Great news for a Friday in January, but my cylinder is leaking. It actually does both the HW and the CH so I don't have either at the moment. We have been told that we can replace it with something more conventional, or a combi-boiler.
We have about five bedrooms, three bathrooms, and there are four of us. Two adults, and two kids (10 and 13). And a dog.
Does anyone have any experience as to whether a combi is going to be OK? I heard that it cause issues if someone flushes the toilet while using the shower, or is filling a sink while someone else is running bath? Not sure if it makes any difference, but we have a bathroom in a loft conversion (so higher than the current cylinder), but don't have any HW radiators up there, only electric..
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We have 3 bedrooms, a garage conversion and there's 4 in the house. Supply and install with thermostatic valves fitted to all radiators was £2250
Could be Chinese whispers from the plumber to my wife, then to me!
Thanks. That doesn't sound too bad, and I love the idea of a WiFI thermostat!
22 years of tech support with BG, can you tell?
He has an electric shower and no bath, so it is fine for him and is cheaper to run than his old boiler. I'm unconvinced as a general replacement for conventional boilers if large volumes of hot water are wanted.
Even with that switched off, it fills a bath in 14 mins along pipes that I now know are too narrow.
Since both showers are on same pipe, theory does not work in practice. I could double up pipes, but ....
In retrospect, I would buy 2 normal condensing combi boilers, each serving a separate bathroom and half the radiators each.
That way, you will never be without hot water and heating (unless there is a power cut or a zombie apocalypse)
This is DR provision (IT guys know what I mean)
In my last house, we had no boiler for 2 weeks, due to an inept contract maintenance repair company. Not nice
The shower slows down when someone uses another tap, but doesn’t get colder. It’s annoying but not terrible like being drenched with cold water unexpectedly
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At least it isn't freezing so there won't be any Lawrence Oates moments over the next few days I hope
Seriously though, the problem with no storage tanks is that if the boiler fails (which will only ever happen in the dead of winter) then there is no heating or hot water. We opted for what, if I remember correctly, is called a system boiler. Essentially it lets you keep a hot water tank with an immersion heater so that you can at least always get hot water.
I do have shower that is heated separately, so at least we can have a shower over the next days, even if there is no heating or other hot water. I could this again when *this* boiler fails in the future I guess. I think a system boiler might be like the other option he proposed.
If you’ve got a tank system and the tank is leaking, just replace the tank - it’s both the easiest and the best solution.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Combis can struggle to provide enough HW on demand - especially during cold spells when they need to heat up colder water. The heat reserve type are pretty effective but for a 5 bed house the appropriate Worcester combi is floor standing and the size of a washing machine. Combis are also only suitable where you have decent mains water pressure eg 1.5 Bar and upwards.
The final nail in the coffin for me is reliability - they are not as reliable as a conventional setup so if you do go down that route, stick to Worcester or Vaillant. I’ve had two houses and fitted two standard Vaillant boilers over a 22 year period. Never had a service contract on either and neither ever let me down.