Please recommend a boiler!

[sinisterduck]

Our combi boiler is on the way out- it was a bit rubbish anyway so I'm not too bothered.

Finding it very confusing though to research which one to replace it with- Worcester bosch/ Vailant seem good but some bad reviews- anyone got a good boiler to recommend?

House is 3 storey and soon to be extended so we need a big one!

Both of them are good we put them into a lot of housing schemes & my former plumber MIL rates them highly for reliability & efficiency.
That's what I'd get if we weren't limping along with the shit one that came with our house Sizing advice can be found on their websites.

We limped for 3 years too, wonky. Our is now doing exciting hot/cold running and menacing gurgling when you make it go on. I'll be glad when its gone!

how many bathrooms have you got? How many people are likely to be running a tap or shower at the same time? Have you observed the problem I have in mind? A combi may not be suitable for a larger home. Have you still got an airing cupboard? Do you want one?

When you fill a bucket at the kitchen sink, and time it, how many litres per minute does it deliver?

Hi PigletJohn- thanks for replying!

Boiler is on the on ground floor.

At moment we have an upstairs bathroom & ground floor toilet. Will be another bathroom on lower ground floor once extension is done.

Only one person running a bath/shower at a time- but there may be tap/washing machine running too.

We have an airing cupboard but dont use it- there is a tiny wee radiator in there which is not turned on.

It delivers 8 liters a minute at moment.

We have a Vaillant ecotec. Four bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, works brilliantly for us. Had it put in when we had our loft converted.

8 litres per minute is not very much. You can get boilers capable of heating more water than that but if the water main into your house is small, and that's all it can carry, 8 litres is all that will be available however big your boiler or other non-stored water system is.

I will guess your house is not very new, and may have a half-inch or 15mm service pipe in copper, lead or steel. To get a better water flow you would need to run a new pipe out to the pavement which would cost at least some hundreds of pounds. It may be more or less difficult depending on distance and presence of concrete floors and drives. If you have an old lead pipe you can usually get a subsidy towards the cost of replacing it. If you are having building work done this may be a good time to upgrade it to at least 25mm plastic and preferably 32mm.

A Megaflow is a sort of cylinder that runs at mains pressure, and can deliver a lot of hot water very fast, but its flow rate is limited by the amount of water coming into the house from the main.

Vaillant and Worcester Bosch are two popular and good-quality makers. Combi boilers are more complicated and have more working parts than heat-only boilers, so they have more to go wrong. The other biggest factor in the life and reliability of a boiler are how well it was installed, and how thoroughly an old system was cleaned of sediment before it was fitted. Old systems, especially if they have ever been open-vented, usually hold a lot of iron oxide and other detritus due to internal corrosion of radiators. A powerflush will remove most of it. It is very usual to have a system filter fitted these days to capture particles before they can cause a blockage.

Dirt blockages are never covered by boiler guarantees since the maker supplied a clean boiler, and they didn't supply the dirt.

We have a Worcester which seems to perform very well. Now I'm not an expert on boilers but when we had our bathroom replaced, our two plumbers were obsessed with how wonderful it is:

'That's a beautiful boiler you have there'.
'I bet you have no problems with your hot water' (with accompanying knowing laugh'.
'You were very lucky to get this house. With that gorgeous boiler you'll never need to move'!

...and so on.

Now assuming they weren't making a series of innuendos which went completely above my head ,I think they liked my boiler.

A friend of mine owns a chain of plumbers' merchants and he thinks Valiant boilers are the best, closely followed by Worcester Bosch.

Thanks- have read messages out to DP.

PigletJohn- thanks for all that detailed info- v useful. Going to discuss the pipe issue with DP. House was built in 1952. DP did replace the street to house pipe in our old house- we had a Vailant installed there but had problems with the circuit board & diverter valve -so DP is interested in other makes.

Pigletjohn can you tell me more about a megaflow- what is it exactly?

vonnyh DP says what size boiler ?

