Does anyone have an immersion heater and back boiler? Or had and replaced them?

[CrapBag]

I am on a role with threads today.

The house we are buying has these rather than a combi boiler. I want to replace the gas fire in the living room as its the old fashioned type and looks really ugly. However it was only replaced a couple of years ago with a new back boiler behind it so I am not sure whether its something that needs money spent on now. Or is it just going to be better to get a combi put in anyway? Are they cheaper to run?

There is no particular reason to change to a combi.

If you mean a gas back boiler, they are quite rare now. Perhaps the occupiers were old.

Look for evidence that it was really new, including the installation certificate and instruction book. You can then look up its efficiency and power on the makers website.

You would probably benefit from improving the insulation of the cylinder (unless it is blue) and pipes.

We had one in our last rented house but it was very old and cost a fortune to run.

The new house is ours and has a condensing boiler with a water tank. My gas consumption has halved.

If you know the model of the boiler there will be lots of information online about its effeicency.

My pil have a combi and a mixer tap in the kitchen, I read somewhere every time you run the mixer on cold the boiler momentarily fires up in anticipation of having to supply hot water and then switches off again but it's still going to be using gas to do that isn't it?.

One advantage of our system is that you don't have a cold water tank in the loft.

You can get new back boilers installed, we have a 15 year old one and when it was serviced this winter the plumber mentioned that he had just fitted a new back boiler in his house. (his opinion was that combis are more efficient but break down much more easily; he thought our back boiler should last us another 10 years!).
I believe the gas fire front is an integral part of the boiler so it isn't cheap to replace, as it has to be made by the same company. I sympathise as ours is hideous! But we have just lived with it as we were only ever planning to live in this house 5 years or so. Also the reduced efficiency compared to a combi wasn't a big deal for us as we both are out of the house 8-6 every day.

We had a back boiler and immersion tank in the house we bought recently. The vendors claimed that they were put in 6-7 years ago but research revealed them to be at least 16. The bills were eye-watering.

We qualified for a removal and replacement under the Affordable Warmth scheme and now have a new combi which is so much more efficient, and the pug-ugly gas fire has gone with it.