"Marv" wrote in message
om...
Hi,
I've read a few posts about the positive/negative
points of combi boilers.
There are few negative sides to a combi. the dissatisfaction arises when
they not sized or installed correctly. Fitted with a poor flowrate or with
an inadequate mains will not nor perform to expectations.
I'm just selling my house
which had an almost new combi boiler
when I moved in and to be honest I
have been less than impressed by it. I
did speak to my neighbour who was a
plumber and mentioned this to him,
he seemed to think that the Ariston that I
had was not particually
good anyway.
I did not like that when only the hose pipe
was on, its pressure was useless. If I took
a shower and either the washing machine or
dishwasher was on then the shower kept
cutting out. Also quite often
it failed to start up.
If your cold water mains can't cope, combi's are not the ideal solution as
they are mains fed. It appears your mains pressure/flow is poor. And that
goes for any mains fed system like Megaflows and thermal stores. Although
with poor mains pressure you can run a combi off a tank and pump in the loft
and save cylinder space in the tiny house below - sorted. This may be an
interim solution until your mains is updated.
They can go up to 22 litres/minute if you want. The average combi's are the
10 litre/minute cheapo's. For "most" households they the best solution in
simplicity and importantly, far less space taken up in tiny British homes.
Around 550,000 fitted per year says it all. For the majority of British
homes combi's are a panacea. They also heat the house up "real fast". They
are the ideal choice for DIYers when selecting a fully specced idiot proof
job like the Ariston Microgenus (far better than the earlier Ariston
models). BTW, A Microgenus 2 has just come out with 3 outputs of 24kW, 27kW
and a 13+ litres/minute 31or 32kW job .
Anyway the point of my post, we have
found a house we like but it has
a combi boiler installed (in the loft ?),
dont know what make it is
but my question is, is it more than likely
to still have the same problems as this
is how combi boilers work ?
Why not test it. Runs a few hot taps at once. It should have "decent" flow
with the kitchen and basin tap running at normal flow (not all full on).
Also its currently a 3
bed house with 8 rads, we will be
extending to make a fouth bed room
and bigger kitchen so that will probably be
10 rads in total. Would
this be to much for a combi boiler ?
A combi will cope with the heating side. They are over-powered for most
heating needs, as the instantly heating hot water takes a lot of power, so
they are sized for the hot water side.
If so then what are my options of removing
the combi boiler and replacing it with a
conventional system ? Could everthing be placed
in the loft still ?
A conventional systems in the loft is difficult, and probably not
achievable, and will entail a lot of upheaval. You would be better having a
new larger bore plastic water main from in from the street.
Depending on the cold mains pressure/flow. If this is fine and the combi is
not man enough for its intended hot water use. The best solution may be to
install another combi. Yes, another combi. Combi's are cheap. Have one do
downstairs heating, one upstairs, on two different time clocks. This means
upstairs can be off while downstairs is on, or vice versa. Then split the
hot water taps between the two combi's (have two showers on two different
combi's). A new gas supply will have to be run from the combi back to the
meter.
---
--
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (
http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.524 / Virus Database: 321 - Release Date: 06/10/2003