Omega Owners Forum
Chat Area => General Discussion Area => Topic started by: Richie London on 16 October 2011, 09:09:32
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Seems i have to have a new boiler as mine is 10 yrs old and i am the only one in the flats now with a boiler that heats the Emertion tank. question is which one is cheaper to run as im not having a combi fitted if it is more expensive if there's nowt wrong with the one i have now.once my tank ia filled it lasts for 3 days and i have an electric cooker. mind you when they get rid of the emertion tank I'll have a cupboArd for all my tools.
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a new boiler should be more energy efficient and with a combi boiler it will provide on demand water/heat.
although your tank holds water for 3 days you may still be heating more water than is required so you are spending more.
have you spoken to your neighbours to see if they are using less?
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a new boiler should be more energy efficient and with a combi boiler it will provide on demand water/heat.
although your tank holds water for 3 days you may still be heating more water than is required so you are spending more.
have you spoken to your neighbours to see if they are using less?
haven't spoke to them yet. i guess it will be better for me if have a shower as well. I only have one with it built into the bath taps but might fit an electric shower as the electrics are on the other sidee of the bathroom wall.
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The problem with combination boilers are this great for water on demand although the water is never as hot as a tank to get real piping hot water you have to throttle the bath tap back longer to fill bath or you have to opt for more expensive type 2 or 3 tap which means it can supplier hot water to 2 or more taps at same time stay clear of cheaper boilers also another point if you have a dripping hot tap the boiler will keep firing up as it tank is lowered running cost goes up also all modern boilers have to be condenser which means another plastic pipe ran out to drain this water is slightly acidic and beleave me when it freezes boiler stops functioning till it in blocked common fault make sure you lag pipe to help prevent this all in all go with what fits budget spend little more on a good make ie vallent but I would take out a boiler insurance policy as PCB failure is common prob and sum cost as much as £300 to replace hope this helps
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a new boiler should be more energy efficient and with a combi boiler it will provide on demand water/heat.
although your tank holds water for 3 days you may still be heating more water than is required so you are spending more.
have you spoken to your neighbours to see if they are using less?
haven't spoke to them yet. i guess it will be better for me if have a shower as well. I only have one with it built into the bath taps but might fit an electric shower as the electrics are on the other sidee of the bathroom wall.
You would be better off with a shower with a mixer valve fed direct from the combi boiler.
I have a 30yr boiler that heats a hot water tank.....and i have a power shower fed from the hot and cold water tanks. I've been recommended to have a combi boiler fitter and then the pump for the shower would be taken out and the feed for it connected directly to the combi :y
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If it ain't broke why fix it? :-\ Older boilers might not be as energy efficient but they're definatly more reliable!! ;)
I have a 5 year old condensing combi boiler that has gone wrong so many times, I wonder whats left of the original boiler ::)
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If it ain't broke why fix it? :-\ Older boilers might not be as energy efficient but they're definatly more reliable!! ;)
I have a 5 year old condensing combi boiler that has gone wrong so many times, I wonder whats left of the original boiler ::)
I agree.....it just keeps going and going, however......i guess it depends how many there are living in the house/flat/etc
In my case, its just me, who has a ten minute shower in the morning and by the time i get home home in the evening the water thats left is tepid warm, so if i want hot water in the evening the boiler goes back on. It takes it 1hr to heat up a tank of hot water.....so if its on twice a day, thats 2hrs to get hot water. Compare that say to a combi being on for 10mins in the morning and 10mins in the evening......thats a lot of gas, in comparison, im using at present :y
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I vote for Combi's as well. Re water from the taps being luke warm, it all depends on how far the water has to travel before being used. If it has to go all around the house before reaching the tap it will have lost some heat. This can be minimised by insulating the hot pipe. In my daughter's house, the boiler is directly below the bathroom, so the water travels all of 5 ft before reaching the bath tap or 10 ft for the shower head, so its nice and hot very quickly. Plus as Taxi Driver said, you only heat water when its needed, so a lot more efficient. As regards reliable, Bosh Worcester boilers have a 5 year guarantee so if it breaks they fix it.
Ken
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My flat is housing trust so have what im given. getting them to do anything is hard enough but to change the boiler for no reason is a waste of money i think.
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I switched from a boiler heating a cylinder to a combi at the back end of last year - granted my old boiler was probably 20 years old and the tank had no insulation (literally, it was just plain copper).. but I much prefer the combi, especially as there's only me here.
I used to have the immersion on twice a day in summer and the C/H kept the tank hot in winter (no three way valve), but it was expensive to run and the water that came out would take the skin off your hands..
