Right. How much does it cost to turn a combi into the other sort of boiler? Had enough!

[Psipsina]

I've just sat in a tepid bath as it took twenty fecking minutes to fill and I have had ENOUGH.

The water pressure is useless, and though I normally hate having baths anyway, sometimes you have to and when it's like this, it's torture.

We are supposed to be getting a shower but that will be after I have tiled the walls and I don't have any time, so it won't be for ages - besides which, I have a toddler and two older children and we NEED a bath that works.

Our boiler is brand new W. Bosch and it's just the wrong system for us.

Can we do ANYTHING?

you can fit a hot water cylinder to a combi boiler. Any plumber over the age of 12 knows how to do it.

If you have good water flow into your house, you can fit an unvented cylinder, which can give unsurpassed hot water flow, and does not need a cold water tank to feed it. To find out, fill a bucket at your kitchen cold water tap, and at your garden tap and utility room tap if you have one; time it, and calculate how many litres per minute it delivers.

As supplementaries, the age of your house, and the material, colour and size of your incoming water supply pipe might also be useful.

Oh thank you for giving me hope. You've already helped with the kitchen sink!

We have useless pressure. A small watering can takes about a minute to fill. A large one probably two minutes on full blast (it's not really a blast at all).

So does that mean we'd need some other sort of cylinder, with a tank? I don't mind having a tank. There is a loft above the bathroom where the old one used to be.

Our incoming pipe is shared till it comes in to our flat, (it's a Victorian 3 storey conversion, we are the top two floors) and I believe is an old sort which would be difficult to change and thus limits our pressure potential.

OK then, a plastic tank in the loft, and a hot water cylinder in the airing cupboard. You will doubtless need some new pipework.

If 22mm hot and cold pipes are run to the bath taps, it will be able to deliver water much faster to the bath. Pressure will be poor for a shower as the head will be slight.

A bath holds about 100 litres of water, so you need a cold tank bigger than that so it does not run dry. Long rectangular tanks are available which are intended to fit through a loft hatch.

Get a hot water cylinder where an electric immersion heater can be fitted near the top, and another one near the bottom, then you will be able to have hot water even when the boiler is out of action.

Fantastic, thank you very much, I will talk to our heating engineer about it and see if he can give us a price.

As long as it can be connected to the existing boiler that is really good news - I thought we would have to get a different one entirely.

in the same way that a combi boiler can run two or more zones of radiators, each of which can be controlled by its own timer and/or thermostat, the cylinder can be connected as just another zone. The boiler doesn't know that it is a cylinder.

You can keep the combi function for your kitchen tap or a shower, if you want.

I like as big a cylinder as you have room for, unless it is a single-occupancy home.

That sounds absolutely perfect and I think I understand now how it can heat a tank like another radiator.

So pleased that there is a solution.