A Megaflow is a stainless steel cylinder, which (with the help of non-return valves, expansion control and safety devices to prevent it exploding) holds hot water at mains pressure, and is connected to the incoming water main. There are other brands.

It is heated by the boiler very much like any other cylinder, and is fitted with good insulation in the factory. It is more expensive than an ordinary cylinder but can give very good flow. Due to the pressure it has to be correctly installed by a heating engineer with an extra qualification, and it has to be periodically inspected to ensure that the safety features are still present and in working order. This can conveniently done by the person who services the boiler, if suitably qualified.

Unlike an ordinary hot water cylinder, it does not have, and does not need, a cold water tank in the loft. It can be heated by a heat-only boiler, or by a combi. If you use a combi you have the additional facility to run a shower off the combi without draining the cylinder, but you will need a lot of flow from the watermain to run both at the same time. A heat-only boiler is less complicated that a combi so has less to go wrong.

It will deliver hot water as fast as the incoming water main can deliver cold water, until it is all used up. Because the water is heated in advance of use, you are not limited to the amount of hot water instantly produced. You may have noticed that if you fill a bath at full flow in winter, using a combi, the water is not very hot

If you get one, and have two bathrooms, I'd be inclined to get quite a big one, if you have room.

They are both great in my experience. Never ever touch baxi though.

It's a Vaillant ecoTEC 837. I don't know what size it is. We had it put in last year when we had our loft converted, which included adding an addtional shower.

I see from the brochure that the 837 has a 37kW heat output, which is a bit higher than most, and can deliver up to 15litres of hot water per minute (over three gallons). But remember this is dependent on you having an incoming water main which can deliver that much cold water to the boiler - most can't.

The tapwater volume quoted is at the standard 35 degrees C of warming, so in summer if the incoming water is a warm 15C, your taps will run at 50C; but in winter if the incoming water is a chilly 5C, the taps will be at only 40C. If you turn down the taps to reduce the flow, the tapwater will be hotter, but less of it. All combis do that.

p.s. I think Viessmann boilers are better than Vaillant or Worcester Bosch. Opinions differ. They are less common.

The very expensive Broag and Atmos are said to be better still.

I have had my Halstead ACE HE 30 for 5 years now (newer version no doubt avail) and never knew I could get so excited about a boiler. I like it because

It was not too expensive
It has been utterly reliable
It produces stacks of hot water instantly and can run loads of taps and pressure/temp stays good - no problem if in shower and someone else uses hot water
I have high pressure water from the mains and can fill my bath at top speed and it will still be steamy hot - unlike my sisters which you have to fill very slowly unless you like a tepid bath.
It is rated very high efficiency in energy rating
It isn't noisy and flow v temp ratio can be easily adjusted for winter/summer conditions
My plumber loves it as he says it is much easier to fix than some (but not as small as some) so if it does go wrong it will be simpler to solve.

Thanks so much PigletJohn- that explains a few things I didnt know. Very grateful to you for explaining the way boilers work as I know nothing !

Passing Veissmann name along to DP. Things are now getting urgent- boiler is leaking really badly- have a huge plastic bucket to empty... DP has ordered a couple of bits from ebay and will try & fix it enough to keep it working while we get another boiler -and find someone to fit it!

GinPalace- I'll look a the Halstead too- thanks!

Ok, Veissman- just looking through their literature now- why do you think them better? Whats their advantage?

5 year parts and labour warranty. The heat exchanger is stainless steel and has a 10 year warranty. Good name in the trade for quality design and build. Very strong in the German market. High-tech integrated controls available. Can add weather compensation or solar panels to some.

Spelt "Viessmann"

My FIL is a heating engineer, just recommended we go with an Ideal for our 5 bed house. They come with a 5 yr warranty and are easy to install and maintain he said. They are a lot cheaper than Vaillant and Worcester but he said are much of a muchness. We believed him because he is a fussy beggar.

Worcester Bosch.

Not the cheapest but fantastic and reliable in my experience.

The consistently come top in the Which tests, whatever the model.