Heating system advice

[chippie84]

Hi all, just after a bit of advice before I make a fool of myself ! . I'm not sure what heating system I have , I have a Valiant boiler in the loft which only has one small tank beside it and a cylinder in the bathroom below. I'm considering getting the boiler and cylinder removed and a combi boiler put in the cupboard the cylinder was in , as I feel a combi would be better for us.

Before I get someone in to take a look I just wanted to know if this is at all possible
(changing from one system to another ) and if so , when changing to a combi would this meaning re piping the entire house, rads etc?

Thanks
Jon

 

[Mottie]

Why do you feel the combi would be better for your use?

 

[JohnD]

what colour is the cylinder?

 

[chippie84]

This will sound awful but basically we've had problems with the boiler for a while, well not actually the boiler...To get heat or water we've just been flicking a switch and turning the boiler on and off so we always get both, heat and hot water , we can't get either individually!. I assume this is a possibly a programmer problem , and we would just prefer to have hot water "on tap" rather than setting timers , as I work quite varied shifts. (When I need it the wife doesn't )... And as I'm considering a loft conversion it would be handy to shift the boiler out of the loft .
Thanks

 

[chippie84]

What colour? ..forgive my ignorance !

 

[JohnD]

yes, what colour? It might be white, blue, green, yellow, copper-coloured or red-wrapped. Or silver.

and what size?

If you post some photos of the controls, cylinder, boiler and "tank" that will help more than you think.

 

[chippie84]

Not 100% to be honest , it's mustard coloured and size roughly 4' x 16" capacity size wise I don't know

 

[JohnD]

yellow. So it's a vented cylinder about 25 years old. It holds about 125 litres which is a good bath.

there must be one, possibly two, tanks, probably in your loft.

The cylinder should, but might not, have a thermostat strapped to it that should turn off the boiler trying to heat it once it reaches target temperature. There will be a small thermostat on the thermostat. It should be set to about 60C

Yours is not to recent standard, but will stay hot for more than 24 hours or until you run it cold.

there should be a timer Perhaps yours is faulty or wrongly set.

the thermostat will look something like
https://www.screwfix.com/c/heating-...ls/cat831450#category=cat831450&sort_by=price

 

[chippie84]

Great thanks, yes it has a Honeywell thermostat, set to 50 at the moment and there is one tank in the loft , roughly 2'x2' asbestos. We don't have a bath , just an electric shower , so we only need the boiler for heating system and water from the tap

 

[JohnD]

if the cylinder thermostat is working, it will stop drawing heat from the boiler once the cylinder is hot, you don't need to turn it on and off manually.

Your central heating should have one (possibly more) wall thermostat. When the house is warm enough to reach your chosen temperature, it will stop drawing heat from the boiler.

When neither the cylinder stat nor the room stat are calling for heat, the boiler will stop firing.

You should also have a timer or programmer of some kind. Outside the hours you have set, the boiler will not fire.

There is no reason for you to turn the boiler on and off manually, unless one or more of these controls or another component is faulty or missing.

BTW energy from electricity costs four or five times as much as energy from gas, so if you have a HW cylinder heated by the boiler, you are throwing money away to use the electric shower.

 

[chippie84]

Thanks very much for the info it's really helpful. So with having an electric shower I would probably be better having a combi as it would only heat the water ,say for the bathroom and kitchen sinks , when needed instead of storing far more water than we require?

 

[JohnD]

do you see a problem with having stored hot water? What is it, and how does it compare with the cost of buying a new boiler?

Have you considered that when a combi boiler breaks down, none of your taps have hot water?

 

[chippie84]

This is all new to me !, when a non combi boiler breaks down would you still get hot water at the taps ?
With there only being 2 of us here, both working full time , so not using huge amounts of hot water ,we would constantly be reheating the same water, surely not cost effective ?

 

[Mottie]

With a combi boiler, that is the only way of heating your hot water. With the system you already have, if the boiler breaks down you can always heat the water by the electric immersion heater fitted to your hot water cylinder. A properly insulated hot water cylinder will keep the water hot for ages so you’ll not really be constantly heating it up. Probably not quite as cost effective as a combi but the water will be hotter plus, switching to a combi will involve some replumbing work and may even require a new gas feed to the boiler.

 

[dilalio]

Having a combi boiler also requires a certain pressure and flow on your incoming mains, so that needs checking... although you do have a mains fed electric shower, it stills needs checking.