Welly's Boiler woes

[steve_earwig]

Wiggy - don't you have any expansion vessels to take up the expanded warty pressure?

Now that's an idea! They have them on the c/h so why not on the h/w?

[Bailes1992]

Can you still buy er... Non Combi boilers?

[Doggy]

Can you still buy er... Non Combi boilers?

Yes, you just can't really buy non-condensing boilers, just condensing ones, aka time bombs

[lozz]

Wiggy - don't you have any expansion vessels to take up the expanded warty pressure?

Bailes - you can't fit a Power Shower to a Combi Boiler, the shower pump will try to drag water through the Combi at a rate of knots and the boiler won't keep up, and the water pressure will also be too high (feeding the shower pump). Power Showers are designed to draw water from a storage vessel at equal-ish pressures, I have the showers with a built-in pump (look like an electric wall mounted shower) and they are very good, if a tad noisy, but they do need tank-fed Cold and via the Tank fed Hot.

(you can't fit a Power Shower to a Combi Boiler)


you will find that you can, but if anyone runs a hot water tap elsewhere in the house, its useless,

[Welly]

Can you still buy er... Non Combi boilers?

Yes, you just can't really buy non-condensing boilers, just condensing ones, aka time bombs

Daft thing is that in 99% of houses in the UK a Condensing Boiler cannot function as it was designed to and is therefore much less efficient than you'd expect. Condensing boilers need low return water temps to take advantage of the heat absorption from the flue gasses, trouble is the radiators are sized for higher flow and return temps of 82 and 71deg C, if you run low temperatures then firstly you'd struggle to generate hot water and secondly the radiator heat output won't be enough. The condensing boiler is only working 'properly' during initial warm up through 40 to 60 deg's, after that it's just a 'boiler'

The best way to take advantage of a condensing boiler is to have underfloor heating running at about 45 deg and then a separate system of generating hot water.

[Doggy]

Daft thing is that in 99% of houses in the UK a Condensing Boiler cannot function as it was designed to and is therefore much less efficient than you'd expect. Condensing boilers need low return water temps to take advantage of the heat absorption from the flue gasses, trouble is the radiators are sized for higher flow and return temps of 82 and 71deg C, if you run low temperatures then firstly you'd struggle to generate hot water and secondly the radiator heat output won't be enough. The condensing boiler is only working 'properly' during initial warm up through 40 to 60 deg's, after that it's just a 'boiler'

The best way to take advantage of a condensing boiler is to have underfloor heating running at about 45 deg and then a separate system of generating hot water.

Figures.

Not only do people have to suffer the cost and complication of these wonders, but many seem have to suffer the eyesore of exposed pipe work on the outside of their buildings. (Suppose it gives the installer something to tie his horse to). All for no benefit. Guess this is the dpf of the gas boiler world.

I at least insisted on running the condensate drain into the sink waste in the other half of our building, (where I had no choice but to install a condensing money pit).

One of the guys at work was without heating for several days last year because the pumped condensate drain pipe work froze within his loft, which was of course insulated to current buliding regs.....

Isn't progress a wonderful thing?

[lozz]

Can you still buy er... Non Combi boilers?

Yes, you just can't really buy non-condensing boilers, just condensing ones, aka time bombs

Daft thing is that in 99% of houses in the UK a Condensing Boiler cannot function as it was designed to and is therefore much less efficient than you'd expect. Condensing boilers need low return water temps to take advantage of the heat absorption from the flue gasses, trouble is the radiators are sized for higher flow and return temps of 82 and 71deg C, if you run low temperatures then firstly you'd struggle to generate hot water and secondly the radiator heat output won't be enough. The condensing boiler is only working 'properly' during initial warm up through 40 to 60 deg's, after that it's just a 'boiler'

The best way to take advantage of a condensing boiler is to have underfloor heating running at about 45 deg and then a separate system of generating hot water.

Depends on what boiler it is?

some will run anything thrown at them, altho to get a decent boiler results in spending lots of coin and perhaps upgrading pipework and rad's.
old stuff is running on 15mm gas pipe this needs out with good system ..

[steve_earwig]

(pinched from b3ta, as per)