New hot water system - Combi boiler vs unvented system vs standard tank

dominoman

We've just moved in to a new house and the plumbing is pretty old and cranky. There are two showers, one running off a normal old cylinder wrapped in cloth which looks like it was installed in the dark ages. The pump is broken.

The other shower is electric, running off the mains and pumps but has a broken heating coil.

For now I'm putting in a cheap electric shower to tide us over, but I've been looking at a whole new system.

I can't decide what to go for.

Options:

• New boiler and an unvented cyclinder - Lots of hot water, but most expensive
• New combi boiler - Gets rid of the tank but is it as good?
• Just replace the boiler and hot water tank

Any advice would be massively appreciated. I'm just not sure of the pros and cons of each so can't decide.

Johnandabby

It will also depend on your mains water pressure - if it's poor, then you won't be able to run two showers at once anyway from a mains pressurised cylinder, so a combi boiler could be a good option.

Plumber90

Combis are good aslong as you get a powerful one and not a puddly small one. You can't beat unvented but as you said they are a lot more expensive, nothing wrong with a combi at all but unvented is better.

No point in keeping a vented system if your going to change it, very old system now and the other two styles are much better.

mandm65

I would be tempted to check the flow rates into the property before I make any decision on vented/unvented/combi.

Assuming the flow rates are good enough then a system boiler with an unvented cylinder is the best solution, (implications to find space for the cylinder). This will give you good hot water flow rates and perhaps back up for hot water in remote instance where boiler/Gas supply fails.

I would be tempted to avoid combi, thats just a personal opinion and i mam sure many here would beg to differ.

Good luck with whatever you solution you choose.

Tontontof

I thought/read that combi boilers shouldn't be used when there are more than 1 shower in the property because of lack of pressure when the 2 are running at the same time.
Where you planning on keeping the electric one?

southcoastrgi

As the thread is nearly 18 months old I would have thought the OP has made a choice by now