Balanced Flue v Combi boiler

[utterlydiy]

The current boiler is a Worcester Greenstar Ri - 8 yrs old, positioned in the kitchen behind a false cupboard door.

The hotwater tank approx 30"lg x 18"dia with loose insulating jackets in an upstairs airing cupboard, house being 35yrs old.

There are no issues with heating of our 4 bedroom detached with its radiators etc.

The problem lies with the hotwater storage. If 2 people have a shower one after the other, virtually all the hot water is gone at this time of year and having to reheat the hot water for an hour by the timer boost clock. The thermostat on the tank is set as low as possible within reason giving approx three quarters of the tank with hot water.

Shortly we are having the bathroom refurbished with a new shower cubicle and tiling etc.

The question, which would be better.
Change the tank to a larger capacity and re-plumb or remove the current system and install a combi in place of the Worcester. This then would allow to extend the bathroom into the airing cupboard space re-positioning the shower cubicle.

thanks

 

[ReJect]

Depends on the numbers of people living at your home and if the mains supply is up to it.
Combi might be great for you and would mean you also have the advantage of both hot and cold mains powered outlets.

Your hot cylinder at 30” high is very small and would empty after two decent showers.
If you decide to keep with a hot cylinder you could opt for one with high gain coil so the boiler will rapidly reheat it, or chose a twin coil cylinder and have both coils piped to, which will nearly halve the reheat time.
I would recommend showers taken whilst gas boiler is on heating cylinder

 

[JohnD]

having to reheat the hot water for an hour

A modern cylinder will reheat faster

A bigger cylinder will run for longer.

Have both.

mine starts reheating while the bath is being run. By the time you've splashed about, towelled off and cut your toenails, it's hot again.

 

[JohnD]

have both coils piped to, which will nearly double the reheat time.

halve.

 

[ReJect]

Probably coil in old cylinder is far too small and heat recovery is therefore slower than modern cylinders. You should have modern copper cylinders reheated in about half an hour if boiler is solely heating it

 

[ReJect]

halve.

Thanks for pointing out my error.
I luckily could still edit it, so sorted it now.

 

[Gasguru]

And in addition to a modern cylinder or adequate size consider fitting a flow limiter to the shower hose....8 litres/min is adequate.

 

[ianmcd]

All good advice, just for your future reference you do not get a balanced flue Worcester Ri

 

[CBW]

Probably coil in old cylinder is far too small and heat recovery is therefore slower than modern cylinders. You should have modern copper cylinders reheated in about half an hour if boiler is solely heating it

Yep, totally agree. We live in a new build with conventional system and modern cylinder. There’s 4 of us, x2 adults and x2 kids. Heat water up in morning for about 45 mins, does the wife’s shower, and will last until about 4pm ish (depending on usage) and heat it up at night time for higher usage for about 2 hours (timer not purely heating it) and that’ll last for my shower, kids baths and washing dishes.

 

[utterlydiy]

All good advice, just for your future reference you do not get a balanced flue Worcester Ri

OK it replaced a Glow Worm, I know it has a condenser drain to a waste drain. So I suppose its a condenser type of boiler.