Not one but two boilers.........

Hi,

I've been looking around at houses to buy and one place I viewed recently (that the wife is interested in) had a garage conversion and an extended en suite upstairs. What surprised me though was that the utility room then had

2 boilers presumably because the old one couldn't cope with the extra demand. This struck me as a bit odd - why not just replace the old boiler with a bigger model rather than have two smaller ones. It's not a particularly big house, I've lived in bigger that have been perfectly well serviced by one system, so why have a two boiler system?

I can see advantages e.g. if one breaks down you'll still have some hot water/heating but being the suspicious type (especially when buying a house) I'm wondering if it's a bit dodgy - am I missing something?

Cheers

Reply to
Endulini
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Because the "old" boiler was fairly new, and it was cheaper to add a second than change to a bigger one?

Reply to
Adrian

It's Drivel's old house, run away!

Reply to
Andy Burns

Granny flat or formerly split into 2 flats?

Unless it was formerly owned by a competent building services contractor/engineer, I would estimate the chances of them being correctly piped or controlled as somewhere between zero and nothing.

If you buy it, allow for a new boiler.

Reply to
Onetap

... the one thing it wont need

Reply to
meow2222

My parents had two boilers - one for the heating and one for the hot water (an Ascot multipoint)

Possibly a combi or multipoint was added to an existing vented cylinder system to give mains pressure hot water for a shower?

If you can ascertain the make and model of the boilers then further elucidation may be forthcoming.

Owain

Reply to
spuorgelgoog

Andy Burns wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@brightview.co.uk:

Spot on, beat me to it.

(It's not unknown to have two boilers but not very common, multipoints and waterheaters do not count)

Reply to
Heliotrope Smith

Depends a bit on the detail, and the circumstance...

There were some that argued that pairing combis for example was a way of getting much better flow rates of hot water from cheap boilers.

Yes you get some redundancy and possibly better flow rates if they are combis, but offset that against more complicated controls, servicing etc.

Reply to
John Rumm

or both are combination boilers, if you have more than one hot tap open simultaneously, they can struggle to cope.......

OR its two zones of heating, one upstairs and one downstairs.

Reply to
Stephen

Common practice in commercial situations. Often there are even more than two. It enables the boilers to be matched to the heat load. You can buy a gadget that brings them on line progessively. Even varies which is the "lead" boiler to equalise wear.

It was vitally necessary years ago when the turndown ratio on most boilers was very low.

Reply to
harryagain

Flats converted back to single residence? Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

It may be that the original was under powered for the new size of the house and they just kept the old one for back up rather than boot it out if was in good condition.

My place has two (24kW) boilers: Not my choice as they were here when I moved in and I've no idea what the logic was behind this design, especially as they were clearly fitted together: Quite possibly dodgy advice to the old boy who owned it before. I assumed (before looking properly) that they were serving different zones but they are simply in series (ie the outlet from one flows into the other). Neither is a combi. Although I would probably not have this arrangement out of choice, it does have the benefit of redundancy, in that when one broke down in the middle of winter the other kept us going until I could get the part (a new flame sensor which took a couple of days to track down) and fix it. I set the water temperature on the second one a little below the setting of the first. That way it only comes on when it's too cold for the first to cope, which isn't very often since I started my insulating and draughtproofing campaign. Anyway, it works well enough for the moment. When one day one of them turns up its toes, I'll probably replace with something big enough to cope on its own but I'm in no hurry to do that at the moment. Will probably keep the other in place though, as a back up, rather than ripping them both out.

Reply to
GMM

Japanese ones IIRC :)

Reply to
www.GymRatZ.co.uk

Hi,

I've been looking around at houses to buy and one place I viewed recently (that the wife is interested in) had a garage conversion and an extended en suite upstairs. What surprised me though was that the utility room then had

2 boilers presumably because the old one couldn't cope with the extra demand. This struck me as a bit odd - why not just replace the old boiler with a bigger model rather than have two smaller ones. It's not a particularly big house, I've lived in bigger that have been perfectly well serviced by one system, so why have a two boiler system?

I can see advantages e.g. if one breaks down you'll still have some hot water/heating but being the suspicious type (especially when buying a house) I'm wondering if it's a bit dodgy - am I missing something?

Cheers

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Cheers for the replies.

It a relatively new 4 bed house so won't have been converted to flats and then back again and there's definitely no Granny flat.

I can't get makes and models but what was bothering me was the extra complexity and potential bodge jobs on the plumbing.....

Reply to
Endulini

I once put in a two boiler system for a large house. At the time you couldn't get a single condensing boiler big enough, and it would have been a floor standing industrial boiler for the required output.

Things have since changed, however it was easy to plum in. Each system boiler had its own pump and its own non return valve. When one pump wasn't running it meant that its boiler remain unused with no water flow through it.

The control from the stats and programmer went to both boilers, but each had it's own switch that would allow either or both of the boilers to fire up on demand for heat.

It was easy to implement. Easy to control and had the advantage of redundancy.

Reply to
Fredxxx

I once put in a two boiler system for a large house. At the time you couldn't get a single condensing boiler big enough, and it would have been a floor standing industrial boiler for the required output.

Things have since changed, however it was easy to plum in. Each system boiler had its own pump and its own non return valve. When one pump wasn't running it meant that its boiler remain unused with no water flow through it.

The control from the stats and programmer went to both boilers, but each had it's own switch that would allow either or both of the boilers to fire up on demand for heat.

It was easy to implement. Easy to control and had the advantage of redundancy.

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This is a regular 4 bedroom Wimpy house, I find it hard to believe that one boiler wouldn't have serviced the whole house, but I don't own it so I don't know............

Reply to
Endulini

So why not ask the agent or owners about it, there's most likely a logical explanation to it, as not many people would buy 2 boilers when one would do the job,

Reply to
Gazz

So why not ask the agent or owners about it, there's most likely a logical explanation to it, as not many people would buy 2 boilers when one would do the job,

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I asked the agent, he didn't know but huffed and puffed a lot about how it wasn't unusual.

Reply to
Endulini

Must admit I have thought of doing this. Current place has a Potterton Profile which is working fine. Have thought about installing a condensing boiler and retaining the Potterton as a back-up, but with relatively low gas use anyway, it's economically unviable to replace the Potterton, even though it's over 20 years old and non-condensing.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

In message , Andrew Gabriel writes

Have you actually done the sums?

I haven't either but, at a glance, when BG were pushing condensing boiler efficiency a few years back the replacing the Profile appeared to give a saving in less than ten years.

Needless to say, I haven't done it:-)

My excuse is that I am always on the point of installing partial under floor heating.

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Reply to
Tim Lamb

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