Why doesn't everyone hate combis?

dunroving

shortcrust wrote: »

Why on earth do you need to brush your teeth with hot water?! I don’t think much water gets wasted because most people just use cold.

Exactly my point. I'd also ask why you need to use hot water to wash your hands or rinse a cup - cold water and soap are enough. Don't even get me started on folks leaving the tap running while they brush their teeth!

shortcrust

dunroving wrote: »

Exactly my point. I'd also ask why you need to use hot water to wash your hands or rinse a cup - cold water and soap are enough. Don't even get me started on folks leaving the tap running while they brush their teeth!

Oh I see!:D I'm with you.

Waterlily24

My hubby built an airing cupboard around our boiler (all legal). It's huge and the boiler's hidden.

Ganga

angela110660 wrote: »

I love having an airing cupboard so thumbs up to my hot water tank

We also have an airing cupboard,its larger now the big copper tank is out and we have a combi:rotfl:

coffeehound

Think I've finally solved the mystery of the dwindling tap water flow as it heats up: it's due to the tap, not the combi ! This would explain e.g Custardy's post where it happens to some taps, but not to others.

It has been very noticeable in this place, with taps needing constant adjustment to maintain a steady hot flow, otherwise the flow would almost stop altogether.

Anyway, I had a bath the other night, and later that evening heard the sound of running water. On cooling down, the hot tap had started running again..

The penny finally dropped that this is also why flow slows down as the tap is heating up. Presumably expansion closes up the gap on some (poor) tap designs? Or maybe some sort of funny with ageing washers?

So apologies to combis for the false accusation there.

RelievedSheff

Having had a conventional boiler with hot water tank in our last house and a combi in this new house we much prefer the combi.

It has saved us a small fortune on our gas bill this summer as we are now longer heating a full tank of water twice a day that we may or may not use. We now only heat what we need when we need it.

TELLIT01

We've had a combi for about 10 years now and never experienced the problems described by the OP. Properly hot water is generally coming through within 10 to 15 seconds and that's a price I'm happy to pay to avoid having to constantly heat a large hot water cylinder.

fred246

As I understand it the big driver to fit combis was the profit margin for the plumber. Buy a combi for £600 and charge £3k. £2400 profit. We have got a Megaflo which cost over a £1k. People seem to think £3k is OK. £4k would be too much so the plumber would lose the £1k.

vw100

Replaced a old regular system in a 5 bedroom house, 1 bath and 1 shower, although not used at same time. 35kw combi - no problems what so ever. 13 Rads. Great flow rate and mains pressure is good.

Advantages - simple system, energy efficient, compact and cheaper system to fit and maintain.

The boiler has a pre-heat function so less time to wait when running the hot tap and thus less water wastage. Although this uses slightly more gas as the boiler regularly heats the water for quicker delivery.

Combi's all day long.

Dan-Dan

coffeehound wrote: »

A

• Long delay (typically a minute or so) before hot water comes out of a tap.
  
• Flow-dependant temperature, sometimes meaning that for properly hot water, only a slow flow can be used.
  
• Bizarre and infuriating tendency to slow down the hot water flow until eventually it is a trickle, at which point the boiler switches itself off and (having wandered off to do something else) you come back to a cold trickle coming out of the tap!
  
• Pause the hot flow even for a moment, like if you accidently knock the shower lever, and the damn boiler immediately shuts down. You then have to wait (again) while the water goes alternately hot and cold until the wretched thing has got its life together.
  
• And of course during the household's morning ablutions, the boiler can only do one thing at once, so the central heating goes off and the house goes cold...

How and why do people put up with all this inconvenience? With everybody supposedly too busy these days to even look up from their phone while they are walking, why do they tolerate standing like a lemon at a sink waiting for water to run hot each time they want to brush their teeth or wash a mug?

Absolutley bizarre, you obviously have not met in your life a decent plumber who can help you with the obvious system faults you have been unlucky enough to have 6 or 7 times :think: