Boiler confusion

matelodave

You could probably enhance your system efficiency and reduce costs with a few controls - a tank stat, room stat (ideally programmable) and a couple of two port valves could save you a fair amount.

I'd guess that with a gravity system you have to have hot water even when you only want heating and possibly if you've got a room stat it only switches the pump on & off leaving the boiler to cook away all the time. Turning the boiler on & off with an external room or tank stat and preventing gravity circulation through the hot water tank when it's not required will save a lot of energy.

My old Baxi lasted 35 years and I would have kept it going if the heat exchanger hadn't rotted away. There's only a gas valve & thermocouple to go wrong rather than microprocessor controls, fans and other gubbins in a modern condensing boiler.

Keep it is along as you possibly can. Just changing a boiler to try and save money is rarely cost effective whereas better controls and improving your insulation will give you a better return.

shortchanged_2

matelodave wrote: »

You could probably enhance your system efficiency and reduce costs with a few controls - a tank stat, room stat (ideally programmable) and a couple of two port valves could save you a fair amount.

I'd guess that with a gravity system you have to have hot water even when you only want heating and possibly if you've got a room stat it only switches the pump on & off leaving the boiler to cook away all the time. Turning the boiler on & off with an external room or tank stat and preventing gravity circulation through the hot water tank when it's not required will save a lot of energy.

My old Baxi lasted 35 years and I would have kept it going if the heat exchanger hadn't rotted away. There's only a gas valve & thermocouple to go wrong rather than microprocessor controls, fans and other gubbins in a modern condensing boiler.

Keep it is along as you possibly can. Just changing a boiler to try and save money is rarely cost effective whereas better controls and improving your insulation will give you a better return.

Not these days. I have separate controls for my hot water and heating and they can run together or independently of each other on a gravity fed system.

C_Mababejive

I wonder what make and model your baxi boiler is? One option you might like to consider is to have the hot water circuit converted to fully pumped thus speeding up cylinder recovery rate. I am a great fan of storage systems for family homes. As an example my gas wall boiler here is about 34 years old and the cylinder is proably the same age though it has plenty of lagging on it. The significant bit from my point of view is that it is fully pumped and the cylinder is of optimal volume for the household i.e it isnt too big..so it provides hot water when we need it without the waste of storing too much HW. A lower volume also recovers quicker.

An unvented cylinder would be even better for mains pressure hot water but then if you have plenty of "free" pressure by virtue of the physical height of the cylinder then maybe you dont need the expense of unvented either?

EssexExile

I've found the combi/tank-in-the-cupboard discussion very useful. I've often wondered about the pros & cons of each, I'll stick with the tank.

But back to the original post, it may be worth considering a new boiler anyway depending on what your bills are like. We had the house extended & a new condensing boiler put in at the same time & our gas usage fell by about a third. On the negative side the new boiler is more complicated than the old "fire under a bucket" type & has needed repair three times in ten years at a total cost of about £250. I'll let you do the sums but in our case we're still saving money.