As the UK gets its 3 days of summer and the temperatures go through the roof I’m left wondering “what do I do with all this hot water?”

A few years back I fitted solar hot water to my roof, one of the best things I ever did, for about 8 months of the year I get all my hot water from the panels. The rest of the time they are helping so the boiler only has to boost the temperate a little more, the saving are massive, a much better investment than solar PV.

However yesterday, the hottest day of the year 2015 so far, I had 230 litres of water at +70 C. It’s not good for the system so I’ve found a way of dumping the heat without having a specific heat dump. Anyone out there that has a similar problem may find this interesting or not but I thought I’d share.

It basically works by running your central heating in reverse, don’t worry it’s nothing bad.

First turn your boiler off, this stops the boiler from firing and heating the system even more.

Next you need to set the thermostat on the storage tank to Max.

Then turn up the main central heating thermostat to Max too.

Now turn on the central heating and hot water heating.

What all this does is use the hot water in the storage tank to heat the radiators through out the house. I have all the radiator thermostats set to low so the heat is just dumped to my radiator that does not have a rad stat fitted in the bathroom.

My next job is to automate the whole process, I know how to I just need to find the time…

Hope this helps someone out there.