new boiler plus large water tank?

[teta]

Has anyone had these installed recently?.I have a 17 year old inefficient gas boiler and need to replace it, and am waiting from a quote from only one plumber[because of time constraints and he has done work for me before and is good].I need to know what is a reasonable figure for boiler including solar heating feed [for the future].Secondly the boiler and water tank need to be suitable for a 6 bedroom old house on three floors[we currently have a seperate water system for the third floor with a tank and immersion heater].I will be sent the quote tonight and will have to make a decision within the next 2-3 days so if anyone can give me some feedback please do!.

With modern boilers you shouldn't need a water tank as well. Go for one of the Mains pressure hot water boilers like Megaflo (proper main pressure - not like a combi boiler, which is technically mains pressure but means that you have problems if someone uses cold water at the same time).

Don't know how much it would cost: the plumber we were talking to (which reminds me, we must go back to him for the formal quote) actually suggested two boilers in parallel, as that would allow them to be shunted further into the eaves and also allow us in summer just to use one of them.

We've got a 4 bedroom Victorian house (stone built, high celings, single glazed sash windows) over 3 floors (it's a conversion: the top half of a lrger house), so have (or should have - the radiator needs to be replaced) on the ground floor, main living quarters on the 1st floor and more bedroom in the attic floor, which is also where the boiler would need to go.

We've had a problem getting people to quote: the keep on looking at our (ancient) bolier and say it's solid and reliable, why change it?

You will need a megaflow - but it does have a water tank, it's not just the boiler. Dunno how much - a few thousand I'd have thought.

I paid £3k for a boiler and hot water tank for a 3 bed house a couple of years ago. You'll pay a bit more for a larger boiler and will have additional fitting costs to connect up the hot water on the third floor.

I know lots of people will recommend boilers with "on-demand" water heating (such as combi boilers) but I've got one in my current house and I don't like it at all. Our boiler is in the cellar and the bathroom is too far away from it, which is a problem you may find in a large 3 floor house.

MisterW our boiler and hot water tank are in the 1st floor bathroom so not so far to travel.Yes i can see that the cost will be high.I would like to know a little bit of the pros and cons of the dfferent types of boilers.The builder is also removing the attic water tank as having repaired the water pipes we now have very good mains pressure.I would like to have really powerful showers and this will affect the type of boiler required surely?.Secondly we have 4 bathrooms and 4dc's so a lot of the time everything is working together ,and i guess this will affect the decision.Sorry about the rather rambling post as i really know nothing about plumbing, but please keep on advising as this is really helpful information to me.Thank-you for the responses so far everyone

A conventional boiler will be the cheapest to buy and fit but you will have the extra cost of fitting a new hot water tank. It will work in exactly the same way as your existing boiler, giving you a tank full of hot water. You will get a much better control system with a new boiler so it will be more controllable than your old one. The downside is that if you empty the hot water tank you have to wait while the boiler re-fills it. It will have no problem coping with as many powerful showers as you like, other than the issue of emptying the hot water tank. If you've got 4 dcs then I suggest a big tank.

A combi boiler will be more expensive to buy and fit as the plumber will need to re-pipe part of your heating system, to get rid of the expansion tank in the loft, and part of your hot water system as you'll no longer have a hot water tank. This will be offset by the saving made from not needing a new tank. The boiler will also be very controllable because of a modern control system. It will heat water on demand so may be better if your family is using lots of hot water. However, it will have a limited capacity for heating water so the more showers are on at any one time the more it will struggle to heat the water. You can get around this by specifying a larger capacity boiler although this will be more expensive. Take advice from your plumber on the size but make sure you mention the four showers. The other downside of a combi boiler is that you won't have an immersion heater so will have no way of heating water if your boiler breaks down. I know people who have fitted electric showers in one bathroom for this reason.

Sorry, long post

I'm not a plumber but I did all the research before I had the boiler changed in my last house.

Brilliant explanation - thank-you - i can understand it!.the plumbers son is coming this afternoon to do some basic plumbing and i will discuss the diff. types of boilers with him.

Quote came in as 3700 plus vat for new boiler and water tank and labour.Does this seem reasonable?.Recommended a normal condensing boiler - a vailliant 30? something[he couldn't remember the exact serial no.]Didn't recommend a megaflo because of large house and several bathrooms.

Can only tell you what we were recommended by two individual plumbers and that was if you want good pressure running a bath and a shower at the same time go the the cylinder.

We were really put off at first as our old system had been a tank and took ages to heat and cost a fortune. Modern ones are so much more efficient and can apparantly be heated back up again in about 25 mins, our old one which was much smaller than the 210 one we are going for used to take over an hour!

I think we were about 2800 for the solay ready cylinder and a worcester 18i boiler which I guess is smaller than the one you need, we are a bungalow and only have two bathrooms. Can't remember if this included VAT or not.

Hope that helps.