I have just received an e-mail that has the sentence: "With the collapse of the DPS office you may have experienced communication problems but, when you're ready, I’d be very happy to help you instead?"

Does anyone know what this collapse is about? I was about to order a thermal store but am now hesitant.

Thanks for the info. Back to the drawing board. Glad I wasn't relying on any sort of warranty from them.

Posted By: James NortonPoo. DPS were my 1st and only thermal store choice...!

Who now...?

Consolar?

J

I think the Consolar store is probably very good but in a different league pricewise from DPS. If you're considering this kind of price then I'd also consider Ti-Sun.

Their tanks, though well made and well insulated, were a bit complicated though. For example using plate heat exchangers means you have extra external pipework, extra pumps, extra controls.
I prefer something a bit simpler/more elegant. It also means when the next heating engineer comes onto site that they can understand what is going on.

I rather like the idea of a plate heat exchanger from the maintenance/ repair / replacement angle.

Hi Evan - I've never had one fail - but I guess it depends on the type/manufacturer.
Spec for spec, once you add the peripherals in, the coil type worked out the same price or cheaper when I did a cost comparison....

DPS made excellent stores, with infinite flexibility, and a marvelous wesbite which will be sorely missed. However I'd disagree with the 'well insulated' characterisation. They only put 40mm PUR on which is not adequate in a good tank IMHO. The large number of pipe making thermal bridges (and the size of UK airing cupboards) was the reason they gave for not doing better insulation. Given their incredible array of options for everything else I'd have liked a '100mm of insulation' option too - the lack of it was the main reason I didn't buy one of their tanks.

There were quite a few new tank suppliers at ecobuild this year, so choice is improving here (e.g you can now get a tank-in-tank design). No-one selling a tank with a decent stratifier for a reasonable price yet, so far as I know though.

Internal coils arenice and simple, but I worry about furring-up in hard-water areas. A PHE can easily be replaced.

Posted By: wookeyInternal coils arenice and simple, but I worry about furring-up in hard-water areas.

In theory, the outside of the coil doesn't scale up because the water is inhibited and doesn't change anyway, and the inside can be descaled at intervals by running descaling liquid through. The plumbing needs to be designed to allow isolation from the mains, obviously. It would be interesting if somebody has practical experience of how this works in practice.

Posted By: pmusgroveWhat were all of these new tank manufacturers at Eco-build this year? Mailed the Consolar UK reps yesterday as I need to buy a tank very shortly but have had no reply. What else can people recommend for a vented 500l tank suitable for solar and a back boiler?

Not very new, but Ti-Sun Pro-Clean. Uses a clever solar coil with good stratification system to maximise the capture of solar thermal. Other inputs/outputs to the store have baffles to reduce disturbance to stratification. Available with either a highly efficient stainless internal coil, or without if you want to use a PHE.

They also do a Pro version which uses a PHE to transfer the solar heat and cleverly modulates flow on both sides of the PHE to maximise heat transfer. Also fed back into the tank in a manner to encourage stratification.

Used in Underhill house.

No affiliation etc.

PHE= Plate heat exchanger.

At ecobuild I came across (as well as tisun), ezinc (turkish), lapesa (spanish) and ecoscience (Swedish or french - I can't tell), and atmos (dutch) had a nifty new tank too. (I like atmos kit - it's well-designed and they've been ahead of the game with gas boiler+solar for a long time).

lapesa seems to do lots of tanks from 60l to 5000l. I've not come across them before, but have been told they actually manufacture for several other brands but are now trying to establish their own. They have a wide range with tank-in-tank stainless stores, buffer stores with a great big access door (DN400), single and dual coils tores, and big accumulator stores. Insulation 40-80mm PU Wh/24hr losses specified in catalogue (unusually!)

ezinc make enamel-coated steel tanks, in accumulator store, single and dual coil, and tank in tank, and a solar tank with all the solar pumpstation kit built-on. 50-80mm PU insulation.

ecoscience have an interesting design with top-mounted PHEs and connections under a big polystyrene cap. Neat and avoids a lot of the usual pipe losses (although having all the connections at the top isn't too clever either - not sure hwo that balances out). How it actually works seems to be secret, but it's essentially a heat-bank design with both DHW output and solar input done via PHEs.

Oh, and I forgot to add that Atmos have replaced their monosolar tank with a (horizontal!) barrel-shaped plastic design, which is remarkably small for it's 100l capacity. (The website doesn't seem to have caught up yet though).

They specialise in drainback solar systems combined with combis that can take hot water, which is probably the most efficient possible hot water system. And have boilers with a unique heat-exchanger design (DHW and CH done in one heat-exchanger so no secondary PHE, and no pump needed for DHW operation, thus higher efficiency), and very low-power standby. It's not 'standard' and it's not particularly cheap, but it's very good engineering and pretty good value too IMHO.

It appear the assets have been bought up by 'Thermal Integration Limited' and the new company operating with the same website have brought along some of the old staff also.

Bit more emphasis on distribution, display and installation around the country but same gear and expertise as far as I can tell.

Will be asking them to requote today and let you know how I get on.



James

This crowd? http://www.heatweb.com/

I agreed my DPS Thermal Store design - they couldn't have been more helpfull - with them just before they collapsed. Once back in business, I ordered using the original order number and store was delivered on time and to spec. Plumber took fright but the new team provided similar good support and its now installed and working - still waiting to move in to know how well. No connection with the business. JT