to not want to wait 10 minutes for hot water in my bathroom!

[ChairmanoftheBored]

I really don't think its too much to ask to be able to jump in the shower within a minute or so of turning it on.

As it is, my morning routine involves switching on tap on full, then down a bit, then down and bit more. Still no bastard hot water! luke warm at best. After much faffing I can finally get in the shower by this point its so hot its taking the skin off my back.

Then I don't dare turn it down for fear of going back to freezing cold.

This is a trivial matter I know, but if I have to hear my DH say one more time "you're running the water too fast, too slow, just get out the way and let me do it!) I think I will ask for a divorce!

I hate our showers. They all think, I swear. They plan action to upset me.

Any chance of getting a new one in?

both think. (I haven't got 20!) You see how agitated they've got me just thinking about them?

Could you get an electric shower put in? Much more reliable, and not affected by things like someone flushing a loo in another part of the house!

My DH knows (or thinks he knows) a bit about these matters. He has been telling me for a few years now that this is normal with a combi boiler. I have spoken to lots of people and this is not normal.

Its like there is a magic art of creating hot water in our house. When the moons and planets are in perfect alignment you may, just may get a decent shower.
Maybe I should just refuse to shower Ha Ha Ha , see how he likes them apples!!!

We have this problem.
We have a combi boiler....

We have this problem with our sink hot tap. It's annoying, especially in the winter. Yanbu.

We can't get hot water to the basin at all. My poor children will probably be scarred for life after all the icy cold face washes every morning.
The boiler is about 10 years old. We are fairly hard up. Although it is driving me mad, I daren't get an engineer in, just in case it costs hundreds, only to ultimately end up no better off.

Yanbu . Hot water, straight away is a must especially, in a morning. I turn the downstairs tap on when my DC is faffing in the shower... she soon jumps out

We have this problem with our combination boiler too. It's fine when we have the heating on but new thats off (or was) we are back to the long wait again

Chairman if it's any help,we got a new boiler and it only improved matters,it didn't solve them.We still have a wait for the hot water to arrive at the basin and the bath.

At least we can run a bath now and have it more than lukewarm unless you boil a kettle and micro manage the taps.

Turn the cold water on in the sink. You will find the required level to heat the shower water.

If running a bath we run the hot tap slow (as have more control than the shower which is a mixer) so it runs hot.

Round here the water pressure goes up in the winter so much so that the boiler can't keep up with the flow of water - we cyphon some off via the cold tap (or put on a laundry and dishwasher wash) and the water runs hotter.

Come summer the water pressure drops and the water runs hot without fiddling.

We've had the same problem with our combi boiler. I googled and thought it was just something to put up with in the winter but at our service the engineer said the plate heat exchanger needs changing. We'll still have a bit of a seasonsl issue but hope this will improve things.

I'm now wondering whether if will help.

Sorry the part was about £100+vat with labour on top. Haven't booked it yet.

I lived in a flat a while back with a combi + shower.

It's a pain.

Unfortunately your DH is probably right. :o

My procedure went:

1. Ensure no other water usage whatever
2. Ensure mixer tap is set to tap not shower
3. Turn hot full on, cold off.
4. Wait 90 seconds
5. Now test temperature and gently increase cold
6. When temperature seems right wait further 20s and retest.
7. Now when completely sure that temp is right, and only then ....
8. Switch the mixer to shower.
9. "Enjoy" shower.

Simple. :o

I'm sorry to hear about all these bad experiences; but I'm afraid that these are inherent problems of most or many combi boilers.

The heat control system within combi boilers is an order of magnitude more complex than non-combi boilers; and I'm afraid that the technology simply isn't good enough to deliver what's expected at a price that most people are prepared to pay.

The only answer is to go back to a good old non-combi boiler with a hot water storage cylinder.

This has 3 big advantages over a combi boiler.

(1) The non-combi boiler operates with a simple on/off gas control valve: it's relatively easy & cheap to manufacture highly-reliable valves that are either fully open or fully closed. So the boilers themselves are much less likely to break down or malfunction.

(2) If the boiler does breakdown then use a back-up electric immersion heater to provide plenty of hot water at the flick of a switch (OK, takes half an hour to heat up from cold; or use a timer).

(3) There should be enough flow-capacity in the hot water pipes to allow someone to take a shower and someone else to (say) wash their hands without the shower temperature or flow being disrupted. This is even more true if it's a thermostatic shower.

If you're going to have to replace your combi boiler then why not replace it with a (high efficiency condensing) non-combi boiler + hot water storage cylinder?

I thought that this was only me!

We have a cast iron bath so by the time the pathetic dribble of hot water has filled it, the cold metal has leached all the heat from the water!!!!! So many cold showers and arguments later I can take it no more and its going.

We simply don't have the space for a cyclinder - loft tiny in a tiny 1890's cottage -wasn't built with that in mind :)

Our shower next door to the combi gets hot straight away but the one in the upstairs bathroom takes aaages.
That must be because the hot water pipe goes out of the house, down the street, round the post box, past the pub and then upstairs to the bathroom,no?