Has any one heard of CombiSave

[Bodd]

Has any one heard of CombiSave??

If so does it work and does it last? or does it pack up after 5 minuetes?

Bod

 

[Puddle]

It works by restricting the flow of water through the boiler until hot ,like the puma used to do. does it work, well yes, better in summer when heating not on and starting from cold, as long as no pre heat, you could just turn tap down till water coming through is hot, I would not go out of my way to fit one and savings it claims a stretched a bit me thinks

imho

 

[Bodd]

I met the fella who invented it at an expo at Excel

Alls seems very interesting to me.

Problem is they want £80 + the vat for the unit. Don't leave alot for us to put on to make it tempting for the customer.
Then we have to go and sort it out if it cronks out.

Love the idea but don't think I'll be installing one untill its tried and tested, cheaper and asked to fit one.

Bod

 

[CombiSave]

Hi, I’m from Mole Group, I saw on here people talking about CombiSave. It’s great that our product has got people talking! I just wanted to answer a few of the questions raised...
1. Can it really save that much gas or water?
Savings will depend on the number of people in a home, their hot water usage and habits, hence vary enormously. At current gas prices the estimated savings for a family of four averages £66 but that is the average, on a couple of boilers the savings were around £150. The water savings are £180. Check out our fact sheet on www.combisave.com to see how these figures were calculated.

2. Does it last?
CombiSave units are UK made, robust and should last 10-20 years. The oldest one fitted to the rudimentary design has been in place problem-free for five years.

3. We are proud to have a quality product that is designed, made and assembled in the UK. Cutting costs in manufacture would have meant compromising quality and durability of this “fit and forget item”. The current price of CombiSave units are 1 = £79, 5 = £65, 10 = £59. High volume sales are handled individually.

Our website is updated weekly so please look for further details www.combisave.com or if you have any questions email me at [email protected].

Cheers, Dave at Mole Group

 

[GQuigley67]

so what does it essentially do, if you don't mind explaining. Does it reduce the time the hot water takes to get to the tap ? as if there is a return in the system ?

 

[CombiSave]

Hi, thanks for the interest.
The CombiSave fits very easily to the hot pipe immediatley after the combiboiler. It very acurately measures the temperature and if it is below our factory setting of 40 degrees then it slows the flow rate down to two litres per minute. This causes the water the boiler to rapidly warm up as you are not removing the heat as much as it would of done and as soon as the water reaches 40 degrees the valve gently opens to allow full flow of water. On average you will get hot water 21 seconds faster!!
Of course the savings will fluctulate due to many factors, but a family of 4 should be saving around £200 on water and gas per year.
Please visit Combisave, there is the independent test report and on the facts page there are fitting instructions.
The new valves are being assembled in Cornwall and will be available in 2 weeks from the web site.
Please don't hesitate to contact us for further information.
Regards

David Furlong

 

[julesverne]

Nice idea but a tad expensive. me thinks needs to be around the 49.99 price bracket for us plumbers to be able to up sell it and add our labour. it may well save money but it's hard enough to get people to invest in a magnetic filter let alone a water/gas saving device.

 

[pobsdad]

So long as it's not one of those cons you see on the shopping channels,the price will drop eventually.Its good to see that British industry is coming up with new ideas,still.

 

[Bodd]

I like the idea but it is too exspensive. £79 plus the Vat. Thats before we have put on our labour or any profit.

So say we charge £50 to install the unit, thats knocking it past £150 for job done.

Plus for our £50 we have to guarentee your product for a year.

You need to make it cheap enough for us to start recommending it.

