A condensing boiler review

A condensing boiler is a high efficiency forward-looking boiler that integrates an additional heat exchanger in order that the hot waste air transfer a percentage of their contained energy to pre-heat the cold water input. Once working at high efficiency, the water vapour produced in the burning action distils back into a liquid giving up the latent heat of vaporisation.

A result will be this liquid, refered to as condensate, most times acidic, needs to be piped away to a waste pipe or soak away. The boiler will be fitted on a wall and the output gases will pass through the flue. Hot water is supplied by a little recepticle tank to enable convenient and rapid hot water accessibility.

Can you suggest on the right boiler size for my home?

In earlier days boiler installers filled bigger boilers than were needed. Whilst this ensured that there was little chance of the boiler being unable to supply sufficient hot water, even in the most icy of conditions, it also meant that they were only using a piece of their heat generation capabilities, and so functioning in an ineffective mode. If you have insulated your property since the current boiler was installed in your house, it is highly likely that you will be commended to install a smaller boiler than the current one.

We advocate looking for professional advice from a CORGI recorded fitter before choosing a suitable alternate boiler.

If I get a condensing boiler should I put in large radiators?

The main driver for smaller fuel consumption from a condensing boiler results from having a bigger heat exchanger. Larger radiators would allow lower return temperatures, and so result in even better energy performance, but the additional benefit has not been regarded as cost effective, keeping in mind that the system is running at very low capacity for the bulk of the heating season. That in all likelihood remains true, though the smaller heating requirement for new build may easily mean that householders would now allow over-sized radiators more willingly.

The SEDBUK initiative looked at this, and assessed whether there required to be new considerations for condensing boilers. The decision was that they need not, and the test results for both cases share the same SEDBUK calculation.