Combi is plenty hot enough (it'll still take the skin off my hands at full flow!) but runs less and costs me less to run.. Oh and I now have a decent shower upstairs as it's all mains pressure!
One thing I did do with the Combi was switch off the "instant hot" feature which makes it run quite often to keep a little tiny tank of water piping hot within the boiler itself - there's no point in most houses IMHO as all the heat from that little tank gets lost into warming the pipework up anyway..
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My flat is housing trust so have what im given. getting them to do anything is hard enough but to change the boiler for no reason is a waste of money i think.
Agreed. 10 years old? Ours is 12 years old and still in perfect working order.
Yes, newer ones are more efficient (only marginally so in real life, however, despite what the marketing bull says), but to cover the cost (environmental and financial) of building a new boiler and fitting it, they'd need to be significantly better, IMHO.
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Seems i have to have a new boiler as mine is 10 yrs old and i am the only one in the flats now with a boiler that heats the Emertion tank. question is which one is cheaper to run as im not having a combi fitted if it is more expensive if there's nowt wrong with the one i have now.once my tank ia filled it lasts for 3 days and i have an electric cooker. mind you when they get rid of the emertion tank I'll have a cupboArd for all my tools.
Looks as though you do not need it to heat radiators - just the hot water - if so I would go for something like the Main Multipoint Balance Flue and retrieve the storage space. Just installed at my mums.
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My flat is housing trust so have what im given. getting them to do anything is hard enough but to change the boiler for no reason is a waste of money i think.
Agreed. 10 years old? Ours is 12 years old and still in perfect working order.
Yes, newer ones are more efficient (only marginally so in real life, however, despite what the marketing bull says), but to cover the cost (environmental and financial) of building a new boiler and fitting it, they'd need to be significantly better, IMHO.
Unless its 30years old, like mine......i think its something like 60% efficient, so in my case changing it i would see a significant saving on gas, i would hope!
In Richies case, his housing association will charge him the same rent, whether they change it or not.....so he might as well go for it.....as to a waste of money it probably is, however its not his money he's wasting and he might save a bit on his gas bill :y
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im no expert but when i had the british gas dude come out to fix a fault i think he was saying that the reason old boilers ( :D) needed replacing was two fold; more efficient but also more suseptable to giving out carbon monoxide gases. i'm sure he tested the kitchen for it and we were ok but might be worth asking about.
ps if ive got this horribly wrong my apologies. just going on what i think i remembered!
:y
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I would never have a combi personaly and certainly not if you have a reasonable sized house.
And agree with Kevin, most 10 year old boilers will probably be around the 70-80% efficiency level anyway so you wont gain that much.
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ps re the boiler insurance..................
it is good but bloody expensive. i think i was previously paying £45 per month for it! and its not like they will replace the boiler if its nackered (2-3k jobbie) they will simply fix things that have gone wrong that AREN'T deemed to be general maintenance/wear 'n' tear.
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I would never have a combi personaly and certainly not if you have a reasonable sized house.
And agree with Kevin, most 10 year old boilers will probably be around the 70-80% efficiency level anyway so you wont gain that much.
Do you size wise or peeps in the house?
I can see the advantage of a hot water tank if there are several peeps in the house.
Heating a house, i wouldnt have thought it mattered what type of boiler did that job :-\
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The principle of combi boilers is great. ie you only heat the water that you use and if you use a lot it's unlimited! :y
In my experience the older non condensing combis work well, I have a 20 year old Worcester combi that is still going strong :y However the newer condensing combis are crap and are a classic example of BS forced upon us by climate change hysteria!! >:( As said earlier, I also have a 5 year old Ferroli condensing combi that has gone wrong so many times I doubt much is left of the original boiler!! >:( Also a heating engineer told me once that condensing boilers have a design life of only 10 years!! :o
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I would never have a combi personaly and certainly not if you have a reasonable sized house.
And agree with Kevin, most 10 year old boilers will probably be around the 70-80% efficiency level anyway so you wont gain that much.
Do you size wise or peeps in the house?
I can see the advantage of a hot water tank if there are several peeps in the house.
Heating a house, i wouldnt have thought it mattered what type of boiler did that job :-\
The bigger the house the longer the pipe runs.
Plus a combi has to be F-large on the water heat output to get good flow at a reasonable temperature
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ps re the boiler insurance..................
it is good but bloody expensive. i think i was previously paying £45 per month for it! and its not like they will replace the boiler if its nackered (2-3k jobbie) they will simply fix things that have gone wrong that AREN'T deemed to be general maintenance/wear 'n' tear.
How much, thats almost enough to buy a cheap boiler every year!
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If your hot water lasts for 3 days (which is awesome) you could just let it heat up for half the time to save a bit.