 

[md68]

Got to agree with the others it's a tad on the expensive side. There needs to be at least £95 - £100 profit for fitting this. Otherwise it's not really going to be worth the effort of marketing this to my customer base. I would be able to make more profit by fitting a scalemaster gold and topping up the inhibitor during a routine service call. However I do think it's a good & very clever idea and I will try to sell a few... just for the crack

 

[Bodd]

Got to agree with the others it's a tad on the expensive side. There needs to be at least £95 - £100 profit for fitting this. Otherwise it's not really going to be worth the effort of marketing this to my customer base. I would be able to make more profit by fitting a scalemaster gold and topping up the inhibitor during a routine service call. However I do think it's a good & very clever idea and I will try to sell a few... just for the crack

I'd fit one myself so I can recommend something I beleive in. When I have a spare £100 I may just do that.
Rather try it on myself than get call backs from unsatified customers.

Want it to work and be succesful because its British, we all need to back up our industry in this country but we need some sort of incentive out of this as well.

Because we are the ones who pick up the peices if all goes wrong.

Bod

 

[paulnwales]

i cant see many ppl wanting it put in at that price, most ppl are struggling at the moment, esp when you tel them its no diff really to not opening your tap fully to begin with... how many more things will they come up with for us to install. I would have thought if it was a good as there figures state that the big boys will just build them into the boiler ?

 

[CombiSave]

Hi md68.

Thanks for the feed back, really apreciate it. At the moment they are assembled by hand and every one is independently tested before it leaves the factory in Cornwall. The manufactures has been around since 1928 and produced all the valves and sensors for Spitfires, Hurricanes and Lancasters and still produce for MOD, Rolls Royce and JCB. So it should be a quality product. Depending on sales, if the demand is high enough sometime in the future the system should become automated and then possible the costs may hopefully reduce!
I have thought the best way to sell them would be if your carrying out a service or a repair on the boiler then that might be the best time to fit one. They only take 10 minutes to install and we have been charging £149 inclusive for the prototypes. We would hope that people would want the Combisave because of its gas/water/time and money saving capabilities and the gas savings can equate to the same or more than solar heating panels which as you know are many times more expensive.

Thanks for being interested and we should have the first production combisave's available by the 18th April.

Hi Bod,

Just to let you know we installed around 200 prototypes over the last 5 years giving every paying customer the right to have it removed and the money given back to them in full if they thought it did not work for them or they were just not happy with it.
So far, no one has asked for one to be removed!
And the New valves are better again than the original prototypes.
So fingers crossed and help from you guys it will be a British Success as we will hope to be exporting to europe by the end of the year.

HI Paul.

Just to let you know as the combisaves are brand new we have only recently being given samples to UK boiler manufactures who are about to carry out their tests on them.
I'll let you know when I hear any news.

Regards

David Furlong

PS. it is similar to opening a tap slowly, but no one could do it as preciesly or everytime as the CombiSave does and you can't train everyone in the house!

 

[tackleburger]

Glorified TRV bit of a gimmick easy to get the sums to add up. Decent boilers all have some sort of keep warm facility such as the vaillant aqua comfort. Surely the customer can be told just to ease the tap open for half a minute then turn it up. I think I might start doing that actually save them £150. I hate this gimmicks and the claims that come with them load of nonsense.

 

[paulnwales]

Glorified TRV bit of a gimmick easy to get the sums to add up. Decent boilers all have some sort of keep warm facility such as the vaillant aqua comfort. Surely the customer can be told just to ease the tap open for half a minute then turn it up. I think I might start doing that actually save them £150. I hate this gimmicks and the claims that come with them load of nonsense.

agree with you on that!

 

[Bodd]

Hello Dave

Why don't your let 2 or 3 engineers on this forum have a free example if they have a combi at their own home. At least then they can give ffed back, and maybe convince the rest of us if it does what it says on the tin.

I like the idea of it and believe it may well work, my points are how long will it work for and is it really worth convincing our customer that its worth the cost.

Bod

 

[Bodd]

Glorified TRV bit of a gimmick easy to get the sums to add up. Decent boilers all have some sort of keep warm facility such as the vaillant aqua comfort. Surely the customer can be told just to ease the tap open for half a minute then turn it up. I think I might start doing that actually save them £150. I hate this gimmicks and the claims that come with them load of nonsense.

