One for the plumbers. New boiler.

Danthus · 7 Jul 2019 at 09:42

My boiler has packed up, its 15 years old from new.

We have a 3 storey houese, 1 bathroom, 2 enuite showers, 11 radiators.

The boiler is an Ideal Classic Slimline SE15 FF. We have a hot water tank too.

Can I rplace this with a combi boier, if so what kwoutput should I be looking at?

rexehuk · 7 Jul 2019 at 10:48

Replace with an unvented! We did it in our town house and immense water pressure on all floors.

Derek W · 7 Jul 2019 at 11:10

Not a plumber but Worcester have a rough calculator on their website albeit just for their products. You can judge a similar brand on the boilers they suggest for a house of your size.

https://www.worcester-bosch.co.uk/products/boilers/find-a-new-boiler

Usher · 7 Jul 2019 at 12:25

You have to take into account where the boiler is compared to the tank if you decide to go with a combi, if you lose the tank then where is the boiler compared to the taps of most use? Our tank is directly above the bathroom so we get hot water in a few seconds, if the hot water came direct from a combi it would take a lot longer as our boiler is not near the bathroom.

Our boiler hot pipe goes up into the loft, across under the boards to the tank and down to the bathroom directly below, it then runs through the bathroom into the kitchen. We live in a dormer bungalow.

The kitchen however is further from the tank but a bit nearer to the boiler, here we have to run the tap for ages until it gets hot, in my case a conventional boiler is a far better option, the timer is set for just 10 minutes a day for a big tank of very hot water, if we had a combi then every time we turned a hot tap would fire up the boiler which would total way over 10 minutes of run time per day

b0rn2sk8 · 7 Jul 2019 at 21:24

I'd be surprised if the current system isn't unvented given its a 3 story 3 bath house.

What cylinder do you currently have?

ZG002 · 8 Jul 2019 at 07:48

Simple answer is no not really.

You won't get the water pressure to feed a bathroom and 2 ensuite. One being used at a time will be fine but as soon as you try to use two at the same time it will be useless.

rexehuk · 8 Jul 2019 at 19:35

b0rn2sk8 said:
I'd be surprised if the current system isn't unvented given its a 3 story 3 bath house.

What cylinder do you currently have?

Depends when house was built. Mine is 1970s, tank ground floor with boiler... Water pressure on top floor was hilarious due to head.

We got sold various solutions like combi (ruled out as we want two bathrooms similar to op) or shower pumps which at best is a crap solution as you need to run new pipes to do that.

Best for us was unvented, gained loft space, moved the tank too and built extra bathroom and added house value.

If you're in same situation it will cost the same or less than fitting a combi. Conversion for us cost £2000 ish but that's easily offset by the bathroom gain.