What options to upgrade heating?

astrofool

I'm looking to upgrade our central heating system. Hopefully a new condensing gas boiler, zoned for up/down/water, and temperature controls.

What we have at the moment is:
4 bed semi-d built 1991, 1500sq ft.
Insulated walls (cavity + fibreglass), attic (fibreglass + kingspan), double glazed (alu)
Grant 65f boiler (original with the house as far as I can see)
Single zone for up/down/water
Temperature control in the hall (along with the only TRV...)
Immersion is on the first floor (lagged)
We only generally need the heating on for an hour to get the whole house up to heat, and that'll do for hours and hours. Have only ever had to turn it on for more than an hour during the winter cold snaps.

Any advice on what boiler to get and what control upgrades are possible?

heinbloed

If it has to be a fossile source of energy:

Choose a MODULATING COMBI condensing boiler, HEATING zone controls like for example TRVs for every individual heating zone ( one for every room).

Insulation, professional advice and a guaranteed job by a professional.

JohnnieK

It sounds like you have a well insulated house there. Personally I dont like combi-boilers. They work on water pressure to deliver hot water to your taps and showers and if your water every gets cut off or reduced you could be with out hot water for a day or a few hours (remember the cold spell)

If it's gas boilers your looking for Viessmann offer the best warranty going, 5 years parts and labour and 10 on the heat exchanger if it's installed by a registered Viessmann installer. Next is Ariston, They offer 5 years parts and labour, Worcester and vokera offer two years on theres. All off which are great boilers, but personally I would go with the two with the best warranty the Viessmann and Ariston. If there going to give warranty's like that they must have great faith in there boilers.

You should also consider weather compensation this would save you even more on your gas bills although if your going for a grant SEAI dont approve of this because there idiots.

On the controlls front you could go with a 3 zone pack with programmable room stats for complete control for your system. Also I would recomened flushing your system to get rid off any sludge deposits.

Micky Dolenz

Go for the SEI grant. The veissman boiler is good but read up on it as it operates different from your common boiler.

You will have to get a chemical flush of some description as per most manufacturers instructions. Go for two zones, one space, one heating. fit room stat downstairs and TRV's upstairs.

If you apply for grant it is good for 6 months so plenty of time to decide, but the sooner the better as it is normally a quiet time for installers, Sep and Oct get pretty busy.

The grant is €800 as now you have to get a BER cert on completion of work. Speak to a few installers and listen carefully to what they say.

Micky Dolenz

JohnnieK wrote: »

You should also consider weather compensation this would save you even more on your gas bills although if your going for a grant SEAI dont approve of this because there idiots.

Surely you can fit them. Aslong as you satisfy the grant conditions, extras shouldn't be a problem.

astrofool

Micky Dolenz wrote: »

Surely you can fit them. Aslong as you satisfy the grant conditions, extras shouldn't be a problem.

I'd definitely be going down the sei route. Weather compensator sounds interesting, will read up on the veissmann. Sounds like I should be putting together the documentation for the grant now.

JohnnieK

Micky Dolenz wrote: »

Surely you can fit them. Aslong as you satisfy the grant conditions, extras shouldn't be a problem.

By right weather compensating controls dont need room thermostats as the boiler regulates it's temperature from the outside sensor and is controlled by time only. The cylinder has demand for temperature.

SEAI want room controlled temperature i.e. a user operated thermostat.

Fitting a room thermostat with weather compensating controls is like fitting a room stat in the same room as a TRV.

A college of mine installed a great system there recently with weather compensation and the grant was refused on these grounds. Also a lot of BER assessors haven't a clue about heating systems and when they come to complete the post grant evaluation they fail it.

I had a row recently with one. I installed a 4 pipe viessmann system using the built in diverter valve and there 2 channel wireless programmable room stat (in essence it's a Y-plan system) and he couldn't understand it at all and was going to fail it. I had to nearly take the boiler apart to show him how it works and it was only after a loud speaker phone call to SEAI was he convinced. If there was ever a day I was going to kill a man it was that day.

Why they wont except them I dont know.

heinbloed

JonnieK wrote:

By right weather compensating controls dont need room thermostats as the boiler regulates it's temperature from the outside sensor and is controlled by time only. The cylinder has demand for temperature.

This is not correct.

Only the flow temperature is controlled by the outside thermostat ( "weather compensation"). Certainly not the room temperature.
To control the room temperature a room thermostat has to be installed.

yoshytoshy

Would it be got to do with the "timed" controlled element ?

I was under the impression the compensator has it's own controller ?

astrofool

Surely you'd need to be able to set the internal temperature, regardless of external temps?