Does anyone know about a Gledhill PulsaCoil stainless steel boiler?

[KatyMac]

DD is considering moving to a flat with one and electric convection heaters?

Are they expensive to run?

My first flat had one of those boilers. Disclaimer that it’s almost a decade since I sold it, but I don’t remember it being expensive to run, as long as you didn’t have the hot water booster on for long periods. You also need to make sure that you have an economy 7 electricity tariff, to make the most of the fact the water heats up overnight.

Downsides of the boiler were the fact that as the boiler only heats up overnight, if you wanted a bath in the evening, you’d generally have to switch on the booster to get sufficiently hot water. It’d be a nuisance if you had young children or worked shift patterns, but as an office worker with a flatmate doing similar hours, it was fine for us as we used most hot water in the morning. The other thing to bear in mind is that if the boiler goes wrong there are (or were, obviously things may have changed now) fewer engineers - you need a specialist Gledhill repairer rather than just looking for your nearest combi boiler engineer. I would never swap my combi for a Gledhill, but equally it wouldn’t put me off buying the flat if the other aspects were good.

Re electric and night storage heaters; latter pretty useless and former expensive to run. I was in a new build flat, mid-building, and was so well insulated I never needed to use them. But in a different building it would have been an issue.

Thanks xx

Really fab info thanks

I don't think it's a boiler.

I think it's a thermal store which holds hot water that releases its heat (but not its water) into pipes passing through it either for tap water or (less often) radiators.

If you can heat it at low cost, for example on off-peak electricity, you can use the stored heat at times when energy is more expensive.

Interesting, they have been told they can have economy 7 but as they work from home I imagine they are high daytime users and the unit cost for that will be very high I think

Piglet John is (obviously) right that it’s a thermal store rather than a boiler as such. But if you use the booster it acts like an immersion heater on the water at the top of the tank. In my experience, although the tank is supposed to keep water hot throughout the day, as the day progresses the water cools, so that while it’s fine to wash up or have a quick shower in the evening, if you’ve used a lot earlier in the day, it will be decidedly lukewarm.

I moved in 2013 and was paying c. £70 a month for electricity iirc. No gas in the flat so that covered everything. I probably switched the booster on for half an hour a couple of times a week. One of my neighbours had hers turned on permanently and got a nasty shock when she got her first electricity bill.

They are very well insulated so the heat should not be leaking out if they are not being used. If you are away it will stay hot for days. Check that none of the pipes feel warm, and lag them anyway, especially if they go upwards. Check towel rails in particular.

Occasionally you find a hot water loop to a distant bathroom which is intended to keep the water in the pipes hot so you don't have to wait for it to run, this is very wasteful of heat.