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[Richie London]

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.

[Plomien]

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?

[Richie London]

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.

[lastmadrich]

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

[Taxi_Driver]

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 

[Sir Tigger KC]

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   

[Taxi_Driver]

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 

[Ken T]

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

[Richie London]

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.

[aaronjb]

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..

[Kevin Wood]

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.

[pscocoa]

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.

[Taxi_Driver]

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 

[Webby the Bear]

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 ( ) 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!
 

[Marks DTM Calib]

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.