Combi boiler preheat water setting costs

[theblackradiator]

I've recently just changed to a combi boiler from always having had a back boiler in my home I'm finding it incredibly frustrating having to wait ages for the water to run hot to my hot taps I've had the boiler in 6 weeks and not washed my hands in hot water since it was installed as it seems to take a good few minutes for the water to run hot and I feel its such a waste of water. There's a preheat water button on my boiler which apparently provides more instant hot water but does anyone know if it is expensive to use this preheat setting as energy costs are also a big issue at the moment. I'd love to have more instant hot water.

Yes it is definitely as it fires up intermittently to heat up the water in case you need it. I went back to the eco setting- definitely had a positive effect on my kWh usage. Is it even necessary to use hot water for handwashing?

thanks for your reply duck. No I suppose its not entirely necessary to wash hands in hot water but for some reason I never feel my hands are throughly clean unless the water is hot no idea why perhaps because I've always used hot water. Especially after dog walks and cleaning up dog mess etc. it would just be lovely to actually have hot water but if its seeming much more expensive then I suppose its not worth it.

I'm in the same situation. The combi boiler is fitted in the cupboard that used to house the hot water tank. There's no real point even turning on the hot water tap when washing hands.

It's probably bad for the boiler as well because it's 'cycling' every time you run the hot tap.

I think my next boiler will be a Viesserman heat only model with a separate tank or one of their floor standing models that has an integrated tank.

@ThisGirlNever yes my boiler is located in my old hot water tank cupboard too only had my new boiler 6 weeks and god how I regret having my old back boiler replaced I never once in 25 years had an issue with it but I thought I was doing the right thing in replacing it to a modern energy efficient boiler but I'm so sorry I did. they said old boilers were gas guzzlers but so far iv not noticed any cost difference but the old system was far far more superior in every way I could cry. filling the bath takes forever, takes ages to run hot water, water not as hot. I wish I'd done more research or someone told me how superior the older boilers were but I was just told the opposite of how I'd wish I'd upgraded sooner by lots of people. feels like a total downgrade to me. like going from an iPhone 14 to an iPhone 2!
I was looking at the veissman water heater thing myself earlier looks costly though.

@theblackradiator

In terms of efficiency, it probably depends on how old your old boiler was and how well your new blogger has been configured.

If you find the water temperature to be too cold, you can increase it on the boiler.

I think the latest advice is to have the hot water temperature set quite low, so that you don't need to heat water and then cool it again by mixing it with cold water (this only applies to combi boilers because there isn't a tank and a risk of legionares disease). Personally, I have mine set to 60°C (which is scalding hot) because I find it better for washing up (I wear heavy duty washing up gloves).

Did you get new radiators at the same time as a new boiler? If you're using old, single panel radiators on an old single pipe central heating system, I doubt you'll be able to run any boiler efficiently - you'll need too high a flow temperature.

We had an entirely new cell heating system in 2018 - new pipework, new double panel, double convector radiators and a new boiler. It transformed the house in terms of comfort. We now run it 24x7. The radiators barely get warm maintaining the set temperature.

Have you tried to turn it on just the tiniest amount... ? it usually comes out hotter much quicker then.

I think I worked out that the pre-heat setting was costing about 9p a day, so I turned it off.

A new combi is definitely saving us money, buy I think that's largely because we're running the shower off it and not using the electric shower any more, and to a lesser degree the pump in the new boiler seems to use less. Our electric use has dropped significantly.