Combi Boilers - Advice, what to buy, what NOT to buy

[Northy]

Pardon the pun, but what's hot and what's not?

What names/makes are to be avoided etc?

All advice welcome, I think our old boiler is on it's last legs, and we'll need a Combi soon anyway if we do our loft conversion

Cheers,

G

[Matisse]

can't go too wrong with a worcester or a vaillant.

both are quality makes and spares are plentiful when they do break down.

[DCM]

I got a Worcester, so has the old dear, been faultless in operation, quiet and efficient!

[markwilliamson2001]

Yeah...the condenser boilers are more efficient, but have had the habit of freezing external pipes which stops the heating working....it is generally easily fixed though, as it is external plastic pipe that just fills with frozen condensed water.

In terms of make, my worcester bosch is still going 4 hard winters down the line.

[super__dan]

Originally Posted by markwilliamson2001

Yeah...the condenser boilers are more efficient, but have had the habit of freezing external pipes which stops the heating working....it is generally easily fixed though, as it is external plastic pipe that just fills with frozen condensed water.

You've beaten me to this by 2 minutes. My Boss in work was having a nightmare over the cold snap becasue of this, his, his mothers and his rental house all lost heating every night for 3 nights when this happened. He's currently collecting the condensing water in buckets and will route the outlet through the house when he has time.

[carpenterdean]

Pretty sure any new combi boilers being fitted have to be condensers now my mate had same problem re plastic pipe freezing outside, you can just defrost it with hot water from kettle or hair dryer and your good to go.
As for make like everyone else has already said can't go wrong with worcester although they are a little more expensive but you get what you pay for, or another good make is baxi.
Hope this helps.

[traffman]

We have a Vaillant , as recc by our friend and he runs a Plumb centre.

We had the central heating renewed and he has a Vaillant aswell.

Its quiet efficient and very well made , wireless controls for adjusting it aswell.

You can adjust the water temp and the heating temp seperately.

Have a look at them , we have the ECO TEC PLUS 831.

[paul kenealy]

After be oncall the week before xmas, 99% of my calls was frozen condensing water pipes on worcester boilers, with not 1 to a vaillant. i fit vaillant all the time, with 1 1/4'' waste pipe on the condening. glo worm are the same as a vaillant with just a few different parts

[DCM]

My parents suffered the frozen condenser pipe, but their pipe exits the loft into the gutter and is small bore, I have told their installers that a bigger bore pipe is needed, mine is installed with a Lime soak-away with 1 1/4" poly pipe, not a problem.

[WHITTLER555]

Northy, Alex's dad (father in law) has been a heating engineer all his life and he reckons either a Vaillant or Baxi but definitely not a Worcester. All he has done all winter so far is fix Worcesters.

[paul kenealy]

i had 1 1/2'' pipe frozen in the snow. its not the size all the time, its were it may be placed

[traffman]

We have a soak away aswell , i never knew what it was !

Also a fernox in line filter fitted .

All out kit plus nine radiators fitted was 3200.00.

[Northy]

Cheers guys.

The bloody thing stopped working again tonight and I only got it going again by what can best be described as "f**king about with it for ages!"

So where would be the best place to buy one? Bestest price for a poor (Yorkshire) man?

G

[DCM]

A well recommended local business (one thats busy too), British Gas will just rape your wallet.

[Ant]

We got our Vaillant from the local PTS - was cheaper than any internet place and staff were very helpful. That was 3years ago and, touch wood, no problems.
If you are going to put a bathroom in the loft then you need one with decent water flow. Also, need to be careful for the gas flow/prssure drop - they need quite a bit of pressure - we had to go to 28mm pipe.
Anthony

[Northy]

I'm still a bit confused what to get and from where

[traffman]

Do you know any one in the trade?

I could give you a number , but being in Scotland , that's about as much help as a perforated parachute.

[university_dave]

I don't know if you are going to be putting a shower or bath in your conversion, but if you are then make sure the flow rate of the combi is sufficient for all your hot water demands - they're not usually considered suitable if you have more than one bathroom/en-suite. If you do go for a combi then consider getting a Zenex GasSaver or Superflow (www.zenexenergy.co.uk) as they make condensing combi boilers even more efficient.

As an alternative you could try one of these; http://www.baxi.co.uk/ecogen. Micro-CHP is starting to take off, and still qualifies for the Feed In Tariff. If you've got a fairly large and relatively old house then it might save you a fair bit and even give you a bit of extra income (9p/kWh for each kWh it generates from the FIT and another 3p/kWh for 50% of the total kWh it generates from the export tariff).

[Northy]

OK, we have a bathroom, a bedroom with an en-suite and will have a toilet in the loft conversion (not enough room for a shower up there).

Does that make a difference?

G

[smokes]

The guys at the worcester bosch plant can't weld for toffee. I had a friend who changed his engineering work placement from worcester bosch Quality Control and said they comapny wasn't very good at making boilers.

Anyone thought about a ground source heat pump? Works like an refrigerator in reverse.