House renovation - New central heating system

googler

Harry_Powell wrote: »

I'm attempting to learn as much as I can so that when I do get some quotes I don't come across to the plumbers as the complete novice that I actually am, and therefore not quite such a lamb to the slaughter.

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googler

olly300 wrote: »

Combi boilers are bad if:

2. There are people in during the day who need hot water as it's more expensive to heat

Why? Is your electricity and gas more expensive during the day?

EagerLearner

Harry Powell good luck and thanks for asking the question as MrEL and I are in the same boat, just about to buy a place that has no GHC only electric heating - I went via checkatrade website and e-mailed 3 plumbers - one came back within 2 days, other took 6 days, other did not at all. Guess which one went in to the property to quote! When we are moved in we will get 2 more quotes just to be safe but looks like £4k ish inc VAT for combi and radiators.

olly300

googler wrote: »

Why? Is your electricity and gas more expensive during the day?

According to bits of information I've read and been told talking to plumbers, if you have people in your house during the day who are using hot water, it's cheaper to have a storage tank then a combi boiler.

I remember one was horrified that I lived in a rented flat with a storage tank as the there was not enough people living in the flat to warrant the tank, and even if there were more people the tank was too small for all the day's hot water.

treliac

When we needed our boiler replacing a couple of years ago, we deliberated over which to have. Eventually took our plumber's recommendation to have the traditional storage tank as he felt we would not have sufficient flow of hot water for a family.

I'm still not quite sure whether this was our best option. I don't like the idea of having all that water sitting above us! We have had a flood from a burst radiator and it caused devastation, so I'm very cautious about water now!

Sorry not to be able to add anything definitive to the discussion. Despite liking the idea of a combi, we have been very satisfied with the performance of the boiler we had installed.

One more point to consider is that if a combi goes wrong you may be left without heating and hot water. With a conventional system, you can still use the hot water tank with the immersion heater.