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Discuss New boiler? Tank? System? Help! Again.. in the Plumbing Jobs | The Job-board area at PlumbersForums.net

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Badgersbum

Hi,
I've registered, so here goes again...

I moved house last year and have inherited an eccentric plumbing system..
I have a Worcester boiler 90/110 from 2001. It has no valve in system allowing me to turn off the heating though and through winter I have to run heating and hot water at same time to get heating to work. The controller for heating merely controls a circulating pump, no mechanical valve.
I currently have a very small, uninsulated hot water tank, that needs upgrading and moving to make space in a bathroom.
As far as I can see I can keep the old boiler, move a new tank into the loft and raise header tanks above (lots of ree routing of pipework).
Or replace tank with unvented hot water tank in loft (new bigger required?)
Or replace the whole lot with an oil combi boiler?
Any suggestions as to which is better option? House is old, quite large,4 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 1 en suite.
Any advice greatly received

Thanks
Neil
 
Ill be completely honest and say get a G3 Gas Safe engineer round to take a look at what you have already in place and what you require now, they will be able to tell you what is suitable for you and your demands.
 
Once you go over 1 bathroom then a combi will struggle. Other options depend on water flow and pressures.
 
Ill be completely honest and say get a G3 Gas Safe engineer round to take a look at what you have already in place and what you require now, they will be able to tell you what is suitable for you and your demands.

Any G3 registered engineer will do, preferably one registered with Oftec to deal with the oil boiler as well.
 
Have really good mains pressure if that helps?
Heard some bad things about oil combi boilers, any opinions??

Thanks
 
Oil or gas combis will do your average 2/3 bedroomed, 1 bathroom house. Anything more than that then steer clear. My opinion anyway.



So then you need to look at actual water flow, static water pressure and dynamic water pressure. If they are good to go then it's a heat only boiler, unvented cylinder and a s plan to control it.
 
you do not need a Gas plumber you require an Oftec registered plumber look at OFTEC - Oil & Renewable Heating Technologies
there are approved plumbers local to you listed.
I think the boiler you have has 2 connections on the left and 2 connections on the right. One set of connections is connected to the cylinder by gravity circulation and the other set is connected to the radiators with a pump.
Oil Combi boilers are completely different to Gas Combi boilers.
An Oil Combi boiler has a thermal store built in which is typically 80 Litres The energy from this is taken through a small heat exchanger to heat tap water and then the output goes through a blending valve to make the tap water temperature safe.

When looking at oil combi boilers the specification is time to reheat the store.
(with a gas boiler it is flow in litres/minute)
also try looking at www.grantuk.
 
Other thoughts:- one complication can be water hardness when installing an oil combi boiler or an unvented cylinder the benchmark certificate asks what anti scale treatment has been fitted.
All boilers for the last 10 years are condensing so drainage of the condensate is required.
I have customers who are very happy with oil combi boilers and others who have unvented cylinders.
 
All the above comments are valid however, just to throw my tuppence worth in:

When I'm quoting on an oil job I usually ask why they want a combi, as opposed to an UVDHW cylinder set up and gerenerally most people don't understand the problems that can occur, or that an oil combi is different to a gas combi. Once I've explained the whole setup to them they usually go for the cylinder option though :)

Most oil burning systems are 'Off grid' so by definition they're in urban settings and this can be a problem if the boiler fails and they have children that need baths/showers etc.

I always advocate the installation of an electric shower in at least one of the bathrooms for the reason that if the boiler fails, at least they can still have some means of bathing.
After that it's really just a question of convenience:

  • Is there enough in the budget for the extra that an oil combi costs?
  • Where can the UVDHW cylinder be sited?
  • How does the condensate get routed?
etc etc

Oil combi's are, by nature, bigger than a gas combi so this needs to be taken into account as well.
 
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