Another Boiler question

[BogMonster]

Reading the other thread with interest as I have a similar question. We're looking at changing our heating system completely as it's 20+ years old and the radiators are pretty ripe, the hot water cyl leaks and despite being a small house the boiler burns more fuel than the Argentine navy with a nuclear sub on their tail.

All heating here is oil fired and due to the nature of our water supply a combi is not an option, so it will be a balanced flue oil-fired boiler feeding radiators and a conventional hot water cylinder with a gravity feed cold water system.

Options locally are a Worcester Bosch Camray Utility condensing boiler, or a Mistral CKUT3 condensing boiler, similar thing, different manufacturer.

So, any views on which would be the better product? Both have decent parts backup and support, and no other makes do here, so any alternatives are unlikely to be worth considering.

Our heating bill is about £2500 a year so I think I'm prepared to pay the extra for a condensing model -the WB supplier also has non condensing models available and they are cheaper, but 10% fuel saving will cover the cost difference in a couple of years.

Views please?

Ta

[Ribochet]

Originally Posted by BogMonster

despite being a small house the boiler burns more fuel than the Argentine navy with a nuclear sub on their tail.

BTW go for the condensing boiler

[BogMonster]

Aye, but which make out of the two, that's the question?

[Peter_C]

How come non of your guys think green? What about a complete retrofit, with a radiant floor heating or reusing the radiator system but going to a heat pump? Heat pumps are super efficient, but may not produce enough thermal conductivity depending on ambient temps. A solar thermal run during the day with hot water storage can offset much of this dependent on snow load. A solar photovoltaic system can completely offset the power bill required. Green can almost always save money. Oil burning? Yuck!

[camelgas]

From what you list : the NON condensing worcester ( danesmoor) is the best by a mile, long lived and reliable proven good unit.
new W/B condensing oil range is universally disliked by heating engineers.

oil condensing boiler of choice would be a grant vortex with a fernox tf1 filter on the return pipe. with fully pumped s- plan control system with room thermostat and trv's on the radiators.
proper flushing out of flux residue on a new system is the key to it lasting and not leaking due to pinholeing.

I am an Independent Heating engineer of 30 years .

[simsy]

One or two of the glass vacuum tube type solar water heaters linked into the hot water storage tank is worth a look, IMHO...

[BogMonster]

Thanks Mr Camel. I've since looked again at the list I was sent and the non condensing ones (or at least I think that's what is meant by "standard efficiency") are not WB but are Warmflow, what's the view on those please?

Efficiency rating on the website is listed as 85.6% for the Warmflow U90, so it's well behind the 93.2% for the WB Camray but having had reliable non condensing boilers for many years I am far from convinced that the extra complication is worth it and it's only got to go wrong once a year to wipe out the fuel saving on repair costs.

Given the concerns on the Camray, what do you think of the Mistral boilers for the condensing option or haven't you had any dealings?

On the greenie side, solar water heaters are slightly effective here but the other options aren't.

[Leapy]

Originally Posted by Peter_C

How come non of your guys think green?

Have you factored into that where Bogmonster lives?

[Pikey Dave]

Personally I wouldn't go condensing especially in your locale. The last couple of years up here in the balmy latitudes have seen loads of boiler breakdowns due to freezing condensate pipes. They only breakdown when it's cold We've got a "conventional" Trianco, I know it's not on your list, but it consistently runs at 90%+ eff. We've got solar PV & I'm also looking at ground source heat pumps to run our underfloor (wet) heating, the energy situation can only get worse.

Anyway, why are you buggering about burning oil, I thought you'd be sheep sh1t powered down there

[Leapy]

Originally Posted by Pikey Dave

Anyway, why are you buggering about burning oil, I thought you'd be sheep sh1t powered down there

They're selling all of that to the Argentinians to power their Navy

[Pikey Dave]

Originally Posted by Leapy

They're selling all of that to the Argentinians to power their Navy

The way the Argy economy's going, they'll be using it instead of horse in the Fray Bentos pies soon

[BogMonster]

They don't need fuel for their Navy at the moment, can't even keep it the right way up

Linky

Anyway we digress, much as I enjoy taking the peese out of ze neighbours, there's a couple of unanswered questions above (and I'm not talking about the one about whether we burn poop)

[camelgas]

no mistral dealers around here so do not see them. not a big player in the market.

not a big fan of any of the warmflows, they are overfired and tend to eat baffles. they use the same heat exchanger from model 50 to 120 .

I did not comment on renewables due to where you are in the world.

Why such a narrow choice of unit , is it due to spares kept ?.

[BogMonster]

Yeah, very small place, they are the only two options with local agents. Anything else is special order from UK, 2 weeks to get spares by DHL at vast expense or 3 months to get spares by sea. I don't know to what extent the spares are common, but I assume as the machine gets more complex there are more proprietary bits unique to the manufacturer? The old simple boilers are pretty well served, Riello burner spares etc are readily available.

[camelgas]

At the end of the day in your position access to spares is everything, as is local knowlage on fixing it.
In a small isolated island like yours everybody knows whats going on, so perhaps ask about as to who has what fitted and how it has behaved since, no problems after 5 years being a reasonable indicator.

[landlord]

Would stay away from Heat Pumps unless you have underfloor heating and a thermal efficient house up to current building regs. Otherwise you would be wasting your money.

I have a number of properties with WB boilers (combi, condensing, etc) couple of properties have Glow worm. Cant fault either, certainly WB are the ones to go for, good service, back up and spares availability.

As far as condensing outlets freezing, i haven't had an issue as yet, just make sure the outlet pipe is well insulated / protected, obviously depends on where you live

Depending on storage the other alternative is a Biomass, but you need an area for the wood chips / pellets. Similar size storage area to a 1000 litre oil tank and reasonably close to the boiler.

Just noticed where you live....... forget Biomass, you may have a slight issue with a ready fuel supply

[Pikey Dave]

Originally Posted by landlord

Just noticed where you live....... forget Biomass, you may have a slight issue with a ready fuel supply

Which brings us back to sheep sh1t

[willk]

Originally Posted by Pikey Dave

Which brings us back to sheep sh1t

I notice that Bog Monster (despite his name) has avoided mentioning that sensitive subject - peat. The islanders burn an average of four metric tons per annum each for domestic heating.

Probably in a non-condensing environment

[camelgas]

Bogmonster: If you are useing a peat fire what about a closed boilerstove feeding into a thermal store, the oil boiler should be linked to the store also to boost when needed.
The flow and returns to radiators come from this store, it can work very well and help get the oil bill down, I use this setup at home but burn wood.

[BumbleAbout]

I went for a Trianco condensing boiler last year on a gravity fed system (the old Trianco heat exchanger rusted through after 20 years due to a lack of corrosion inhibitor) - brilliantly simple with no electronics to go wrong, just a flow switch which senses when the remote circulation pump turns on. Very happy after 12 months - just make sure that you add inhibitor to the system and top it up each year.