I believe it works. Just is the saving worth the instalation cost? I try opening my tap tap slowly, but often forget. And so will the customers I'd rather it was just built into the boiler so as we can forget that we are saving money.

Bod

 

[CombiSave]

Hello Dave

Why don't your let 2 or 3 engineers on this forum have a free example if they have a combi at their own home. At least then they can give ffed back, and maybe convince the rest of us if it does what it says on the tin.

I like the idea of it and believe it may well work, my points are how long will it work for and is it really worth convincing our customer that its worth the cost.

Bod

Hi Bodd

Sorry, have only just read your post. OK. i can supply 3 if you can recommend another 2 plumbers. I would like to call and fit them and go through it with you if I,m in the area. Please contact me with your details at www.combisave .com via contacts and I'll get back to you. But I will only be able to give 3 CombiSaves out for evaluations.

Cheers

Dave

 

[julesverne]

pick me pick me :toilet:

 

[GQuigley67]

I would be interested in one but I'm up in glasgow got a combi install to do will try it on that and give you some feedback

 

[Puddle]

Hi Bodd

Sorry, have only just read your post. OK. i can supply 3 if you can recommend another 2 plumbers. I would like to call and fit them and go through it with you if I,m in the area. Please contact me with your details at www.combisave .com via contacts and I'll get back to you. But I will only be able to give 3 CombiSaves out for evaluations.

Cheers

Dave

Very fair offer Dave,will be interesting to see what users think also reliability ,as said cost the main factor here

 

[GQuigley67]

if i get one to sample i will time how long hot water takes to get to tap in kitchen, and bathroom then fit combisave and repeat the process and compare the figures, also compare temperatures and let everyone know the results

 

[CombiSave]

if i get one to sample i will time how long hot water takes to get to tap in kitchen, and bathroom then fit combisave and repeat the process and compare the figures, also compare temperatures and let everyone know the results

Thanks for the interest, please leave your details at Combisave and I'll gt back to you with a free sample.
Cheers

Dave

 

[CombiSave]

Have you left your details Bodd?

 

[ecowarm]

Send you details Dave.:driving: ... Shift+R improves the quality of this image. CTRL+F5 reloads the whole page.

 

[Mrs Tara Plumbi]

Do you watch Dragons Den and see people inventing gadgets to fix problems that don't exist!
I seem to be missing something, I'm not a heating engineer but I have a combi now, and have had many different combi's in the past so think of me as a customer and I am not convinced!

First of all as a person who has a combi I don't think I have a problem in the first place!
Combis nearly always in the kitchen, a short run of pipework and hot water gets to the tap in fast enough for washing up. I don't have to run the tap for ages.

NEXT, as a customer I know the water the first bit of water will be cold (Aprox room temperature depending) because it is sitting in the pipework.
The demonstration or test I want to see - which makes it simple, is if the pipe was just a few inches long how quickly would it reach temperature?

I could be wrong but from my reading of your study it seemed that combisave made more or less no noticeable difference to the amount of time for the hot water to read my tap, regardless of 15 or 30 degree rise.
I can understand that under certain circumstances the amount of water and gas used could be reduced but this seems too small to be important and I could probably ave that money in some other way.

Also, I think you study is showing that if people with combis just turn on the tap to a low flow initially (for perhaps 30 seconds) they would use less water and save gas by doing the same thing as your gadget but with out buying it.

I hope Mr Combi save comes back to try and convince me.
And do you heating engineers ready think there is a demand for this?

 

[Plumbstar Tom]

Its a fair concept taking out the manual process of open a tap part way and then full way

They guys want to test its functionality first (understandibly) before the go off recommending it

There are so many things we have now a days that 'fix' problems that didnt exist they are just there because we are lazy. Look at your TV remote, nothing faulty with the buttons on the tele but we just could be bothered to go up and press them. sO in short if this does then job and is at the right price then it can be recommended to the right customer. As far as I under stand its not for every combi in every house its the right demand for it

IMHO

 

[GQuigley67]

I think this product is designed to save water aswell as gas bills, by reducing the amount of water you draw off before you get the hot water and saving water is a big thing these days aswell as emmissions.

