My new house comes complete with a Baxi Barcelona CH boiler which
repeatedly locks out. following speaking to a plumber friend of mine
and reading up on numerous horror stories on the web, it seems that I
may be wise to replace the whole thing.

The house is a large, 4 bed, detached Victorian house with an attic
conversion. Currently there is a family bathroom plus a small bathroom
in the attic conversion and a total of 20 radiators. Once we complete
building work I expect to have an en-suite with shower, a guest
bathroom with bath and shower, plus a bathroom in the attic conversion
which will either have a shower or bath with shower over. I have 2
growing daughters who will soon be competing for hot water first thing
in the morning and it may well be realistic for 2 showers to be running
simultaneously.

The current Baxi system is coupled with a large (4/5ft tall ?) Heatrae
Sadia Megaflo cylinder and the hot water system is mains pressure. I
know next to nothing about how the Megaflo system works, which may
explain my next question...

My friend has suggested (by phone) a Worcester-Bosch 40Cdi boiler,
which has lots of interesting stats. such as a 16l flow rate. Googling
has also found the Worcester-Bosch Highflow 440 with a 20l flow rate
(though this declines to 11l once the 'heat bank' is exhausted). Am I
right in assuming that the Megaflo cylinder would mean that the 40Cdi
could meet my requirements as well as the 440 could ? He's also
offering me mates rates utilising his trade discount to get the 40CDi
for circa 940+VAT...which seems better than anything google has found.

Any alternative boiler suggestions ?

TIA,

Craig

CraigB wrote:
My new house comes complete with a Baxi Barcelona CH boiler which
repeatedly locks out. following speaking to a plumber friend of mine
and reading up on numerous horror stories on the web, it seems that I
may be wise to replace the whole thing.



Does your plumber friend need to buy lots of christmas presents? ;-)

If you've got a pressurised HW system, that you plan to keep, then I
don't see why you're considering combi boilers.

"CraigB" wrote in message
ups.com...
My new house comes complete with a Baxi Barcelona CH boiler which
repeatedly locks out. following speaking to a plumber friend of mine
and reading up on numerous horror stories on the web, it seems that I
may be wise to replace the whole thing.


Well I'd be making efforts to investigate the reason for the lockouts. If
you really want a new boiler which may or may not have its own set of
problems fine, but the heating season may not be the best time to change.
You'll regret losing mains pressure stored hot water if that is what your, I
assume plumber is suggesting. Perhaps he is suggesting retaining the
Megaflo and just connecting a single DHW outlet, best the closest to the
boiler. That could be a good arrangement.

The purchase price would be a good price but is your friend installing FOC?
Do you have a modern control system?

Too many variables to make much sense of your question. The suggested
boiler would eat the heat demand more economically but that's the simple
part.

Jim A

CraigB wrote:

The current Baxi system is coupled with a large (4/5ft tall ?) Heatrae
Sadia Megaflo cylinder and the hot water system is mains pressure. I
know next to nothing about how the Megaflo system works, which may
explain my next question...

Mains pressure hot water cylinder basically.

My friend has suggested (by phone) a Worcester-Bosch 40Cdi boiler,
which has lots of interesting stats. such as a 16l flow rate. Googling
has also found the Worcester-Bosch Highflow 440 with a 20l flow rate

The highflow is to all intents a purposes a large box containing the
components you already have. So probably not much point in changing to
that.

right in assuming that the Megaflo cylinder would mean that the 40Cdi
could meet my requirements as well as the 440 could ? He's also

Yup, probably better.

offering me mates rates utilising his trade discount to get the 40CDi
for circa 940+VAT...which seems better than anything google has found.

You don't really need a combi in this situation since your total flow
rate from both the cylinder and the combi would still be limited to
whatever your cold main can deliver. What is more, if you were drawing
water from the combi side, then boiler would not be able to reheat the
cylinder while you are doing it.

Hence a powerful boiler that can when required throw all its effort into
heating the cylinder would probably work better.

You need to measure the flow rate you can get from the cold main
however, as this is going to limit what you can expect to achive[1]. How
much flow you need will also depend on your expectations regarding
shower performance (4 lpm would equate to a crappy electric shower, 7 -
15 lpm would be a average mixer shower, anything up to 30 lpm if you
want showers with drencher heads and body jets etc).

