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We’ve a bit of a dilemma over our central heating. The boiler we have is around 30 years old, so clearly a classic example of the sort of boiler that we’re being encouraged to upgrade to newer, more efficient condensing boiler systems. If we also moved to a “combi” boiler we’d lose the hot water tank (we don’t make much use of it, on the whole, as we have an electric shower), and – I’m told – automatically save about 25% or so on our gas bills.

The complication comes in the fact that our boiler is outside the house, so we have no gas coming in to the house. I’m a big fan of induction hobs, so have no desire to return to gas hobs, so don’t really want to bring gas inside if we can avoid it. Why in the house? Well it turns out that modern boilers are designed to be inside. They’ve complicated parts, and consist of copper and complex electronics. They just can’t live outside without proper protection.

In comparison, we’ve currently got something a solid-workhorse of a boiler: It lives in a simple walled structure (single bricks) with a basic roof and door with some basic insulation. It just about withstood the gales/storms last week. It’s got (I understand) a cast iron core, so can withstand the temperature and humidity variance that comes with being outside in the boiler house. It’s also very uncomplicated. It heats water, has an outlet flue, and the only electronics are the ignition system and the pump. Hardly complicated. But because of the solid cast structure, it takes a fair bit more energy to get up and running in the mornings.

We could put the replacement boiler in a cupboard in a spare room (where the hot water tank is). It’s perfectly safe. The only place you can’t put a boiler is, I’m told, a bathroom. But personally I don’t like the idea of a boiler in a bedroom: it’d certainly be something I’d query if I was buying a house. Other locations in our house aren’t possible for a variety of reasons to do with layout, distance from gas meter and so on.

Whilst our boiler did break down recently (turns out the thermocouple needed replacing), I was rather reassured that it’s easy to fix (Although the markup charged for the thermocouple itself was eye-watering). Newer boilers with their electronics strike me as a bit more higher maintenance as they get older. Specialist parts are expensive even at the best of times. And there doesn’t seem to be a market these days for simple, cast-structure boilers that can work outside the house.

So our option, if we’re against getting gas run into the house, is to build-up our boiler house a bit from it’s current form, so a combi-boiler could be installed outside at the appropriate height, and to install a proper door/roof to keep the elements properly out. But after talking to the boiler repair engineer, I’m somehow reassured that our existing boiler, despite its various inefficiencies still has a fair bit of life left in it. A classic example of old and reliable

Perhaps I can assuage my green-guilt with my ‘inefficent’ (but simple and reliable) boiler by keeping the hot water tank and getting solar panels fitted to reduce the need to fire up the boiler for the hot water we rarely need. But then is that practical in sunny Glasgow? Or perhaps we should get rid of the electric shower and use this hot water we’re heating? But I rather like the consistency and power of an electric shower.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 1st, 2008 at 2:40 pm and is filed under House, Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.