New boiler advice.

SpaceTime

We've a fairly large 17 radiator system heated by a Potterton Suprima which was probably installed around 15 years ago.

The boiler's given quite a few problems over the last while with PCB issues.

It runs to heat the hot water circuit in the summer and we heard what sounded like someone repeatedly slamming a door last night. I actually thought it was construction work going on like pile driving or something.

After a while I decided to go and take a look to see if there was someone trying to get into the house or an animal trapped in the shed or something. Turned out it was coming from the flue of the gas boiler !

The system seemed to be igniting explosively every time it cycled on.

So, I switched off the power and gas and I am guessing it's new boiler time at this stage.

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It's a weird system.

Originally it was oil fired and it was converted to gas in the late 1990s / early 00s. The system has three zones, upstairs, downstairs and hot water. Each one is controlled by a pump and non-return valve.

For some reason when the conversion was done the system was also switched from being a pressurised system to being an open system with a header tank located about 4 or 5 ft above the boiler (it's in a very tall boiler house).

I'm not sure why this was done. Also the three thermostats (rooms + cylinder stat) which originally controlled the pumps were removed and TRVs were installed on every radiator.

I don't think this ever provided an adequate level of control and the house is often too hot.

Also, we found our gas bills in recent years are astronomically huge.

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The system's generally in reasonably good shape. It's all copper pipe, the plumbing in the boiler house probably could do with being tidied up and the zoning could do with better controls.

Any suggestions for :

1) Make of boiler?
I had someone trying to sell me Glow Worm but they seem to get mediocre reviews online.

I was thinking Worcester / Bosch as they seem to get much better reviews?
Any other brands I should consider ?

I'd like something with a proper temperature control for the system water too. The Potterton suprima doesn't display ºC on the water temperature. There's just a knob with + / - on it so you can't really set the radiator water temperature very accurately where as this was very easily done on the old oil system years ago.

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Any ideas for more modern control systems? I was wondering if something could be done with wireless stats or something like that?

Sir Arthur Daley

SpaceTime wrote: »

Any ideas for more modern control systems? I was wondering if something could be done with wireless stats or something like that?

If it was viable to hard wire stats it would be a better job. room stats with anticipators will provide away better temperature control and help with energy saving.

Dtp1979

Sir Arthur Daley wrote: »

If it was viable to hard wire stats it would be a better job. room stats with anticipators will provide away better temperature control and help with energy saving.

I'd agree. I'd go with the Ariston boiler and full heating controls with boiler interlock. What part of the country are you based as there's good guys on here who could guide you in the right direction

SpaceTime

Cork City

Feel free to send me a PM if you've any info.

SpaceTime

Several companies have tried to do a very hard sell on Glow Worm which doesn't seem to get wonderful reviews online.