I just had my central heating boiler serviced by the gas company here, for the first time in 14 years.
The service engineer said the boiler (Potterton "Profile Prima") as in good nick, which surprised me. But he mentioned that there are now "condensing boilers" which save a bit of heat, as they extract heat from the fumes which are expelled outside the house in older models.
Is it worth going over to such a model?
it isnt worth upgrading your existing boiler unless you need to becuase its in a bad way or your upgrading your kitchen and you want a change etc etc. If your existing boiler is working fine then keep it as you wont recoup the cost of the change in energy savings.
If you want to improve things,invest in insulation and other forms of energy conservation (gas and electric!). You will only spend once on insulation but you will spend all the time on heating a house which leaks out heat like a colander.
joe
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Be a good Global citizen-CONSUME>CONFORM>OBEY
Circumcision- A crime and an abuse.
Generally speaking, it is neither economic nor environmentally friendly to replace working models, unless they are particularly inefficient. The costs (money and energy) of building a boiler are quite high and will take a long time to offset against decreased fuel usage.
When the boiler does need replacing, you should replace with a condensing model. Generally speaking, you are required to do so, but there are exceptions, which you should not be tempted to use unless you really have to.
Christian.
it isnt worth upgrading your existing boiler unless you need to becuase its in a bad way or your upgrading your kitchen and you want a change etc etc. If your existing boiler is working fine then keep it as you wont recoup the cost of the change in energy savings.
If you want to improve things,invest in insulation and other forms of energy conservation (gas and electric!). You will only spend once on insulation but you will spend all the time on heating a house which leaks out heat like a colander.
joe
Remove antispam and add 670 after bra to email
Be a good Global citizen-CONSUME>CONFORM>OBEY
Circumcision- A crime and an abuse.
Yes it is worth going for such a model - if you have the money I would.
In fact I did a few months ago and am well pleased with the fuel savings, quiet operation, quicker warm times and just generally pleased all round. Oh, and I got a few eco warrior brownie points too.
Can't see what all the fuss is about. A nice new boiler for around £1500+. I wish I'd done it ages ago.
There's no way a condensing boiler in principle will be quieter or have faster warm up times than a non condenser.
..more incoherrent babble based on no experience whatsoever. Culiflower cheese today at the home is it?
Wrong. A condensing boiler can be had for under £500. That will save around £100 per year (gas has just gone up 13%) So, 5 years "max" to recoup the cost, lees if gas gone up again, and then massive saving over the old boiler after the recoup period. Do some sums and stop arm waving.
Good advice.
Please explain just how a condensing boiler is inherently quieter than a non condenser. Similarly why it will warm up quicker. If you can manage to before your lunchtime nap, or if still sober.
I didn't say that a condensing boiler is technically quieter then a non-condensing. My last boiler was 28 years old and suffered from bad, noisey kettling. In that respect a new boiler is quieter.
My new boiler warms up quicker presumably due to it firing up on all cylinders in its modulating mode, which a lot of old boilers may not have. Additionally, due to our system being modified with the new boiler installation, our boiler warms up the house quicker.
It is not worth explaining to an old codger who can't understand. How was the cauliflower cheese at the home?
Depends on the circumstances. When you need to replace it for other reasons then yes certainly, go for the best efficiency you can get all other things being equal. Whether it is worthwhile scrapping a working system requires some careful analysis. There is no point taking the simplistic view of just comparing the raw cost of the boiler to the gas savings, you need to look at the fuller picture.
Firstly how much are you spending on gas for your current boiler? The model you list probably has an efficiency around about the 75% mark. So going to a modern 90% model could reduce your gas bills by up to 15%.
What would it cost to have it changed - even a straight swap would probably require some additional work for plumbing the condensate drain etc. You may also need to spend some on upgrading controls to modern build regs standards. Chances are even with a basic boiler you are looking at £1500 unless you are up to doing the work yourself.
Modern high tech boilers are less likely to be happy going 14 years without a service, so you need to factor in extra maintenance costs as well.
To balance the costs you can also look at other factors: the modern boiler will modulate over a decent range which combined with better controls (TRVs on most of the rads etc) may give better temperature regulation and comfort in your house. It may also take up less space and be quieter / less ugly etc.
Environmentally the picture is less clear, since no manufactured product is "environmentally friendly". These environmental costs of making your new boiler and disposing of your old one are obviously hard to quantify
- but they are certainly not zero.
Oh - I'm not disputing that. However, kettling isn't inherent in a non condensing boiler - it's a fault.
Modulating means *reducing* the heat output from maximum.
Well yes. But this has nothing to do with condensing or non condensing boilers, that's all.
| I just had my central heating boiler serviced | by the gas company here, | for the first time in 14 years. | | The service engineer said the boiler (Potterton "Profile Prima") | as in good nick, which surprised me. | But he mentioned that there are now "condensing boilers" | which save a bit of heat, as they extract heat from the fumes | which are expelled outside the house in older models. | | Is it worth going over to such a model?
It is well worth doing the sums to see how much you would save. On our *very* well insulated extended semi, we spent only GBP 370 in 2004 on heating plus Domestic Hot Water, of which about GBP 150.
So if efficiency of a 25 year old boiler was about 70%, a high efficiency one 80% (sedbuk) and a condensing boiler 90% (sedbuk) we could only save GBP 37 per year going to a High Efficiency one and GBP 75 for a condensing one. These give payback times of 5 to 20 years depending on how much one allows for installation costs. In pure economic terms I would expect a payback of more than 10 years, and preferably over 20 years, the expected life of a boiler.
In our case, the change would not be cost effective. However, because the boiler was clapped out and as part of a remodeling of the kitchen it will go ahead, probably a condensing one, because it would be greener.
I would strongly suggest that you do some cost and savings estimates with your own figures, allowing a reasonable inflation factor for gas costs, before replacing a boiler which is in "good nick".
But then others might be interested in your explanation since this is a newsgroup.
But of course the reason is simple. You don't know.
My God! Nothing worse than amateur misadvise. All boiler have to be serviced once a year. A one piece heat exchanger condensing boiler clean its own heat exchanger.
More likely in cast iron boilers
It is because it's not cast iron heats up faster.
More like 55%.
...it is not worth explaining to a senile old codger who can't understand. Do you shovel coal into your boiler?
'Kettling' is the water in the heat exchanger boiling. It's a fault condition and nothing to do with the type of heat exchanger material. Most likely when the water circulation is cut off before or at the same time as the burners. In other words, poor design of the system with no pump over-run. Exactly the same would happen with any other construction of heat exchanger.
So all non condensing boilers use cast iron heat exchangers? And no condensing ones do?
Back to the catalogues, pet, and do some more reading.
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