Electric Central Heating i.e Thermaflow v Amtec

gc_bus

Thomas1707 wrote: »

Hi we're looking at electric central heating systems, we have no gas in the block of flats. I'd seen the elnur combination boiler, ie with hot water tank. Just wondered how you're managing with this, ie is it sufficient for a decent shower - will most likely get a power shower installed.

Also, now you've had the boiler in for some time, what has been your experience, eg running costs, reliability, etc.

Thanks

Hi - the running costs are working out to be £70 per month since February this year so pleased with that. No problem with a shower as it has a 50 litre on-board store which detects pretty quickly when it needs heating up again (i.e. whilst having a shower). Our boiler is set to 6kw which takes ~15 mins to heat all 50 litres from cold. The boiler can be set to 15KW so obviously given sufficient power supply could be a lot quicker. It's been totally reliable so far.... :-) Hope that helps.

Thomas1707

gterr wrote: »

We have installed an Amptek (?9kW) boiler in our holiday cottage. This runs radiators and heats hot water, in a conventional arrangement with a timer regulating heating and hot water separately, TRVs on the radiators and a tank thermostat on the hot water cylinder.

There was an existing very old open fire with back-boiler running rads, so we didn't have to start from scratch, though we had to replace one or two very old radiators.

We ran this on Economy 10 for a year, but looked carefully at useage (total kWh) and worked out we'd be better off on a standard tariff, especially since we'd then be able to shop around for the best deal (much more choice with a standard meter than with an Economy 10 meter).

We have been pleasantly surprised at how reasonable the costs are: not as low as you'd get with modern technology such as ASHPs, perhaps, more like the average heating bill for a 2-bedroom detached bungalow in the Highlands. Also, we don't have annual service charges for the equipment. It takes up very little space and does not need an outside wall (no flue) or an oil tank.

Whatever you decide I would definitely steer clear of storage heaters: expensive and difficult to control to fit most peoples' lifestyles.

Hi can you give me an idea of annual running costs, and how reliable the unit has been since installation. I am planning to replace storage heaters and old hot water tank with an electric central heating plus dhw. Presumably you have a separate hot water tank?

rogerm

Message for gc_bus.

I am looking to fit the Elnur CMX15. I'm not bothered about the economy of it - I am looking for a high hot water flow rate. The Thermalux boiler gives out 30 litres per minute of hot water which is great but that is too big .

Does the Elnur have a high enough flow rate for a really powerful hot shower?

gc_bus

rogerm wrote: »

Message for gc_bus.

I am looking to fit the Elnur CMX15. I'm not bothered about the economy of it - I am looking for a high hot water flow rate. The Thermalux boiler gives out 30 litres per minute of hot water which is great but that is too big .

Does the Elnur have a high enough flow rate for a really powerful hot shower?

Yes as it is fed at mains pressure i.e. cold mains water into the bottom forcing hot water out of the storage tank at the top. SO, unless you've a really really long pipe run it should be very close to the force of water that you're getting out of your cold tap. Ours certainly is :-)

gc_bus

Well, we've nearly had our Elnur CMX15 electric boiler for a nearly year now and our TOTAL electricity bill is averaging £73 per month. It works well for us for the one hour in the morning (at 20c) and six hours in the evening each day (at 21.5c) - might be a bit more eye-watering if we were there 24 x 7 though. So for us with no gas standing charge to pay/gas boiler servicing the costs are very good. All achieved with very very good insulation.

Happy New Year for 2014 everyone.

gc_bus

Well, after slightly more than two years of having an Elnur CMX15 electric combi boiler based central heating, the boiler decided to blow an internal joint; to leak water all over the kitchen work surface and generally soak its electrics.

Despite my previous posts extolling the virtues of such an electric CH system then this has changed my mind along with the longer term running costs (£80 per month x 12 and that was with us being careful with its usage) - I was wrong to go for this type of boiler in the first instance.

So, from tomorrow the boiler will be replaced with a gas combi boiler - yippee!

Schtroumpf

My flat only has electric. I need to replace the current system as it is old and inefficient. I'm also heating much more water than I use each day. The only electric Combi boiler I have found is this one: Elektra C, sold by the Electric Boiler Company. Does anyone have this boiler? If yes, what do you think?

Does anyone know if the Enlur CMX15 is truly a combi boiler? Does it only heat water on demand?

Does anyone know of any other electric combi boilers on the market?

Thank you in advance.

gc_bus

The Elnur CMX15 is a true combi boiler. It has a 50 litre pre-heated tank of water on board for on-demand use and gives priority to re-heating this if required over central heating demand. Once the water is heated back up to the user set temperature it reverts back to central heating (if required). The water heating part can be turned off if required.