There are times when it would be nice to relocate everything outside, giving more room internally.

Our customer, near Ashford, Kent UK, had already engaged us to fit a warm air unit in an outside cupboard in 2013, using a high efficiency Lennox G61MPVT condensing unit.

This has performed admirably, so when a water heating upgrade was required, he turned to us.

 

As things stood, the hot water was heated by electrical immersions and stored in a cylinder on the ground floor, fed by a water tank in the loft. Our customer wanted mains pressure hot water on demand, for a decent mains pressure shower and a ‘dry loft’ (Eg: no tanks).

There was no ideal location within the house for a new gas fired water heater, so we turned to the Rinnai tankless water heater range.  Manufactured and designed in Japan, the Rinnai 17e water heater heats mains water on demand, and is able to control the outlet temperature extremely accurately.

Half way through job, Rinnai on the wall

A remote control panel allows the homeowner to select their ideal water temperature and Rinnai warrant the accuracy, irrespective of flow rate.  The outside unit is incredibly complex compared to the clumsy old fashioned units typically sold in the UK.

The new and the old

This complexity would worry some, but remember, this is a Japanese gas water heating appliance.  You may not have heard of Rinnai;  for instance, most gas engineers don’t know that they are the World’s largest producer of gas appliances – by a considerable margin.

Nearly completed

So, on with the installation.  The old gravity hot and cold water components were removed, exposing some partial blockages in the pipework.

Our customer said he had noticed a poor hot water flow. This 22mm pipe was connected to the hot water cylinder outlet.

The new water heater and pipe cover were installed on the outside wall (it is completely water and frost proof) and then the digital controller was mounted in the utility room.

It gets dark early (January 2015)

We finished the job off by fitting a new Aqualisa Midas 200 thermostatic bath shower mixer to the bath.  The shower performance is superb.