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Condensing boilers
kilaxy
Posts: 2 Newbie
I am in process of replacing an old boiler. I have a water softener & have so far been told;-
A) I must have a stainless steel heat exchanger as soft water rots any other material.
It is better to have a cast aluminium as it lasts longer than stainless steel.
C) It does not matter if the water is softened as the boiler is not fed off the mains
D) It does not matter if the water is softened because an inhibitor is added to the header tank
Can anyone help?
A) I must have a stainless steel heat exchanger as soft water rots any other material.
It is better to have a cast aluminium as it lasts longer than stainless steel.C) It does not matter if the water is softened as the boiler is not fed off the mains
D) It does not matter if the water is softened because an inhibitor is added to the header tank
Can anyone help?
0
Comments
-
Hi
Personally I only fit boilers with stainless steel heat exchangers, so there is no problem with soft water.
Aluminium boilers such as Worcester do no like artificially softened water. See here system cleansing.
Straight from the manufacturers mouth.
A system can be filled by using the bypass on the softener, but who will remember to do that every time it needs topping up or is drained down to be worked on?
GSRAsk to see CIPHE (Chartered Institute of Plumbing & Heating Engineering)0 -
Thank you Canucklehead. I had tried reading the posts to do with this but it made heavy going. Your answer directed me to check out what type of heat exchanger my boiler has - it's stainless steel so I guess a water softener is possible.
Many thanks!0 -
Regarding the comment about bypassing the water softener to top-up a sealed system [using hard water]:
Does that overlook the fact that the domestic hot water (DHW) is also provided by the combi?
I can understand that if the CH system is topped up using hard water every now & then, the boiler's heat exchanger won't be exposed to the artifically softened water.... but surely the DHW will be using the soft water all the time so if it's an aluminium heat exchanger in the boiler it will still be corroded by the soft water anyway?
Confused of Suffolk.....
Steve0 -
The plate HE that makes the HW is not made of Aluminimum, only the main HE.
The plate HE is not affected by the softened water.
Even those such as the Intergas that have an aluminimum HE and no plate are ok as the aluminimum waterwaters are lined with copper.0 -
Marvelous, thanks for the explanation.
Cheers,
Steve0 -
as above. most boilers have a primary HE (for the CH) and a plate HE (for the DHW).Get some gorm.0
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