Thanks for the response. Perhaps I should have given a bit more info – but had pretty much decided to put combis in anyway (though I am now wavering)
• These houses have student tenants – 8 in each house (without including any ‘guests’ they may have ‘stopped over'
) so will have plenty of activity, though largely via the showers.
• These houses already have ‘traditional’ systems with cylinders/headers that of course would be removed if we go down the combi route.
• There are 1 bathroom and 2 showerooms in each house – though only 1 bath and 1 shower will be fed by the combi (and of course all the sinks) the other 2 showers being electric.
• I am not proposing to change to combis to be a ‘cheap skate’ as there is already a system in place it would be cheaper to just replace the boiler.
• 2 combis not an option.
It seems the general consensus here is to keep the present system – which would mean just replacing the boilers. This surprises me – we have several combis in use and get very little trouble from them (though all our systems are on the b/gas 3star plan)
The main problem I see – nobody has mentioned. – When water is drawn via a combi – the water is of course given priority over heating – which then takes a few minutes to switch back to heating – this can mean that the house cools considerably over the course of the morning bathing/toilet session which could easily be an hour with this amount of people.
Now I am really unsure which route to go down.
I had pretty much decided to go for the w/b 37 greenstar cdi combi.
If I stick with a traditional boiler, is w/b still one of the top manufacturers?
Thanks
Andy