On Sat, 20 May 2017 21:48:49 +0100, John Rumm
wrote:

On 20/05/2017 18:38, Scott wrote:
On Sat, 20 May 2017 13:35:45 +0100, Terry Casey
wrote:

[snip]

I installed a combi boiler (Worcester Bosch) last year and I am a bit
disappointed with it.

24kW by any chance?

Yes - I thought this would be okay for a flat.

(makes for dismal bath filling - but will do a "twice as good as the
best electric" shower)

Marvellous.

The water takes a while to heat up when using Eco mode. I mostly run
without Eco mode (pre-heat is capable of being programmed) so I assume
I am using extra energy to save water.

Not much value in ECO mode really - it only fires fairly infrequently to
temper its small store of hot water.

It does seem to make a big difference. Or at least if the heating is
on the water arrives more quickly. I may not be to do with Eco mode,
I suppose but I think it is as I think it is much the same effect even
if I turn the heating down to 10 degrees.

The bath takes ages to fill. This may however be related to having an
unusual thermostatic mixer tap arrangement that serves the bath and
the shower.

Or an underpowered boiler...

Or the hot water not nearly as hot as it was before?

The radiators warm up even when the heating is supposed to be off. I
understand this is because the boiler uses the heating as a heat sink
when it is pre-heating the hot water. Again, I assume this means
wasting energy.

That sounds more like a faulty diversion valve.

Is this what used to be called the 'motorised valve' when I was a boy?

I find the extractor system noisy for a domestic application, but this
may be common to all condensing systems.

Extractor system?

Flu gas extraction.

(do you mean a fanned flue? If so, a standard feature of any boiler you
can buy today - although some are louder than others)

Thought so, my neighbour's is even worse.

The hot water even at its maximum setting is not hot enough. It's
okay for filling sinks and baths in the first place but for a top-up
it is fairly ineffective.

The washing machine is cold fill so this is not an issue. I think
nearly all washing machines are cold fill, so probably your next one
will be. Could you not disable hot fill if this would help?

Depending on how well the plumbing is done you can get temperature
interactions even from cold fill only - especially of the WM cold feed
is taken from the pipe before the cold feed to the combi. Really it
wants to be plumbed with that being the first thing to be taken off from
the incoming main.

That's one for the OP. My washing machine is cold water (LG) for
which I am grateful given the unpredictable behaviour of the boiler.

As a complete diversion, if I wanted to replace my boiler with a mains
water filled storage tank is there a market for second-hand boilers or
would economic and regulatory issues consign it direct to the scrap
heap?