If I get the free sample(I have sent my details) then I will install one and let people know the results, I'm going to install it in a house where the kitchen tap is only going to be around 1.5m from boiler at most, and the bathroom tap will be around 5m in total.

 

[kay-jay]

i sent my details off to to use at home.

we got a combi with a ridiculous dead leg. boiler in kitchen pipework goes upstairs to bathroom then back down on drops at other side of kitchen. wait for hot water is nearly 30 seconds thats a lot of water wasted. i'd love the opportunity to test this product against its average time saving of 21 seconds. if it works it will save me re-routing the pipework (which i hasten to add i did NOT install, it was in when we bought house) if it works i would be happy to reccomend it.


KJ

 

[CombiSave]

Hi. You may be running with your preheat on which means that the boiler is keeping it's self permantly warm. Some Boiler manufacturers have fitted this function due to the problem of the delay of delivering warm water. This function costs you around £75-£150 per annum in gas even when your out. The combisave delivers a similar performance but without the cost.
The low flow rate is 2.5litres per minute is for only around 0-15 seconds, with an average saving of 5-6 litres and around 15 seconds quicker in getting to temperature. The bucket test of a before and after will prove this when one is fitted.
Please wait for the reports from the plumbers/Heating engineers on this Furum.
Cheers

David Furlong

 

[GQuigley67]

Hi. You may be running with your preheat on which means that the boiler is keeping it's self permantly warm. Some Boiler manufacturers have fitted this function due to the problem of the delay of delivering warm water. This function costs you around £75-£150 per annum in gas even when your out. The combisave delivers a similar performance but without the cost.
The low flow rate is 2.5litres per minute is for only around 0-15 seconds, with an average saving of 5-6 litres and around 15 seconds quicker in getting to temperature. The bucket test of a before and after will prove this when one is fitted.
Please wait for the reports from the plumbers/Heating engineers on this Furum.
Cheers

David Furlong

Are you looking to replace the pre-heat function in boilers with this type of product ?

 

[CombiSave]

Hi GQuigley67.

That decision will be with them, they will probably wait and see what the demand is for the CombiSave before they jump in. But it has been designed to be installed during the boiler manufacturing process as it can be supplied with out the multi-angle swivel joints. Also in the drawings for the boiler manufactures the Combisave could be fitted with a by-pass so to give the end user a choice of running with it on or off, a bit like the pre heat.
Cheers

Dave

 

[Gray0689]

So let me get this straight it restricts the flow from on hot till up to temp then releases when up to temp?
What is the mechanical side to it powered or mechanical
What is the service time scale recommended ?

 

[CombiSave]

Hi Gray.
Yes it slows the flow down to 2.5 litres if it is below set temperature of around 44-45 C (but this can be adjusted to suit easily). This then causes the water in the boiler to warm up a lot faster and then the valve gently opens to give full unrestricted flow. There is another plus to the CombiSave and that is that it maintains the outlet temperature so that in the winter on some boilers you won't then get a luke warm flow.
It is mechanical using no power and comes with a 3 year warranty, it's British built by a long established company who made valves and sensors for Rolls Royce engines for Spitfires, Lancaster's Etc and still make things for the MOD.
There is no servicing required and has an expected lifespan of around 20 years.
Cheers

Dave Furlong

 

[ecowarm]

Nice meeting you Dave today, and would just like to pass on the results from the install of a combisave at my mothers house.

Test before the install. At the kitchen tap just under 8l of water flowed into a bucket before the temp reached 40c, the same was recorded at the bath.

After fitting, we tested again and just under 4l of water flowed into the bucket and the water was noticeably hotter quicker getting to 45c.

The combisave had to be adjusted because the brittony se80 would not fire at 2.5l per min. and would have saved more water if it had.

Eco