Home » Should I Buy A Combi Boiler , System Boiler Or Open Vent Boiler ?
Which Boiler is should i buy? Should I instal a combi boiler, a system boiler, or an open vent boiler? What boiler he should have installed in his property. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to share this video. I’m going to show you this video now, and then afterwards, I’m going to answer some of the questions that’s in the video. If you could, I’d like you to go along with the video with us and answer some of the questions and give your advice as well. So if you’re a plumber or you’re a gas engineer, comment below and let us know what you would instal. Yeah, let’s have a look at this video now.

Also, if you know any really good gas engineers or plumbers in the Beverly area, if you want to add a link below to their website, and then hopefully Dave will be able to get somebody that’s really good to come and do the instal for him as well.

Hi, Allen. My name’s Dave and I’ve got a bit of a boiler conundrum. Back at Christmas time, I was looking at replacing my 35 year old Ideal Elan 2 RS75, at the time with a Worcester Bosch system boiler. Then I started watching your videos, and things have gotten more complicated and more confusing ever since. I don’t think I really fancy a Worcester Bosch after many of your videos, and I think I’d prefer either a Baxi 600 or a Vitodens equivalent kind of thing. My biggest problem now is whether I should swap the boiler for a like for like standard boiler, or go for a system boiler, or make a big change and go for a combi, but there’s a few things to consider and I’d really, really appreciate a bit of advice. Thought I’d do it in a video, rather than writing a lengthy email.

So first thing, it’s an Ideal Elan 75, which is the end column down there. I don’t know whether any of that information’s any use to you. It’s the gas consumption, I suppose, that is my biggest concern, because at the moment it’s only got a 15mm gas supply to the boiler and getting another one through would be quite difficult. It’s also got 28mm input and output up at the top. So that’s my first thing, is the gas supply. The good thing, next to the boiler is the washing machine, so there is water and drainage available there for the condensing side of things.

I’ll move upstairs now. I’ll just pause. I’m up on the landing now, directly above the boiler, which is on an outside wall. So it’s quite easy that the pipes come up under the carpet there, run along the landing, straight into the airing cupboard. At the moment, there’s a standard tank in there. Eight or nine years ago, they put a new pump and a motorised valve in there, because it was playing up a bit, and added that bleed valve on there. That’s the tank. The water tank is up in the loft, and there’s now a new hatch, which is making getting in and out of there considerably easier than it used to be. I’ll just pause a second.

So the next thing to consider is the bathroom. At the moment, due to a stupid mistake, I guess, or shortcut by a previous owner of the house, when I guess they fitted the mixer taps, they’ve wanted lower pressure cold water, and then instead of just running a separate pipe to that, they’ve turned the whole bathroom over onto low pressure from the tank. So now if you flush the toilet, you get water from the tank, but more importantly, I’ve not got drinking water at the sink, which means we can’t do our teeth in here. Not a problem, really. We’ve got an ensuite that has got a shower in there, and in there, it’s not a problem. In there, there’s a shower that’s fed from the water tank with a mixer valve, it’s not a thermostatic one, so I suppose if I did go to a combi, I’d need to consider that as well, but maybe a combi would help in the bathroom because it could be easily switched back to what it should be. Should have done it years ago, but I’ve really never got round to it.

So, really my main problem that I’ve got and really don’t know where to go, is should I go for a system boiler and get rid of the small header tank? Should I go for just a standard boiler and do a simple, straightforward swap? I’m still left with the old pump arrangement, motorised valve, which is a pig to get to, in the way that it’s been installed. Or do I go for a combi and do a dramatic change, gain a cupboard, get some loft space from the tanks in there, which isn’t the best of installations, and then go combi and do it that way?

At the moment, I live on my own with two children that I have two days a week, so there’s not a massive demand for water. It’s a single shower at a time, or running a bath on an evening. So there’s a possibility that a combi might be doable. There’s the issue with the gas supply downstairs. The oven’s an electric one. The hob is a gas one. Never really had any problems in the 10 years or so I’ve been

Allen Hart

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