Combi boiler or regular boiler

jannowretired

I am installing from scratch central heating and I have to decide between a combi boiler and a regular boiler.

If I get a combi boiler I will have to change my shower as it uses the HWC for hot water and I will also have to change the valve in my toilet.

And if anything goes wrong with the combi boiler, no hot water or heating.

With a regular boiler I retain my HWC and immersion and no change to my plumbing except to connect the hot water to the new boiler. My hot water is already heated by a gas water heater.

Which is most economical, combi or regular boiler?

southcoastrgi

get your RGI to advise you based on your circumstances

RavingMad

I was told to base it on number of people and usage. If only two people, it would be more economical for combi, a normal boiler for more people.

I_have_spoken

Without a tank, you wont be able to use ground heat pump etc

jannowretired

you wont be able to use ground heat pump etc

Why would I want to use a ground heat pump when I have gas?

SuzieSue

I would always have a regular boiler as I would want to have an immersion heater in case the boiler breaks down.

You might find the following article useful:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/11215610/The-value-of-keeping-the-pressure-up.html

I_have_spoken

jannowretired wrote: »

Why would I want to use a ground heat pump when I have gas?

Could be cheaper over many years

jannowretired

Could be cheaper over many years

Not from what I have heard.

jannowretired

Do heating engineers and plumbers not want work?

I have contacted 4 so far in the past 2 weeks and not one has called me back when they said they would.

Nilrem

Depending on the shower type you probably won't have to replace it if you go with a combi - a standard mixer shower can quite happily run from a combi boiler (ours works much better as it's got better pressure from the combi than from the header tank only 3-4 foot above it that provided the pressure for the hot water tank).

I'm also unsure of why you'd need to change the valve in the toilet, unless it's something unusual they're normally quite happy with the cold water from the main supply (again we didn't have to change anything on ours when we changed to a combi).

IIRC the only issue we did have was that the combi boiler showed up a problem with the thermostatic mixer in our shower (or rather made it more obvious, it had been problematic for a while), but that was sorted with a direct replacement of the part that took about 10 minutes to fit. The old one had been in since the shower was fitted about 15 years before.

jannowretired

I'm also unsure of why you'd need to change the valve in the toilet,

Because it is a low pressure valve and needs to be changed to a high pressure valve.

a standard mixer shower

But it is not a standard mixer shower, it is a power shower which has a pump in it.

I did get a quote a while back but I wanted more quotes, I do not like the plumber I got a quote from, he did not inspire confidence.