What sort of Central Heating Boiler

We changed to a Combi boiler 6 years ago for all the reasons DK mentioned in his OP. 

We have seen our bills go down over that time, we are on an  LPG bulk tank so cost is important to us. 

Another benefit we have now of this system is that we no longer have to worry about a tank leaking or burst pipes in the attic especially while we are away.

Our combi boiler has a pre heat setting so always hot water or when away we can switch it to 'Economy' which stops it from pre heating the water. We are very happy with our system and wouldn't want to go back to a tank again. The shower works from the boiler and is a very good pressure. We live in a 3 bedroom bungalow.

As we had a 5 year warranty with the boiler which is now out of that cover we have a yearly boiler and breakdown cover policy with the makers of the boiler so no worries on that account.

Thanks for all the interesting comments. As with all things design and regulations move on. Our boiler is currently in our utility room and the flue exits into our next door neighbours property between the two houses. This apparently is no longer allowed. Originally their back gate was much further back but when we built our extension they moved their gate. Can't blame that as I would have done the same. It seems that we can't put a boiler anywhere else in the utility as the flue would be too close to a window. This leaves the loft which personally I would not be very happy about or our current airing cupboard. The airing cupboard seems the best solution as all the piping and controls are already there except for the gas supply. Margaret would not be happy about losing the space in the airing cupboard. One way round this would be to do away with the immersion heater tank in that cupboard (as well as the loft tanks). I appreciate that we would be putting all our eggs in one basket so to speak but is that such a bad thing? We always have the motorhome at the bottom of the garden! 

David

For 20 years now our house has had 'all eggs in one basket', and in that time our first combi broke down twice in the 18 years, we have never had a gas supply problem but have had many electric supply ones. Combis' are very reliable and sized correctly will give an abundance of hot water at 1.5 to 2.5 bar pressure, siting it can be difficult as the regulations dictate the condensate must go to drain, in a kitchen this can be done easily behind units to tap into the sink waste but elsewhere is slightly more problematic.

Can the flue not have an extension pipe fitted to take the fumes upward away from the window?

This type of thing is often used these days as the "plume" from the boiler should not be allowed to cause nuisance to neighbours or exit too close to a window.

Our boiler is also close to the window in our utility room, it was permitted 30 years back as it has a "fanned flue".  We have absolutely no alternative place to put the boiler as all the other outside wall is taken up by the window and the door to the garden.

Taking it upward would work for us as we have no windows above and have a 2 metre wide side path.

Can the flue not have an extension pipe fitted to take the fumes upward away from the window?

It sounds like a possibility but I don't have the technical knowledge to say yes or no. However I do wonder if the stubby flues are designed to provide the boiler with oxygen as well as to expel waste fumes. Perhaps a longer extension flue might prevent this?

David

When we had our boiler fitted we had the choice of putting it in the cylinder cupboard or a cubby hole under the stairs which was accessible from outside but would mean the flue exiting under the carport.

Taking the flue through the loft space would have been quite expensive and the back wall of the cubbyhole was in an ideal place to run the pipework from, so that's where the boiler is situated.

We had the header tank and the now redundant cylinder removed so there is now no worry about leaks, a problem we have had once in the past whilst away in the van.  It's a nasty shock to come home from a fortnight away to find the house flooded from a dislodged overflow pipe.

I don't think so, our daughter has a relatively new house with a  condensing boiler with the stubby flue, it exits the back wall of the kitchen .

 Her neighbour has put a conservatory on the back wall, over where the flue  came out, so they have a pipe about a metre long fitted to it that goes up through the roof of the  conservatory.  So it must be OK.

If you look at the flue pipes you will see that they are double walled,the air is drawn in between the inner and outer wall,the exhaust gases come oit in the middle section..

I have seen a few condensing extension flues on boilers around our town which lift the height a metre or so then come out horizontal as before. I did look into one for our boiler , ( as ours is prone to activating the outside light ) and found flue extension kits are only available for certain makes of boilers but sadly not ours.

One important thing I forgot to mention about flues is that as well as not exiting into a neighbours garden or near a window they must also be within a certain distance from the edge of the house side which we seem to fail on all counts!!! So it seems that if we have a new boiler it will have to be moved from its current location in the utility room.

David