 300litre Gledhill tank
  • 4 Residents
  • 4 Bedrooms
  • Ground Floor Water Underfloor Heating - 4 Zones / ~100m2
  • 10 Radiators
  • 3 Showers
  • 1 Bathtub
Works very well, we've never run out of hot water. If you've got the space I'd fit the biggest you can, couple £100 between a 170l and 300l.
Thanks! I'll look a more powerful boiler and higher capacity cylinder.

Out of curiosity, what is your mains flow and pressure like? Is all your piping 22mm?
 
Thanks! I'll look a more powerful boiler and higher capacity cylinder.

Out of curiosity, what is your mains flow and pressure like? Is all your piping 22mm?
We had a static pressure of 5.5bar, don't have the dynamic stat written down but everything is controlled through a pressure reducing valve after the stop ****, garden feed tee's off before this.
Flow was 20l/m + as that was the max I could read.

I upgraded the pipe from the Street valve to the house from 15mm copper to 25mm MDPE, everything internal is either 22mm copper (just in the boiler room) or the remainder of the house is 25mm plastic with crimped fittings, only stepping down to 16mm for the last 500-1000mm.
 
I don't think 24kw boiler is too small likely about right, however best do a proper heat loss calculation.

Also for efficiency try and find a boiler with good modulation.

Could stick with smaller tank and have a high gain tank installed instead, should heat the water in half the time with a standard cylinder. Look at gledhill, mcdonald and joule, these brands are just as good (sometimes better depending on likes and dislikes) as the megaflow but cheaper, a high gain 300ltr MacDonald is £300 cheaper than the 170ltr megaflow

Theintergasshop is very good. You don't have to purchase an intergas boiler (though I highly recommend one and have one fitted myself) but the guy who owns the shop is very well informed and connected and doesn't mind calling out firms for shoddy product and practices. He used to really promote Honeywell and the evohome range but recently held them to account for their lack of support, poor product availability, excessive price increases and lack of development of the system. Though he still sells the product mostly for existing customers and fundamentally likes it, he's now advocating the Drayton wiser system as what is happening with that is the complete opposite to evohome, they're developing it, they are listening to installers and customers the prices have remained pretty stable and availability is excellent.

P.s for optimum efficiency you should have the hot water set as priority.

The radiators should be oversized and run opentherm with low temperature heating, it will make quite the difference to the gas bills. Some say it doesn't some say it does, I've got got it and works a treat and my gas bills dropped dramatically when switching from old boiler pumping 70 degrees to the rads, and also don't need to worry about my little one scalding himself on the rads. Your underfloor heating will be low temp aswell anyway so really wouldn't be much of a change. I've got the evohome, the first 2 years were great, the. The 3rd year it started playing up and took me a little while to figure it out. The installer came out a few times aswell and even he struggled to work out what was wrong with it, ended up buying another unit which had the same problems just had very little control of it, and then all of a sudden it went back to working properly again. The evohome is a ball ache to setup, instructions aren't clear and now I want to buy some rad stats not only do I have to set the heating up from scratch once again (which will likely be problematic) but there also £75 per unit which is quite a lot when buying for 10 rads.

Anyway I've gone off kilter at the end a bit there.
 
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Work out the heat loss for each area of the house, this will return a total KW requirement, then spec a boiler that will be of adequate size including what's required by the size of the UVHW cylinder.
The heat loss calculation for each area will also dictate the size of the radiators needed to keep those spaces warm.
Building Regs for nearly 20yrs now, state you cannot over size a heat only boiler in a property. It has to be correctly sized.
 
I'm happy as Larry with a 22kw system boiler and 180l however there is only 2.5 of us. I heat the water for an hour in the morning and don't see any issue with heating it in the evening if it started to get tight.
 
Another point of reference for you; similar size house and family.

We had a new system put in 2 years ago; 250L cylinder, 30kw system boiler. Mains pressure ~3bar, 15mm piping internally (1980s house).

Would rate it 10/10, it passes the wife tests I.e. we've never ran out of hot water, and when the washing machine is on, someone can also brush their teeth, and the person in the mixer shower is none the wiser.

A world better than any previous house we've had with either combi boiler or dodgy electric showers.
 
Another point of reference for you; similar size house and family.

We had a new system put in 2 years ago; 250L cylinder, 30kw system boiler. Mains pressure ~3bar, 15mm piping internally (1980s house).

Would rate it 10/10, it passes the wife tests I.e. we've never ran out of hot water, and when the washing machine is on, someone can also brush their teeth, and the person in the mixer shower is none the wiser.

A world better than any previous house we've had with either combi boiler or dodgy electric showers.
It's funny, a local estate agent tried to get a low ball accepted on a friend's house and they stated it had an old fashion heating setup. It was literally as you described - megaflo, 30kw lol. They said the tanks were old tech. Numpties!
 
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