[1] If you run out of flow rate capability, then you would have a few
options ranging from upgrading your cold main, installing an accumulator
to provide a buffer of mains water, or adding a conventional storage
system for filling baths and/or a pump for the showers etc.


--
Cheers,

John.

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John Rumm wrote:

CraigB wrote:

The current Baxi system is coupled with a large (4/5ft tall ?) Heatrae
Sadia Megaflo cylinder and the hot water system is mains pressure. I
know next to nothing about how the Megaflo system works, which may
explain my next question...

Mains pressure hot water cylinder basically.

My friend has suggested (by phone) a Worcester-Bosch 40Cdi boiler,
which has lots of interesting stats. such as a 16l flow rate. Googling
has also found the Worcester-Bosch Highflow 440 with a 20l flow rate

The highflow is to all intents a purposes a large box containing the
components you already have. So probably not much point in changing to
that.

right in assuming that the Megaflo cylinder would mean that the 40Cdi
could meet my requirements as well as the 440 could ? He's also

Yup, probably better.

offering me mates rates utilising his trade discount to get the 40CDi
for circa 940+VAT...which seems better than anything google has found.

You don't really need a combi in this situation since your total flow
rate from both the cylinder and the combi would still be limited to
whatever your cold main can deliver. What is more, if you were drawing
water from the combi side, then boiler would not be able to reheat the
cylinder while you are doing it.

Hence a powerful boiler that can when required throw all its effort into
heating the cylinder would probably work better.


Thanks to all for answers to date. From what I can gather I've managed
to get my wires crossed and my mate (who is 200 miles distant and not
answering his mobile) has done nothing to simplify matters.

I want to retain the mains pressure hot water that I believe the
Megaflo system gives me and I'm considering replacing the Baxi as I
understand them to be troublesome and expensive to repair (based upon
mate's comments and googling). Additionally, as we're adding another
bathroom to the house I want to ensure I have sufficient capacity in
the system.

The current boiler is a condensing one I believe (as I've found a
condensate trap) and I was - it seems wrongly - assuming that the 40CDi
I was being recommended was a direct replacement suitable for extending
the capacity of the whole system. Happy to be advised otherwise.

I've been expecting a visit in person, but been let down on the last 2
weekends, so starting to think about calling in a local CORGI
registered CH specialist and want to get a better understanding of the
situation before I do so.

Looks like I need to do a bit more analysis/reading (never had to buy
or fix a CH system before!)

CraigB wrote:


The current boiler is a condensing one I believe (as I've found a
condensate trap) and I was - it seems wrongly - assuming that the 40CDi
I was being recommended was a direct replacement suitable for extending
the capacity of the whole system. Happy to be advised otherwise.

The first thing to do would be to work out if you have a problem. If not
it may be better to not fix it until you do have one.

Looks like I need to do a bit more analysis/reading (never had to buy
or fix a CH system before!)

Try the boiler choice FAQ

http://www.makewrite.demon.co.uk/BoilerChoice.html

And the sealed system one:

http://www.makewrite.demon.co.uk/SealedCH.html

--
Cheers,

John.

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| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
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\================================================= ================/

On 11 Dec 2006 09:59:40 -0800 someone who may be "CraigB"
wrote this:-

I want to retain the mains pressure hot water that I believe the
Megaflo system gives me

It is one way to get mains pressure hot water.

If you add more outlets then you may find that the cylinder is now
too small to cope with the usage pattern. If you don't want to live
with this then there are a number of options for changing the
system:

1) a larger cylinder.

2) two or more cylinders (possibly smaller than the current one),
situated to feed local rooms. This will also reduce wasted water and
heat due to long dead-legs.

3) a thermal store.

I would only recommend a combination boiler if the hot water output
was feeding a local sink and/or basin (for example a kitchen sink
and cloakroom basin). These are only filled for relatively short
periods, so the boiler will not be diverted from recharging the rest
of the system for long periods of time.


--
David Hansen, Edinburgh
I will *always* explain revoked encryption keys, unless RIP prevents me
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/00023--e.htm#54