Gas boiler in garage?

[Chris Hogg]

My mother has a rather ancient gas boiler in her kitchen. I've suggested that if/when she replaces it, she gets the new one installed in the garage. The gas meter is in there, the garage is connected to the house and H&C water pipes link through to the house, so heating pipes could also link through, and I see no obvious problems.

But something is lurking in the back of my mind about building or fire regs not allowing flame devices in garages where cars are kept because of the potential fire hazard. Is this the case? Are gas boilers prohibited in garages? It would be a condensing boiler, so both air intake and combustion exhaust would be vented outside.

[Gareth]

I've got a gas boiler in my garage and it recently passed a safety inspection so I don't think it will be a problem.

The only minor issue I have had is that in the recent cold weather the frost prevention thermostat has caused the boiler to come on more than I would have liked as it's obviously been very cold in my garage.

[Fredxx]

Old boilers use to push out a kW or 2 into the room. I have no idea how much a new boiler would give out in heat. It's one reason why I never fitted radiators in kitchens if they already had a boiler.

[Adrian C]

We did that, and did build a double skinned partition "fire" wall out of layers of foil backed plaster board just in case car and boiler decided they would like to play together in the worst possible way.

Although the Gas engineers who did the servicing (finally, when we had a TransCo "cease usage lesson" for not servicing it) had no problems with it, the last guy wanted ventillation holes cut through the partition door, and the garage also ventillated a bit better than the natural gaps in the up'n'over door.

The current floorstanding (scrappage qualified) potterton has a dual skinned flue chimney - so quite why the extra ventillation of hole size of two house bricks was necessary is a question (unless for removing CO from the local environment if a fault arise(?), but anyway gave me an good excuse to buy my first SDS drill.

[Andrew Gabriel]

I doubt my Keston (8 years old) gives off more than 100W from the case. I tried to find this figure when I was designing the heating system before buying the boiler, but it wasn't specified anywhere, probably because that's pretty insignificant.

[cynic]

IIRC the boiler must be room sealed (balanced or fan flue) so there can be no intermixing of air in the garage with the inside of the boiler. This is to prevent possible petrol/air mixtures formed by a fuel leak being ignited by the boiler flame. Regs could have been updated but I haven't heard if so.

[Heliotrope Smith]

Chris Hogg wrote in news: [e-mail]:

OK to put put the new boiler in the garage. No restrictions on modern room sealed boiler.

Just be sure to have frost thermostat fitted if not incorporated with boiler.

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[ransley]

Thats a great way to lower efficency, take a boiler designed to run indoors and take it out in the cold. It will take alot longer, cost alot more, to reheat cold water, boilers and piping give off heat, you will loose that benefit and just pray your freeze stat doesnt fail as you will need a new boiler if it does. The piping out of the boiler is the largest and hottest so loss will be greatest. New units can be very small and redoing piping isnt cheap, keep it in. Here in the US boilers are inside and the pump runs when its on, my boiler takes maybe 30-40 minutes to heat 70f water to 140f, if you run the pump when its on and the boiler has 40f water in it wont it circulate cold water and actualy COOL the house for the first 10-15 minutes? I bet you could pay 30-40% more moving it outside to heat your moms house, she wont like a higher bill, she wants it lower.

[Clive George]

Depends where the garage is. If it's like a lot in the UK, the pipe run could be quite short, and so if you insulate it there won't be much to lose at all. The water certainly won't be cooling down in the way you describe.

[Richard Russell]

I concur. When our 32 kW system boiler (in the garage) is running at full pelt the case barely gets warm, and the (relatively short) pipework into the house is well insulated. I wouldn't expect the boiler being in the garage to have a significant effect on overall efficiency, and it does mean we're completely undisturbed by noise if it comes on during the night (which it does, because we have underfloor heating).

Richard.

[YAPH]

Or to protect the pipework in the garage - the boiler's frost protection is only to protect the boiler itself.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Very little indeed. Mine is in the bathroom, and the old RS Kingfisher replaced with a Viessmann condenser in the same location - ie in an airing cupboard.

The whole casing of the old boiler used to be pretty hot to the touch - the new one barely above room temp.

Of course this wasn't always waste heat since it's nice to have a bathroom toastie warm for most of the year. But would be if it's not in a place where that heat is useful.

[Steve Walker]

We had that arrangement installed in a newbuild extension about 3yrs ago, with full oversight from Planning & B Control etc. So, I assume it's OK.

[Chris Hogg]

Thanks for the replies. It would be a room-sealed boiler, so I gather there should be no problems.