Any new regulations about boilers?

[Andrew Gabriel]

It's not so much temperature differential, as the return temperature should be below 55C. If you want the radiators significantly hotter than 55C, then you'll need a high temperature differential. 70/50 is a common design criteria for a new system with a condensing boiler.

I installed a heating system and condensing boiler a few years ago. I designed it to run at 70/50 , but I have found that mostly I can run the boiler at 45C flow. This winter, it never ran at more than

55C flow. It may be that I oversized the radiators due to over- estimating the heatloss through walls, but this will have made it an even more efficent system.

However, even fitting a condensing boiler into an existing system which wasn't designed for one will see efficiency gains, as the improved heat exchanger will work better even when the boiler isn't operating in condensing mode. Most of the time, max heating system output is not required, and it can fall back into condensing mode. How much of an economy it is will depend on the rest of the system, and how bad/old the existing boiler it replaces is.

[Andy Hall]

No. Efficiency is greater anyway in general because of better heat exchangers.

Additional efficiency happens as the return temperature falls and the latent heat of condensation is recovered inside the boiler.

Moreover, lower flue gas temperatures result in less heat being pushed outside.

[Doctor Evil]

That is strange as most of our white goods are made elsewhere. Are you saying an Electrolux made in Italy, aimed the UK market is different than one aimed at Sweden?

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[Mike]

Perhaps I should have said our "ex-white goods manufacturers". I thought some were still limping along but perhaps not.

[Doctor Evil]

I think only Hotpoint and some Hoovers are made in the UK these days.

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[Andrew Gabriel]

Hotpoint is a name currently owned by Merloni (who are in the process of changing their company name to Indesit which is another name they own). Years ago, Hotpoint was owned by GEC, who gradually sold it to GE, and sometime later it was bought by the Merloni brothers. Merloni use the Hotpoint name on products sold in the UK where it's well known, but it isn't so well known in the rest of Europe where they will use one of their other names such as Indesit, Ariston, etc.

The same products are sold across Europe under different names. Nowadays, this is because following many mergers, there aren't actually many different manufacurers left. If you go back 20 years, then it was because manufacturers made various appliances for other manufacturers to rebadge so they all appeared to have a complete range, when in fact none of them did. However, even back then, country-specific products were pretty much non-existant across Europe.

[John Rumm]

Creda was another Hotpoint / GEC owned brand...

[Andrew Gabriel]

Yes. I didn't ever know much about Creda, but at one time, they used to supply dishwashers to Hotpoint, as did Bosch, and Hotpoint use to supply washing machines to Bosch IIRC. I don't know what happened with Creda -- not sure if it was sold to GE with Hotpoint. Some other former GEC names I recall from the staff discount point of view were Cannon, Expelair, Osram (GEC sold it to Siemens, who I think sold it on again to Slyvana), Redring (IIRC). Hotpoint/Creda/Cannon still run a combined spares and servicing organisation just as they did back when they were all part of GEC.

BTW, Hotpoint still offer staff discount to former GEC employees who remain in the GEC pension scheme. I commented in my leaving speech (some 10+ years ago) that if I'd known that earlier, I would have left GEC years beforehand ;-)

[James]

Indeed - but what about Scotland, where I gain the impression the level of bureaucracy is significantly less.

James

[Doctor Evil]

Ted Heath continually stated that the Scottish Office was larger than the EU in Brussels, when accusations of top-heavy beauracracy were aimed that the EU. Now the Scots have there own parliament, it should be higher.

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[John Rumm]

There was Gilbarco as well... less likely to turn up on the discount scheme though since the need for your own petrol pump is limited I would have thought.

[Tony Bryer]

As far as Part L is concerned in half of the EU it's really not necessary because it's so much warmer. In much of the rest the winters probably ensure that people take a keen interest in energy costs without any regulations: we had a couple of Scandinavian houses built on my BCO patch 20+ years ago and they would probably pass today's Part L.

I've also got the impression (perhaps wrongly) than in mainland Europe people move much less often: you rent until you're 30-40 then buy the house you will keep for the rest of your life. If this is so you're going to be more interested in the quality of the materials and workmanship in your home. If you're going to move on (or are a spec housebuilder) you may well take the hard economic assessment that there's no point in installing anything better than you can get away with.

[Andrew Gabriel]

I just spoke with a German colleague about this as I didn't know the situation in Germany and it came up in conversation.

There is similar legislation in Germany, for some 8 years he thinks. Companies undertaking electrical installation work must have someone qualified on the staff or they aren't allowed to start up or continue trading. Apparently the rules about acceptable qualifications are quite complicated, but include many scientific/engineering degrees (he has a Physics degree which is acceptable).

DIY isn't allowed at all, but no one takes any notice of that part of the legislation and DIY is very widely done without anyone being bothered. The legislation on professionals being qualified is rigourously enforced though.