Hello all. This summer I bought a widebeam narrowboat, with installed an Alde compact 3020 plus Alde Flow for heating/hot-water (sorry, no caravan ;-) ).
The pipes going into the heater seem to all have a "diversion" tube, which leads to an open box stored underneath the floor (pic below).
The previous owner told me the plumber who installed it said it is to accommodate overflow of the heating liquid - and indeed it seems to fill up with an orange liquid (your usual water+glycol mix I guess). The liquid filling the box is not recirculated in the system - I have to keep an eye that it does not fill up and spill on the floor...
Now that the temperatures started dropping, I use the heater a couple of hours every day.
The other day I decided to bleed the radiators of any air in the piping. Indeed there was a lot of it. So much in fact, that the pressure was not enough to expel it all. So I topped up the heating liquid in the expansion tank, which sits 1.5 meters higher than the heater. Unfortunately the expansion tank is crusty, making it hard to see if the heating liquid is close to the designated filling level, below or above it. It is also in a cramped position, making it hard to insert a dip stick, and it misses its cap (it is closed by a non-watertight plug)...
Long story short: I managed to get the radiators filled (ie. no air exiting from bleeder valve any more), but when after a couple of days I checked the overflow box, it was filled with 5 extra litres of liquid!
The question is: is that normal at all? I presume that the standard system design does not include a non-recirculating overflow tank, and I am a bit wary of both the heating liquid spilling over the floor and having to periodically top it up...
Bonus points / side question: this summer, with the heating temp set to 10 degrees in the Alde remote control to avoid the heating starting up, I noticed that, every time I turned on the Alde for a shower, and pressed the "instant hot water" button, the radiators and pipes would get warm with hot water, which seems a bit wasteful of both lpg and electricity, as my purpose was to have hot water only, and no heating. Is this behaviour normal?
The pipes going into the heater seem to all have a "diversion" tube, which leads to an open box stored underneath the floor (pic below).
The previous owner told me the plumber who installed it said it is to accommodate overflow of the heating liquid - and indeed it seems to fill up with an orange liquid (your usual water+glycol mix I guess). The liquid filling the box is not recirculated in the system - I have to keep an eye that it does not fill up and spill on the floor...
Now that the temperatures started dropping, I use the heater a couple of hours every day.
The other day I decided to bleed the radiators of any air in the piping. Indeed there was a lot of it. So much in fact, that the pressure was not enough to expel it all. So I topped up the heating liquid in the expansion tank, which sits 1.5 meters higher than the heater. Unfortunately the expansion tank is crusty, making it hard to see if the heating liquid is close to the designated filling level, below or above it. It is also in a cramped position, making it hard to insert a dip stick, and it misses its cap (it is closed by a non-watertight plug)...
Long story short: I managed to get the radiators filled (ie. no air exiting from bleeder valve any more), but when after a couple of days I checked the overflow box, it was filled with 5 extra litres of liquid!
The question is: is that normal at all? I presume that the standard system design does not include a non-recirculating overflow tank, and I am a bit wary of both the heating liquid spilling over the floor and having to periodically top it up...
Bonus points / side question: this summer, with the heating temp set to 10 degrees in the Alde remote control to avoid the heating starting up, I noticed that, every time I turned on the Alde for a shower, and pressed the "instant hot water" button, the radiators and pipes would get warm with hot water, which seems a bit wasteful of both lpg and electricity, as my purpose was to have hot water only, and no heating. Is this behaviour normal?
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