Insulating hot water cylinders and in the attic

Colm R

Just looking for some advice on building an insulated room around my Hot water tank, the associated pipework and pump for added pressure in the attic. There is also the associated pipe work for solar pannel on the roof just above this.

These were installed recently in the summer and two infrared lamps were put in to keep frost away. When we installed a Velux Window last week, I managed to skip a number of 100 mm insulation boards (not insulated plaster boards) in to the attic. So my plan now is to build a little room out of these boards that will surround the sides and top of all of these tanks. The dimensions will be roughly 8ft X 6ft, and about 5ft high. There is little or no insulation underneath the boards that all these tanks sit on.

The way I am building it will mean that the two lights will be inside the room, but the thermostat to control them will be outside it - I'm going to get the electrician to move that back inside the room when I am done.

My questions are:

- provided I have built the room with the boards as tight as possible to each other, will that be enough to prevent freezing without having to put on the infrared lights. The tank itself is insulated, and the pipe work has mostly got the heavy duty insulation on it, but I'm worried about some of the exposed fittings.

- Is there a danger of things getting too hot, especially for the pump that gives the added water pressure?

- Separately I have two cold water storage tanks. I'm just going to cover these with 8inch think rock wool insulation. Is this sufficient?


The purpose of all this is 1) protect my investment on some very expensive plumbing work, and 2) cut down on the amount of electricity used by the infrared lights.

Thanks in advance for any advice