Man On The Clapham Omnibus Posted November 22, 2012 Posted November 22, 2012 My son's flat has a Vaillant combi which is probably twenty years old. It has failed once or twice, but in general it's been pretty good. Hard water was one cause, but the other failure was when the flue fan came loose from its spindle so the shaft was turning but the fan not. Quote
Mooch Posted November 22, 2012 Posted November 22, 2012 Jeff Howells, the tame builder who writes for the Sunday Torygraph, often makes the point that if you have an old boiler and it works, don't swap it. The old Pottertons and Baxis had cast iron heat exchangers and will go on for ever - and spares are still available. New condensing boilers have lightweight heat exchangers and suffer rot from the slightly acidic condensate that is produced, so need replacing every 10 years or so. Modern stuff also has IC boards which can and do fail making repair uneconomic. The cost of doing so far outweighs the relative inefficiency of the old kit. Quote
Norman Verona Posted November 22, 2012 Posted November 22, 2012 I would imagine our first boiler, installed in 1969 is still going strong. The person who bought that house, well their daughter, has everything else we left like carpets and curtains and cooker. Quote
Man On The Clapham Omnibus Posted November 22, 2012 Posted November 22, 2012 I agree about keeping old boilers. Their inefficiency, in the main, is loss of heat into the surroundings which, in my case, is the room in which my desktop computer is located. In winter it's on a lot and the room is warm - with an 'efficient' boiler I'd need a radiator in there whereas now I don't. In summer it's on for an hour twice a day to heat the water and the extra cost of the lost heat is negligible in comparison with the price of a new unit. The building regs don't take account of real-world usage; it's all lab measurements. It's the same with filament light bulbs. So they lose energy as heat, so what? They're on when it's dark, it's dark mostly in winter, the lost heat is subtracted from the boiler loading. QED Oh, and they come on brightly, unlike those glow worms they call CF lamps. Quote
blankczechbook Posted November 22, 2012 Posted November 22, 2012 can't you still now buy 100W mini heaters legally? they give off light as a bonus :-D clever way around the regs - change the product description a little :-D Quote
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