The Gulfstream A-Class is Gledhill's latest version of the Gulfstream, and represents a major 'ground-up' re-design of the appliance. Many of the problems with the Gulfstream 2000 have been addressed but the unit is too new for me to have much experience of repairing. 

The unit is a thermal store, but unlike Gledhill's other thermal stores the Gulfstream is self-powered by gas. It incorporates a modern, high-efficiency condensing boiler inside the casing which heats the store water.

Other than having a gas boiler built in, it is pretty similar to all the other Gledhill A-Class thermal stores. 

Like conventional hot water cylinders, a thermal store is a container filled with hot water but here the similarity ends. Once filled, the water in a thermal store never changes. Instead, the hot water stored in it is used to heat the tap water using a heat exchanger.  This allows the hot tap water to be delivered at full mains pressure, and is one of the primary benefits of installing a thermal store instead of a conventional hot water cylinder. For central heating, the hot store water is pumped directly around the radiators.

The Gledhill Gulfstream transfers heat into the tap water using a pump and an external 'plate heat exchanger'. A plate heat exchanger is a block of very thin stainless steel plates arranged so that cold mains water can flow through one set of spaces between the plates, and hot water from the thermal store core can flow through an alternate spaces. Heat transfers through the plates and heats the cold mains water on it's way to the hot tap.

Central heating is very simple in that the CH pump starts and circulates the thermal store water around the radiator circuits whenever the CH timer and room thermostat are both calling for heat.

Common problems:

As I mentioned above, this is a new model and I've not received any repair calls yet so I have no experience of fixing them. I see they still use the same plate heat exchanger as the Gulfstream 2000 for domestic hot water though, and I anticipate this will have exactly the same water scale contamination problems that the 2000 suffers from.  

If you have a Gulfstream A'Class that needs attention give me a call.

Mike Bryant, AKA Mike the Boilerman. 
0118 966 0166 office
07866 766364 mobile