Boilers!!

[Blobby10]

Just got a quote to update the boiler in my new home and I can't get my head around the difference between a 'normal' one with hot water tank in the airing cupboard and a 'combi' one which doesn't have the tank.

Can anyone explain it to me in laymans terms? And why one would be better than the other? My head is full of cotton wool today

Water tank. You have a hot water cylinder which stores hot water heated by the heating system alongside the heating itself. A combi boiler doesn't have a hot water cylinder outside the boilerThe water is heated as it passes through the boiler

Combi boilers i, to.d are better for households with lower water usage. If you have multiple showers and also like pumped powered showers a combi isn't any good.

We are detached house with four in and we were advised to stick with a hot water cylinder

Thanks @MarieG10 mine is a four bed detached house with 2 electric but not power showers however I am going to be upgrading both very soon and haven't decided if power showers are necessary. Although its me on my own most of the time, when the kids are home (weekends, Christmas, summer hols) both showers (and the washing machine and dishwasher!) are likely to be running at the same time. Is this likely to cause an issue do you think? x

Depends if you have showers feeding from the hot water system. If you have electric showers, and often dishwashers are cold supply only then yes it could be ok.

We were told and verified by others that combi boilers are really only designed to feed one major hot water demand at any one time unless something like hand washing.

The advantage of the combi is you don't need a water cylinder and so save the space of the airing cupboard. Personally a 4 bedroom house, I wouldn't expect to find a combi boiler especially with kids etc so depends if you were looking to sell as buyers may have concerns

I don't know how much they really save you thought. We don't have massive gas bills in my view despite going through inordinate amounts of water

I have a combi in a flat with one person and I much prefer the instant hot water plus removing the water tank literally doubled the storage space in my flat.

However, the fitter said the same as MarieG10 namely a combi is useless if you want more than one non-electric shower on at once. Apparently some of the sellers claim the more powerful ones are OK with this but he said they aren’t really.

Even if you are ok with a combi, if you come to sell a 4 bed house, most of your buyers are going to be families / groups of 4 or 5 people minimum and resale value might be hit by a combi.

Good point about the future saleability of the house - its in a catchment area for an excellent primary school - one reason the EA recommended putting a bath back in - and I guess that a combi boiler might put families off the house! Aarrghhh so difficult to choose . Space isn't really an issue as there's loads of storage but I do like an airing cupboard for towels and sheets 😊😊

No airing cupboard with a combi 😢 but instant hot water on demand.

I’ve had both

In a bigger house I’d go for the traditional set up rather than a combi. It’s more expensive, but I think it’s better for bigger houses.

I’d be surprised to see a combi in a bigger house and would factor in the cost of replacing it with the traditional set up when I was making an offer.

Also when we had the combi the (Agualisa) digital shower was nice, but as it doesn’t run off the mains we list a lot of pressure - I wouldn’t do that again

I think I've decided to go for the straight forward replacement of what we already have.

@MarieG10, @Talia99 and @IncrediblySadToo thank you for all your comments - its certainly made me consider both the good and bad points of each type of boiler. I had the traditional one at our old house (bigger 4 bed detached!) and never ran out of hot water and I'm notoriously stingy about putting on the heating and hot water

I've got a combi in a 4 bed, 2 bath house.
It had a combi (rubbish) installed when it was built in 1998 and I replaced in with a combi (excellent) around 2014.

Showers both feed off it, but reduced pressure if you try to run them both at th3 same time. Other than than no issues.
I do have an airing cupboard, it has a very small no- valve radiator in it, and heaps of space as no water tank.

We have a 4 bed detached 3 shower house with a pressurised hot water tank and pumped hot water system. We have instant hot water and excellent pressure throughout the house even with 2 showers running and washing dishes etc downstairs (have never tried 3 showers on together)

Basically, as others have said, a combi can only do one thing at once, so is better for smaller households. It is especially good for having instantaneous hot water, and for saving space. The new ones are very small and also powerful. Our last house (4 bed mid terrace) had a Worcester green star which was excellent.

The more traditional set up of a system boiler and cylinder is better if you are a bigger house or with multiple demands on the hot water (two people showering, people washing up at the same time, etc). The drawback is that truly hot water requires the boiler to be programmed for peak times, e.g. around shower routine etc. Or you need to wait for the water to heat. The newer, unvented style cylinders deliver hot water at mains pressure. We have this type of system in our new house and It works well too. I can see it will work really well when our small people are teens and have higher demands on the hot water.