Electric Combi Boilers

OnanTheBarbarian

Hi all, until yesterday I never even knew that such thing existed (Electric Combi Boiler).

We have a cottage in a village that has no gas. It currently has some old Creda electric storage heaters and has the separate fuse box for the economy 7 gubbins.

We are renovating the place (currently uninhabited) and can recall when we lived there 10 years ago that the storage heaters were rubbish and barely took the edge off the place in terms of keeping it warm and they had no flexibility in terms of giving any immediate heat, so we are junking them.

There is a woodburner in the living room and it has a back boiler which heats a central heating system. it works very well but we never could keep it in over night and would result in coming home in the winter to a cold house, need to clean out the fireplace and light a fire and it would be a good hour or so before the system was going and chucking out the heat.

So we have a central heating system in place as far as radiators and pump etc are concerned.

What is the deal with these electric combi boilers? Are they any good? Do they cost a fortune to run?

We would like to be able to have hot water from the tank and for it to be able to heat the radiators when we did not want to have the log burner lit.

There are7 radiators in the current system and in all honesty we would probably do with an extra radiator in the living room.

So what is the general low down on these boilers?

1- Are they reliable?
2- Will they suit our purpose?
3- Do they cost a fortune to run?
4- Are there any brands to avoid?
5- Typical purchase price (average)


Any experience/ knowledge greatly appreciated.

warmhands.coldheart

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/259390

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/254013

Quite old threads but still might be of use.

Personally I think modern storage heaters are quite good and would be cheaper to run..

lstar337

It will be extremely expensive!

My vote would be to stick with E7 and get some modern fan assisted storage heaters from Dimplex, or look into some kind of biomass boiler which is fed automatically with wood pellets.

These kind of items should be eligible for some kind of cash-back under the GDHIF.

OnanTheBarbarian

Thanks, I've just done a quick search on the biomass boilers and, yikes!, they are expensive (£14K+) and we don't have space to store a decent quantity of pellets, so that one would not work out.

If it was not for the woodburner not staying lit overnight or through the day, we would be quite happy as I think a chainsaw and a walk in the local countryside would yield plenty of free wood from fallen trees etc.

The woodburner works excellent as far as heating the radiators is concerned and the hot water, but without it staying in, we need a decent background heatsource that does not always rely on building & lighting a fire.

Shame we have already binned 3 of the storage heaters, but they were crap.

lstar337

OnanTheBarbarian wrote: »

The woodburner works excellent as far as heating the radiators is concerned and the hot water, but without it staying in, we need a decent background heatsource that does not always rely on building & lighting a fire.

What about a thermal store?

http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/Generating-energy/Choosing-a-renewable-technology/Thermal-stores#1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2olziHrIG4E#t=186

You can store up the heat from your log burner, and release it overnight when you need it. You can also add in an electric boiler for when the log burner has not quite got the store up to temp.

You also have the option of adding further heat sources such as solar thermal.

muckybutt

OnanTheBarbarian wrote: »

we would be quite happy as I think a chainsaw and a walk in the local countryside would yield plenty of free wood from fallen trees etc.

Free wood is only free if you own it on your own land, taking a chainsaw into woodland and chopping up fallen branches without permission is illegal !

arboorman

Hi

I'm new to the forum - Hello

Just wondered if you've got any further with this?

We're in a similar situation, no gas to our street and currently have storage heaters that are useless.

I work in forestry so am keen to use timber to heat the house as I have free access to plenty (currently got 20m3 stored)

Looked at air source heat pumps but we have no where to position one and they seem expensive.

Currently looking at the idea of a wood burning stove with back boiler, solar panels and an electric boiler if all else fails all feeding into a thermal store.

A friend of mine (a tree surgeon) heats his entire house on solar panels and a back boiler but admits the down side is in the winter if they go away for a few days they will come back to a cold house if there's been little sun. Aside from that he heats the place more or less for free.

I'm thinking an electric boiler will plug the gap but can't find anyone with first hand experience.....

I'd be grateful for any feedback

captainhindsight_2

Get some quotes for an air source heat pump (if you havnt got the space for ground source) and maybe solar thermal too, the RHI payments are high atm and offering good returns so after 3-4 years of RHI payments it has paid for its self. And once the RHI payments stop it is much cheaper to run than any other alternative.