Is There a Connection Between Thermostats and Shower Water Temperature?

[russ_watters]

My basic question: why need water heaters if we use oil fired boilers?

Boilers are closed-loop and are only there for heating. They can have an additional feature that runs a separate loop to heat potable water, but that is an optional extra.

 

[sophiecentaur]

This thread is getting more and more 'interesting'. A bit like speculations about the composition of distant stars and planets.

Boilers are closed-loop and are only there for heating. They can have an additional feature that runs a separate loop to heat potable water, but that is an optional extra.

You have fallen into the trap that I fell into on an earlier thread. "Boilers" are different, all over the world, apparently. (At least in the most important places. lol)
In the UK, "boilers" (for domestic use) were initially there for heating domestic water only. We had running hot water, decades before Central Heating. Over the, systems were :
With hot water tank (sometimes with an electrical immersion heater included):
Hot water, gravity operated,
HW and CH, both gravity operated
HW, gravity and CH pumped
HW and CH, both pumped.
Then:
NoTank - Combi System
I still can't be sure if the OP's system is one of the above.

The earlier thread about domestic Steam systems in the US was an eye opener for me. They seem to be a lot of trouble for domestic use but, with a full time janitor to keep them going, in a large apartment block, the higher heating capacity would make them attractive in cold winters. I Googled Acroliner boilers and there's a whole other world out there! I must say, theUK systems are a lot less threatening and seem more user friendly.

The heater with coils bring electricity to make water hot through the coils.

I hesitate to suggest anything about such an alien engineering culture but the electric input to the boiler could be just for ignition and oil pump. It would be a surprise to me if there were a heating coil inside the boiler itself; an electrical element would be unlikely to have the power (10kW+) to supply the needs of instant domestic hot water.

 

[russ_watters]

This thread is getting more and more 'interesting'. A bit like speculations about the composition of distant stars and planets.

You have fallen into the trap that I fell into on an earlier thread...

I still can't be sure if the OP's system is one of the above.

I don't think I have - I don't think there is anything to be confused about anymore, except that the OP still thinks his water heater is electric, when clearly from the diagrams he posted it is just part of the boiler, running off the same oil he heats his house from. The downside there is that the boiler has to be on even in the summer, to get hot water!

The earlier thread about domestic Steam systems in the US was an eye opener for me. They seem to be a lot of trouble for domestic use but, with a full time janitor to keep them going, in a large apartment block, the higher heating capacity would make them attractive in cold winters.

Sorry, but you still aren't quite there yet: steam systems predate hot water systems largely because they are simpler, not more complex: fewer pipes, no electric pump, and you can regulate heat to each room individually. People have them in single family homes. An ex of mine had a single pipe steam boiler that was 60 years old and she never did maintenance on it except to bleed the radiators at the start of heating season (which you also have to do with hot water systems).

 

[sophiecentaur]

You are probably in a better informed position than I about the US practice but your statement that boilers are only there for heating is questionable even in the US context and actually wrong in the UK context. As I have already said, people in the UK used coal, gas and oil for domestic hot water long before there was Central Heating in homes. You also say that water systems use pumps. Yes - nowadays, but I have lived in two houses (one of them was vast) which had radiators with a simple gravity (convection) system. (Plus, of course, a domestic hot water tank). They were original direct systems and the system needed periodic flushing, to deal with rust and limescale. But the thick, wide bore cast iron pipes and rads were pretty good natured and never seemed to corrode away, despite the fresh (Oxygen and Calcium Carbonate) water passing through them every day.
This thread is just like the US /UK domestic electricity supply threads that you can find in the top twenty posts most weeks in the E E forum. We are clearly talking in quadrature. You must have a different history to us, over here. (Your "60" years" is but the blink of an eye in our history, over here.) Hot water for HW and CH used to be produced with 'back boilers' behind downstairs living room fireplaces and with coal / wood / oil fired stoves and ovens. All very safe and silent. I have never ever come across a steam system in the UK. Look on the UK websites for CH boiler manufacturers (Worcester / Glow Worm / Baxi etc). You won't find a single steam boiler (I don't even think I am taking any risk of being proved wrong here - brave!)
I don't understand why the steam system is claimed to have no return. Some of the circuits I have seen, use return pipes, even though the (weird) sloping radiators have only one input / output pipe. When you say that they need bleeding, that implies to me that they should be full of water. Does it not just drain back down by gravity? Which bit needs yearly bleeding? A good water system with new components and an inhibitor will not need bleeding for several years.
The common building practice in the US of having houses built with cellars is probably a cause / effect of the steam heating system. With the exception of a few Victorian Terraced houses in big cities, cellars are not common in the UK and the steam system requires a drop, back to the boiler from all radiators. A gravity convection system can operate well with ground floor rads at the same level and several metres away from the boiler.
But, as far as I can see, there is one advantage in the steam system. It makes for a good theme in comedy films when people are plagued with the scary noises. Water is boring in that respect.