Went to have a look at a flat that I am thinking about buying to do up.
An elderly lady, small flat in a terrible state (shame on her family...). She was suffering from dementia, and the estate agent knew nothing about the place, and asked me to only spend a few minutes there as she would get distressed otherwise. I was therefore unable to have a really good look around.
One thing that puzzled me was the method of heating the place & the hot water.
There was clearly heating as the place was warm, and there were warm radiators in every room. It was advertised as having gas fired central heating.
There was no "standard" looking radiator anywhere to be found (it is a small place and I checked carefully). I managed to very partially open a cupboard in one of the bedroom that was all but impossible to open because of the mess. In it I was something that I have never seen before. A grey rounded cylinder-type object, approx 1.2m in length and around 30cm across, with some sort of dial/control mechanism around the middle of it. Initially I though that it was hot water tank with electric immersion heating, but I can only assume that this was in fact some kind of boiler. There was also a functioning standard looking controller/thermostat unit in the hallway.
sorry, forgot my phone in the car, so no photos.
Any idea what that could be was? I only want to reassure myself that replacing it with a combi boiler would not require major work - i.e. new pipes/gas supply/water/etc. It was top floor, so it is possible that there was a tank in the attic, but this is not a major issue to remove as I prefer a combi.