Oil fired central heating what do I need to know?

[ericmark]

Looking at new to us house, it has oil central heating, never had a house with this before, only worked on space heaters in the past.

So are oil burners now modulating? If so how well do they modulate? So depending on those answers what type of TRV's are used, should I take the four eTRV heads from here, and expand or start again? Three floors on new property, garage converted to granny flat is where boiler is, then two floors above that.

Did not note boiler type, make etc. What should I look for? I have all the old wax heads for radiators here and the hub also works energy meter, etc. Energenie is the make, would not say best so could leave and start again, or could start all over again.

Since some areas of house will not need heating it would make sense to have eTRV heads, but it seems EvoHome is better than Energenie so may be the time to swap?

 

[oilboffin]

No mystery in oil they don't modulate although some firms make one that does a little bit but not a lot.if you keep your tank free from water and have good filters in the line get the boiler serviced at least once a year and get an OFTEC regd engineer this means you can complain to them all in all just stay calm and get used to it.you'll find it very warm.Bob

 

[ericmark]

I can google like everyone else, "The Warmflow B-SERIES Boiler house Condensing Oil Boiler 15-21kW" there are clearly modulating boilers, however not the 6-24 kW seen with gas, and I am unsure with such a limited output that it is actually going to do any good?

And this is really the question, pre the condensing boiler the idea of having a boiler larger than required made some sense, but with the condensing boiler it became important not to over size the boiler, and also the whole idea of the of radiators changed, having a radiator which holds as little water as possible and is as light as possible is the aim with a gas modulating boiler so the temperature does not over shoot, ideal would be something like the Myson ivector although they are rather expensive.

However before the modulating boiler the reverse was true, we wanted a large radiator so when boiler switched off the heat stored in the radiator continues to be delivered into the house, the away around the problem would be a heat store, OK this may be the best system, but likely not the most cost effective, in the same way as with gas the ivector is likely the best but not cost effective.

I had a Myson one of the early models in my home for years, it was fast heating the home, but also it cooled down quickly so supplemented with a standard radiator, I think the fan assisted radiator is great to save space in the kitchen, but no so good in other rooms.

So now I need to consider what to do with the 4 electronic TRV heads, leave them in old house, or take them with us, the buyer of my old house will likely be better off with the original wax TRV heads, specially when the valves have been placed on wrong end of radiators, I think it was all down to lock shield valve settings which caused the heating not to work well to start with, but with a new house it does mean I could start again with knowledge gained and get it better.

So step one is to understand the system, which is what my aim is with this thread, and to date it seems even if there are modulating oil boilers they modulate that little I can forget about them?

 

[fluorescence]

Have you looked into LPG?

We just have a bog standard combi boiler (jetted/set up as required to run on LPG)