vernon
Harder than Ronnie Pickering
- Location
- Meanwood, Leeds
Not if your wife's stare is as frosty as mine's.
Installing a new boiler in loft... opinions please
- Thread starter bikingdad90
- Start date
Page may contain affiliate links. Please see terms for details.
Not if your wife's stare is as frosty as mine's.
Piemaster
Guru
- Location
- UK City of Culture
We've just had ours replaced (was a similar age). We are fortunate in that it's in the garage (part of the house). Kept the hot water tank and had system changed from gravity to a pressurised system - it did require a new water tank. Been excellent, decent showers without a very noisy power shower pump running and a bit more space in the loft from losing the 2 (heating + gravity HW) tanks up there.
Airing cupboard is now pretty much useless, tank is a lot bigger and so well insulated theres hardly any heat leakage from it. Also got one with a coil in it for solar heating, which may happen sometime soon as you can now get paid for it under the Renewable Heat Initiative.
Few months back had Honeywell Evohome controls fitted giving individual room controls. It even has an app for changing temperatures via your phone/tablet. Amusingly (for me anyway) I can adjust the heating for my wife while I'm sitting in a bar in Brazil and she is watching the sleet fall at home.
edit:went for pressurised system as having read up on it combi boilers they seemed better suited to small households/people numbers than we have.
Airing cupboard is now pretty much useless, tank is a lot bigger and so well insulated theres hardly any heat leakage from it. Also got one with a coil in it for solar heating, which may happen sometime soon as you can now get paid for it under the Renewable Heat Initiative.
Few months back had Honeywell Evohome controls fitted giving individual room controls. It even has an app for changing temperatures via your phone/tablet. Amusingly (for me anyway) I can adjust the heating for my wife while I'm sitting in a bar in Brazil and she is watching the sleet fall at home.
edit:went for pressurised system as having read up on it combi boilers they seemed better suited to small households/people numbers than we have.
Piemaster
Guru
- Location
- UK City of Culture
Good idea, unfortunately the new tank doesn't leave much room for anything else in there now and a shelf would only leave a 6" gap between it and the top of the door to slot clothes into.
Globalti
Legendary Member
I can't see the point in going combi; at least with a cylinder of hot water you have some stored, you have the choice of heating it with gas or the immersion or both together if you get home from holiday and need hot water fast, you have a nice cosy airing cupboard and the ability to store solar heat, which I do from the panel I installed on the roof. I lived in a small house with a combi and hated it; it was temperamental and didn't always work and there was nowhere warm and dry to store linen and towels.
ColinJ
Puzzle game procrastinator!
- Location
- Todmorden - Yorks/Lancs border
I don't see having to wait one minute for the hot water to come through as a big problem once back from a holiday. Start running the water before you take your shoes and jacket off! 
I do find the delay a bit of a pain when using the wash basins though. It does seem wasteful having to run off a minute's worth of cold water to use twenty seconds worth of hot!
It has just struck me that this is probably why a modern eco-friendly washing machine only takes cold water and heats it itself as required.
I do find the delay a bit of a pain when using the wash basins though. It does seem wasteful having to run off a minute's worth of cold water to use twenty seconds worth of hot!
It has just struck me that this is probably why a modern eco-friendly washing machine only takes cold water and heats it itself as required.
Piemaster
Guru
- Location
- UK City of Culture
It's several years and washing machines since we last had one with a hot fill. New machines use very little water anyway, as you say all a hot fill would do here would be to fill the washing machine with cold water and the pipework with hot.
The dishwasher is cold fill too. I'm sure I've read that a dishwasher can use less water than filling a sink.
OP
OP
bikingdad90
Guru
Sounds like a doable idea, glad there have been no horrible stories where such changes made things a 'mare at least no so far anyway.
Over The Hill
Guru
- Location
- Ridden off into the sunset
I would say no in most cases.
The boiler in the loft for 90% of houses is in an unheated place insulation is in the floor of the loft for most people. So the water can easily freeze.
Also the chuck out a fair bit of heat which is all wasted in the loft.
IF the loft is converted to a proper insulated room then it would be OK - but then is it just in a bedroom.
Most new boilers are just the size of a kitchen cupboard and can be put on the wall in the kitchen quite easily or just about anywhere on an outside wall.
I think it is lazy plumber as it is easy to just run the system off a link to the hot water and a cold feed and not worry about the pipes showing in the loft.
The boiler in the loft for 90% of houses is in an unheated place insulation is in the floor of the loft for most people. So the water can easily freeze.
Also the chuck out a fair bit of heat which is all wasted in the loft.
IF the loft is converted to a proper insulated room then it would be OK - but then is it just in a bedroom.
Most new boilers are just the size of a kitchen cupboard and can be put on the wall in the kitchen quite easily or just about anywhere on an outside wall.
I think it is lazy plumber as it is easy to just run the system off a link to the hot water and a cold feed and not worry about the pipes showing in the loft.
