Central Heating Water Storage with a Combination Boiler

Combination Boilers heat potable hot water and hot water for central heating. They never have water storage. They are normally activated by a timer and/or a room thermostat, plus the temperature to which water is heated by the boiler is set within the boiler. They heat water by burning gas.

Heating water for central heating accounts for up to 80% of energy use in a home, and up to 80% of homes in the UK have a combi boiler.

Adding a 1,000 litre water tank in the home, in a garage, in an outside shed, or even below ground, will allow off peak electricity to be stored. A 1,000 litre tank will store 50KW/hr of off peak power which is enough for 4 hours of central heating. This will reduce the gas usage in a typical home by approximately 80%.

For central heating 8 litres of water will carry up to 25 kilowatts every hour into the return stream which is carried around the house by the 25 litre a minute flow. A typical home needs energy at a rate 12.5 KW/Hr (twice the maximum delivered from the tank).

Adding a simple tank in or outside the home with a simple heat stratification devise gives an affordable energy storage tank. The ShowerPowerBooster SP21 gives the perfect fully automatic integration of any heat store with a Combination Boiler.

The diagram below shows how to integrate stored hot water with the return flow to a combi boiler using a patented ShowerPowerBooster.