Estimated life of a condensing combi boiler

[Bod]

Seems a lot of people agree with my claim that Condensing combi boilers have a very short life etc.

[Davey]

I know that the guy that comes to service my boiler said that I should hang on to it as long as possible, as the new combis tended to be troublesome, in his experience.

[Bod]

Yup, I have had plenty of first hand experience because before I retired I was a Plumber who installed CH as well.

[Huge]

-ditto-

[Andy Cap]

Any saving are grossly over-stated, plus with a cast-iron kettle type boiler, you don't have the inconvenience of breakdowns and replacements.

[newshound]

My issue is more with COMBI than with CONDENSING, with the proviso of course that the drain is properly installed so that it does not freeze.

I suspect that one issue is that for installers (to whom time is money of course) it is *so* easy to stick the pipe out through the wall like a vent pipe, compared to routing it inside and into a normal drain.

[Dave Preston]

Bod formulated on Saturday :

Our old Baxi Bermuda back boiler had got very bad kettling problems and was noisy as hell - had to turn the telly up so loud that we got complaints from the neighbours!!

Replaced it with an Alpha CD32C condensing combi about 8 years ago and it's worked perfectly (and quietly) ever since.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Seems you were very silly changing from a storage system to a combi, then. Didn't you read up about things before doing so?

[Nick]

+1 My old New World back boiler is at least 36 years old. Serviced every year. Still going strong. Parts will no longer be available but I will hang on to it until it gives up the ghost.

[Nick]

Am I wrong in thinking that kettling problems would be more to do with matters other than the boiler?

[Bod]

The combi (non condensing) I installed 10 years ago is still working but is getting a bit temperamental when using the hot water. CH still works a treat though. Looks like I'm gonna need to renew something soon.

[Bod]

I am a plumber and heating engineer (retired). The combi was installed instead because the tanks/cyl etc took up too much space. I removed the cupboard that housed the tanks.

[Bod]

More than likely to be a furred up heat exchanger or pipes, possibly trapped air.

[ARW]

is taking the piss as it has the same gas bill for on old boiler and a condensing boiler

f*ck me look at the pillock posting in that 2098 thread - hacksaws and platic pipe anyone:-)

so install the condensate so that it cannot freeze.

[Dave Preston]

on 18/10/2014, Nick supposed :

The heat exchanger was fairly badly corroded internally and there were other things wrong too. All in all, it was considered beyond economic repair, hence the change to a condensing combi. The upside was that we could then have a new, modern gas fire and we could also get rid of the hot water cylinder and make better use of the airing cupboard, so not all doom and gloom.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

So surely you knew that combis had a less than perfect reliability reputation? I'm not saying they all have - but it has been a generally held view for ages.

[John Rumm]

I think I have commented in the past on the worst bit of "pro" gas fitting I have seen, decided that this was an acceptable way to do a condensate drain:

The copper pipe just ran down the wall and emptied onto the path outside. The "join" on the inside was made by wrapping the copper pipe end with insulating tape and stuffing the flexi pipe over the end. Still it probably would not have frozen since most of the water drained onto the worktop before it got outside!

[John Rumm]

I don't subscribe to this "all combis are evil" philosophy. I know there was a time it was fun to tease dribble and his insistence that combis are the only solution to every problem, but he has vanished now ;-)

Sometimes it the sensible way to go. Modern combis can be quite civilised if you pick one with enough power to do a resonable flow rate on the hot water.

At my last place I went from a relatively poorly implemented tank based system to a 35kW combi, and the performance for baths was nearly as good, and better for most other things. It the circumstances it was a decent enough solution since all the tank space was being lost, and I also needed a sealed system for rads on the second floor (i.e. nowhere higher to stick a header tank)

[newshound]

It is going to depend a bit on the available space. We regularly use a small holiday cottage where the combi seems to cope fine. In our larger house there is a convenient bit of "dead" loft space for the cylinder, and I am much happier with that as our source of DHW (flow rate + temperature).

[Andrew Gabriel]

Normally caused by a layer of debris preventing free flow of water against the inside surface of the heat exchanger, so you get lots of pockets of super-heated water boiling and condensing. Can also be caused by other faults, such as lack of water flow in low water capacity boilers.