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I wouldn't have a combi.
Generally poor shower pressure, as you can't get the hot water through the boiler fast enough, and if someone else in the house turns the hot tap on....
Cylinder for me every time. I keep my water on 24/7, and the heating is programmed to be on 24/7, but I have one of those thermostats that adjusts temp depending on time of day.
10yr old boiler, as fitted by the builders. One of those desperately unreliable Potterton Suprimas, though (touch wood) its been pretty good recently - mind you, there's not much circuit board left for next time it fails, I've already had to partially rebuild this one a number of times.
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Mines a ideal classic. had 1or 2 problems with it in last 6yrs but only 10min repairs so can't see the point myself. i don't really use it much as i heat the tank and leave it. winter it doesn't take long to heat my flat as i have heat from downstairs come.g through floor so only use about 6 quid a week last xmas in gas. Be more this yr as gas is too expensive now
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Now't wrong with the classic :y
Been around for donkeys years and pretty bomb proof :y
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Agree with TheBoy
Had a combi fitted with Scottish Gas, would not heat bath even with tap just opened.
In the end they replaced it for a system boiler and put the tank back.
Although we would have kept it if we had a shower instead of a bath.
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I looked into this 6 years ago... Our situation is a little different though as we are Oil Fired (no mains gas ::))
I had 3 different boiler fitters come in (one of which was a friend of the family) and all 3 said that although my boiler was 20+ years old it was not economical to replace it as parts were (mostly) still available :y Only trouble will be when the heat exchanger finally packs in, then it's probably going to be close to a £4k bill for a new boiler :o :o
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Agree with TheBoy
Had a combi fitted with Scottish Gas, would not heat bath even with tap just opened.
In the end they replaced it for a system boiler and put the tank back.
Although we would have kept it if we had a shower instead of a bath.
If it would not do a bath well then a shower would have been truely awful!
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If it would not do a bath well then a shower would have been truely awful!
They tried to get us to install a shower, gave us assurances it would be okay.
They also tried to blame the "steel" bath, said it was cooling the water down as it came out the tap. I pointed out the bath was discussed with their sales rep who stated it would be no problem getting a bath of hot water. In the end head engineer and sales manager came to house, measured water temp as it left the tap which was truly abysmal.
As it was basically an open check book I asked for biggest combi available, they said they could not guarentee any combi would fill a bath. Ended up with the storage tank back, which put paid to the space savings in the kitchen where it was fitted. Don't use Scottish Gas, they are chancers, fitters are more interested in arranging home jobs and price was extortionate, lesson learned.
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weve had our combi for about 11 years and were paying about £23 a month for cover/repairs/annual service. As it got older things like the pump started to go so the cover was usefull. However, last service the engineer who called was a complete jobsworth. Previous guys had been fine but this ones customer service was absolutely crap , first off he knew in advance that on the scheduled day we wouldnt be there for a while but the key would be with the nieghbour which he agreed to (as did his office when we arranged it) but when he got here he refused to do anything because the" householder wasnt present" and then, on the rescheduled visit , he got arsey because I'd forgotten to take out 4 screws in my rush to get to work that would remove a conti-board cover to give him better access o the boiler. Once my wife had done this for him he then reluctantly serviced the thing whilst pointing out all the things wrong wth it and how certain (very minor and easily changed) things didnt now comply with recent regulations and hinting that he was therefore doing us a favour in even touching it. Needless to say a call to their headoffice was quickly done.Anyhow that was a year ago and this year with finances being tight it was one of the policies we cancelled. Sods law of course meant that just as the weather (briefly!) got cold the bloody thing packed up. Now we'd changed back to British Gas a few months back so called them (expecting the worse) and they said that for £99 (paid upfront ) their engineer would be out that day and fix it. No parts charges, the price was all inc. Sure enough a feller came out that afternoon and fixed it. No quibbling, no bitching. Nice bloke. Probably here about an hour or so. Excellent customer service allround and £99 v our old policy of £23 a month. There you go. Never thought Id say it from my dealings with them in the past but would certainly recommend them based on that :y
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Jerry
Good point about cover as I still have it, albeit on a reduced plan due to circumstances.
I recently claimed for washing machine (drum bearings noisy). Received new drum and motor, plus guy was really decent doing the job in a couple of hours, easily recouped money paid into scheme :y
Other jobs done in the past, blocked drains and electrical fault with wiring in 13amp sockets so in all fairness a great scheme.
My initial rant about heating system still stands, paid over 5k for boiler and six rads, when independents where doing similar systems for 2k. Went with name thinking I was getting the best, sadly not so. Similar to your experience a mix of good and bad regarding service and workmanship >:(