Interesting ... I am in a similar position to the OP, and am wondering about the route to take when our back boiler dies. Has anyone here experience of fitting/using an outside-mounted boiler? (I am thinking of a system boiler rather than a combi, FWIW)
Thanks, J^n
One house I was in had an externally mounted (system) oil boiler. It was green and Irish. :-)(
I think it was a Grant boiler.. Worked bloody well to be honest.
A friend has a standard system boiler in what amounts to an outside cupboard, with a frost stat, that works OK too.
Personally if you have the space, its probably a good idea,.
Or a heat pump - £7500 grant available right now . . .
Doan make me larf..
If the system is that old the CH is probably designed for a very high flow temperature. £7500 may not make too much of a dent in the cost of modifying the rest of the system:)
IIUC, new rads - not the end of the world, but the heat pump survey* guy mentioned 3 metre double units. Not sure where they'd go . . .
It may be that my house isn't suitable - placing the unit will be tricky, apparently. So waste of money if I decide not to go ahead - and I probably won't, it's all been too vague and hard sell.
A Baxi Buggerit may still be on the old single-pipe system so completely new return pipes to all radiators would be needed.
You could use fan assisted radiators eg Myson; they have a high output in a small size. A bit ugly and noisy though.
Owain
Could you get triple units, or increase the height?
If you know your room heat loss (the installer must have done the calcs, ask to see them) you can choose rads to meet the output at the appropriate flow temp - there are online calculators. There may be alternative options than the one they've suggested.
It's probably just the installer wants paying for doing the survey, if you choose not to go ahead. They don't need to do that, but it helps confirm the customer isn't kicking tyres. If they're busy they probably don't want to do the work on spec.
If your EPC is more than 10 years old you would need that doing for the grant, and that costs ~£70-100 anyway. Not sure about solar, I think you only need to do that for the ECO grant (where your energy company is paying and they do a whole-house energy recommendation - insulation etc) rather than the Boiler Upgrade grant (which is just for a heating replacement).
Have they registered the new EPC? (Check epcregister.com)
The heat loss calcs and EPC are likely useful even if you don't go ahead. What was the problem with placing the unit - do you have an outside wall for it? Are you in a tight site (flat, 2-up 2-down terrace or something)?
Vague and hard sell is not a good look though, I agree.
Theo
They're not the usual choice for HX repairs
Do you need it certified? If I get my car rad fixed I don't get anything certified. If I put waterglass leak sealant in a CH system I don't need to get it certified.
I slung mine in the local amenity tip metal skip 20 years ago. 'Sling' needs to be qualified by 'struggled on my own' on account of its significant weight.
These cast iron heat exchangers are bullet proof but what fails is the bolts that hold the two halves together.
Chap across the road still has his and a few years back was also looking for a possible new heat exchanger.
If the property uses class 2 flue blocks then they are more efficient than believed because the wall of the bedroom above gets the extra heat from these flue blocks. The houses on my estate had much smaller radiators in this bedroom compared to the other bedrooms for this reason.
The galvanised metal casing also tends to rot away.
Baxi did make and sell a condensing replacement for their old baxi bermuda back boilers but they took it off the market after about a year from what I remember. Not too many installers wanted to fit one because it required a new flu liner which made it a no-go for properties with class 2 flue blocks (and there must be hundreds of thousands of that type of late 60's,
70's and early 80's houses).50 years old means the house was built circa 1973, so it will probably have proper dual 28/20/15mm pipe runs to the hot tank (C plan) and rads via a pump.
Yes, probably. But if it's going to take all this upheaval I'd rather look at underfloor heating.
I'm going to wait for the report.
I have done some calculations, but they don't correspond to measurements such as heat loss and temperature reached in one particular room. The culprit is I think a bay window. Despite dry lining, heavy curtains, cavity fill, a seemingly insulated bay roof (snow took a while to melt), and what look to me to be decent DG units, the temperature in the room is always a couple of degrees below other rooms, despite an oversized radiator, and drops more quickly than other rooms.
No real idea what's going on. I'm insulating the floor at the moment
I'd like a new EPC as a lot of work was done since the 2017 original. Nothing on the regsiter yet - survey done 5 days ago.
It's a 1920 semi. I'm not too sure what the problem is TBH - just a lot of tutting as he walked around.
Depends how much faff it is to insulate under the UFH - no point just heating the ground. Suspended or solid floors?
It would be worth finding out, because if you can solve that problem your bills will go down, irrespective of heating source.
In my case, I have a couple of rooms upstairs with about 3.6m x 0.6m of what looks to be perfectly fine 20yo UPVC double glazing, but actually there's a lot of heat loss through the glass. I fitted some cellular blinds (Hoppvals from Ikea, cut to size with a hacksaw) and it made a big difference.
If you can get hold of a thermal camera it would be useful to offer clues.
I think for some of the grants you want an EPC score that's not awful but not great, and they won't pay if your EPC is too good. (not sure if that's current, I'm not up to date with all the different kinds at the moment)
There might be something about proximity to neighbours and noise nuisance. Do you have a ground floor spot on the wall that's at least 2m from the boundary, where you might be able to site a concrete pad and run services (electric, central heating pipes) to? Better if it's not right next to a sleeping room.
It is also possible to site the units some distance away with buried pipework, with some extra cost and loss of efficiency. A house down the road has theirs in the front garden, about 5m from the house, strategically located behind a bush. (I bet they didn't ask the bush how it felt about being blown cold air all winter)
Theo
Indeed - suspended timber, cellar underneath.
Pretty sure it's a combination of draughts (which I'm dealing with) and something I can't identify with the windows. They *look* decent - wide glass gap, kite marked. And the spot temperature of the curtains is fairly decent, not far off room temperature. But the cold air that pours out of gaps suggests something's going on.
Issue is the windows are quite big - 2m high, and 3m fitted width. And being a bay it'd be nice if they butted up to each other. So likely bespoke, so expensive, and I have looked at fitted shutters but don't have the money right now.
Yes, borrowed one last year, will try again. Remember getting confused around windows with emissivity of the glass but I'm sure it's doable.
I'll see what the report says - although I'm slowly coming to accepting the possibility it's a con. This is what's promised:
We'll see :-)
Gaps in the curtains - not the frames etc!
OK, so I suppose you need to decide whether you're heating the cellar (and insulating that) or heating the room and insulating the floor so the cellar is 'outside'.
If you can rule out leaks through the frames (eg old aluminium without thermal breaks) maybe worth considering replacing the sealed unit while keeping the frames?
eg
(in my case they put the glazing beads on the outside, so it's a scaffolding job to change the sealed units)
On a cold night, briefly touch the frame, the glass and the surrounding wall in the room - which feels coldest? Fingers sense conduction and aren't so fussy about emissivity.
That looks like the right kind of words in the right order, so that's something.
For the heat loss you need room measurements, sizes of window/door openings, and the construction of all the surfaces (walls/roof/floor/etc). Does sound a bit much to do in 20 minutes, although a laser measure can do the measurements quick and some of them hook into the software they use (my Bosch does Bluetooth but to a useless app, however people have written alternative drivers for Linux etc).
Do keep us posted :)
Theo
Cant you put it in the loft - if you have one. Thats where mine went when I replaced my Baxi this year. Then the wife fancied a log burner so that went in the chimney breast
sintv snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote: : Cant you put it in the loft - if you have one. Thats where mine went when I replaced my Baxi this year. Then the wife fancied a log burner so that went in the chimney breast
Not easily. Almost all of the loft is now part of a loft extension.
Tom.
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