Another new boiler recommendation!

[Paul Barker]

Stainless steel is not the best heat exchanger material, and in no means superior to aluminium correctly applied. Time (25 years) has proved the efficacy of aluminium silica construction condensing technology in Holland where 80% of boilers were condensers before John Prescott bought his second Jag.

British manufacturers' knee jerk reaction to problems of condensing techknowlogy is no recomendation against 25 years of experience in the field.

Gianoni made a generic stainless heat ex and provided a temporary solution to the wrong footed manufcaturers with little useful experience in the field. Stainless steel is a marvelous marketing tool in a country where fitteres are prejudiced against condensing techknowlogy because of the aborted efforts where the heat exchangers and burners rotted away, so to get fitters on board use a material they know won't rot. They'll promote it to people who ask questions on forums and we'll create a myth that sells our cobbled together product.

OTOH stainless stell doesn't make it as bad product either, it just isn't automatically better than tried and tested methods, except as a marketing tool or a sourcing tool since it's available off the shelf.

The reliability of all these new generation of boilers has yet to be proved, in 25 years we'll find out if they are as good as the Dutch ones are proved to be already.

 

[silverback]

If you are thinking of adding solar neither of these boilers are solar compatible, solar compatible combi's need to be able to take pre-heated water, Viessmann boilers can and Eco Hometec boilers can, I would reconsider the combi option as you would require an unvented cylinder to be fitted to store the solar heated water which is then passed to the combi, so why not have a system boiler with a twin coil unvented cylinder to pick up the solar at a later date

 

[poppins]

If you are thinking of adding solar neither of these boilers are solar compatible, solar compatible combi's need to be able to take pre-heated water, Viessmann boilers can and Eco Hometec boilers can, I would reconsider the combi option as you would require an unvented cylinder to be fitted to store the solar heated water which is then passed to the combi, so why not have a system boiler with a twin coil unvented cylinder to pick up the solar at a later date

Thanks. As the solar heating is much more of a longterm plan than the new heater, I think I'll stick with the condenser combi for now. Knowing me (and my finances) I probably wouldn't be able to get round to installing the solar heating for a few years and by that point I'll probably have moved house!