Advice on central heating

[ElchenUK]

I will be shortly upgrading my central heating system due to some major problems which have never been resolved. My home is a 100 year old terraced house with three bedrooms and one bathroom. One of the bedrooms is a small box room with a conventional boiler in it that takes up much of the room, in the loft there is a cold water tank that protrudes from the ceiling and is unsightly. I have two small children and require hot water every evening before bed. Ever since moving in to the house about threee years ago only the upstairs rads have worked, which is ok at bedtime but horrible downstairs in the winter! I have had numerous plumbers in to resolve the problem and they all tell me it would be cheaper to replace the whole system. Therefore I need to determine what central heating would be best for my requirements considering the fact that I would like to use the small box room as a proper bedroom i.e. remove the huge boiler in there.
TIA.

 

[Bahco]

I would opt for a combi boiler, you only heat water that you need and although you cannot run 2 hot taps at the same time and get a poorer flow than a open vented conventional boiler so what.
I have 2 small children and our combi is ample.
Opt for a good make such as Worcester or Valliant.

 

[SarahHaugh]

I'd agree with the combi boiler. My mum has one and thinks it is brilliant, it is about 15 years old. When I lived with her I thought it was brilliant too, and we never had any problems with it. Some people complain that there is low flow in the kitchen and that if you try and run a bath and a tap down stairs the flow is slow. However my mums is on the upstairs landing of a terraced house over 4 floors and she has never had any of these problems, this may be because it is in the middle of the house not in the kitchen? If I could afford it in my own house now I would opt for combi every time.

 

[oilman]

I have had numerous plumbers in to resolve the problem and they all tell me it would be cheaper to replace the whole system.

B****y merchants. This is greed and incompetence. They should be able to define the problem, say what would cure it or admit they haven't a clue. (I have to admit this frequently, but at least people know the position).

.......only the upstairs rads have worked, which is ok at bedtime but horrible downstairs in the winter!

Turn them off and see if the downstairs ones work. If they do the radiators need balancing, if they don't the down stairs ones may be blocked somewhere. BUT IT CAN BE FIXED.. You can survive quite well with no heating upstairs, our house is the same age and we have no heat upstairs.

I have two small children and require hot water every evening before bed.

Nah...cold baths are character building