What’s the right boiler for your home??

A qualified, registered installer will help you to choose an appropriate boiler for your home. But first, here’s a little background on boilers: what’s hot and what’s not…

In most cases, the ‘right’ boiler will mean a condensing boiler. In fact, exceptional circumstances aside, all new gas and oil central heating boilers fitted in the UK must now be condensing boilers by law.

What’s so good about condensing boilers?

So, is it time you thought about a new heating system? Around 60 per cent of carbon dioxide (CO2 ) emissions from your home are down to your boiler. With an efficient new boiler, you could save up to 875kg of CO2 and £110 a year.

Condensing boilers can be easily fitted to most new and old heating systems. What makes them better than older, non-condensing boilers is their efficiency: they waste far less energy. While poor old non-condensing boilers convert just 60 per cent of their fuel into heat, the efficiency rate of modern A-rated condensing boilers is at least 90 per cent. Put simply with a noncondensing boiler every £40 of a £100 bill is in wasted heat whereas with a condensing boiler only £10 of a £100 bill is in wasted heat.

An A-rated condensing boiler will therefore use a third less fuel than an older boiler to provide the same amount of heat – cutting heating bills and CO2 emissions by up to a third too.

All of which makes condensing boilers the most efficient boilers on the market.

What sort of boiler do you have at the moment?

To tell a condensing boiler from a noncondensing boiler, look at the flue that sticks out from the outdoor wall adjacent to your boiler – and the type of waste heat it lets out into the atmosphere.

A flue is the pipe that takes the exhaust gases generated by your boiler and passes them out through the wall or roof – letting them escape into the air. The end of the flue is covered by a metal or plastic protective cover, which makes sure that a good flow of air is maintained.

If the flue is made of plastic and lets out visible steam when the boiler is firing, then congratulations: you are likely to have a condensing boiler already. If the flue is made of metal and no steam is visible, you are likely to have a noncondensing boiler. These older boilers let out much hotter gases that are invisible to the naked eye – and would melt a plastic flue.

To find out if you have a condensing boiler, visit the SEDBUK website at sedbuk.com.

How does a condensing boiler work?

Condensing boilers get their name because they condense periodically. In other words, they extract heat from the exhaust gases that would otherwise escape through the flue – turning water vapour from the gas back into liquid water or condensate.

A condensing boiler captures much more usable heat from its fuel than a noncondensing boiler. Its high operating efficiency is made possible by the design of the condensing boiler’s larger – or sometimes dual – heat exchanger. The heat exchanger makes sure that as much heat as possible is transferred from the boiler’s burner – and as little as possible lost in gases through the flue.

There are two types of condensing boiler: regular and combination. Regular condensing boilers heat your hot water through a hot water cylinder. Combination condensing boilers give you instant hot water without the need for a cylinder. Please bear in mind that not all home heating systems will be compatible with a combination boiler. A qualified installer will tell you which type of condensing boiler, regular or combination, is most suitable for your home.

Source: energysavingtrust.org.uk

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