Building a new property? Renovating an old one? Looking to upgrade the heating system in your home to ensure constant access to quality heating and hot water while minimising maintenance and electricity costs?
Choosing the right boiler is paramount, and in recent years, combi boilers have become a fixture in many modern homes and businesses! Before choosing a system boiler, you need to know about combi boilers, their advantages and disadvantages, and what they offer over their conventional counterparts! This article will answer all these questions and more acting as your complete guide to combi boilers!
What Are Combi Boilers?
A combi system boiler is a type of boiler that provides central heating and hot water on demand. Unlike conventional boilers, it doesn't feature a cold water storage unit or hot water cylinder, rather it heats water on the spot using a This ensures combination boilers have a compact form factor and can be installed in a variety of properties, both domestic and commercial.
How Is a Combi Boiler Different from a Conventional Boiler?
Conventional boilers similarly provide central heating and hot water. Still, they do so by continuously heating and maintaining a hot water tank directly connected to the tap water in the property using pipelines. This usually means that its installation will require more space and its operation will require more energy and maintenance. This is why combi boilers have become increasingly popular in households and commercial establishments.
What Are the Advantages of Combi Boilers?
Combi boilers are increasingly becoming one of the most popular types of boilers for both domestic and commercial purposes. A combi boiler offers a host of important advantages over a conventional boiler that makes it a highly appealing choice:
- Efficient
Due to their dual-purpose nature, combi boilers are extremely energy efficient. If temperatures rise and demand for central heating in the property gets reduced, the system can divert the warm water it produces to provide hot water on demand. Similarly, if there's no demand for hot water, the system will divert its resources to provide central heating.
This dual use of combi boilers makes them an excellent choice for households and businesses that care about efficiency and want to cut down on energy bills!
- Convinient
Having a single system responsible for the property's central heating and hot water simplifies management, maintenance, and repairs. Whether it is controlling or adjusting the system or installing new filters, all changes can be conveniently made to the central system. It will reflect on both the property's access to heating and hot water, making changes and configurations much faster and easier.
- Affordable
Not only do combi boilers reduce maintenance and repair costs, maximize energy efficiency, and minimize energy bills, which makes them a great return on investment in the long term, but they are also more affordable upfront, including cheaper supply and installation costs. If you are looking for a budget heating system solution that can provide instant hot water, a combination boiler is an excellent choice!
- Compact
Combi boilers usually have small form factors. This is partly due to not having a hot water cylinder and partly due to modern advances in boiler technology. A combi boiler can be easily installed in a section of a basement, for example, while a conventional boiler system might take up the entire space.
This is highly valuable in small houses that want to make maximum use of the space available to them. Instead of installing system boilers that will occupy the entire basement, you can install compact combi boilers that will occupy only a small fraction of the space and free the rest of it up to be used as storage.
- Easy to Install
Installing a central heating system is a monumental task. From laying down the pipe network to installing the hot water cylinder and ensuring the boilers are connected to the city's gas network, there are a lot of tasks you need to perform, and this all combines to make a boiler installation an expensive and arduous task.
A combi boiler installation is different. Not only is the boiler more compact and there's no need to install a hot, it requires less setup. These qualities contribute to making combi boilers easier and cheaper to install. This is one of the primary reasons why combi boilers are sometimes used as a portable solution in factories and other industrial complexes.
What Are the Disadvantages of Combi Boilers?
Although combination boilers are increasingly popular, they still have some drawbacks that potential clients need to be aware of:
- Have a Limited Capacity to Supply Instant Hot Water
A combi boiler heats water on demand instead of making use of a hot water tank. While this is an advantage traditionally, it also introduces some limitations. Most combi boilers are only capable of providing one hot water tap at a time. This means that if there are four people that all want hot water at the same time, the combi boiler will likely not keep up and the water will start going down in temperature.
How combi boilers heat water makes them unsuitable for large households with multiple bathrooms where more than multiple people might have demands for hot water supply at the same time. This problem can be partially alleviated by installing multiple combi boilers or a large combi boiler that's specifically designed to meet industrial hot water demand!
- Not Suitable for Every Situation
A combi boiler has a few shortcomings that limit its general use. A combi boiler requires good mains pressure, for example, since it doesn't store water and takes water directly from the mains, so if the property suffers from poor water pressure at the mains, the combi boiler might not be able to produce sufficient instant hot water. It is important to confirm whether the property is suitable for a combi boiler or not before installation.
Conclusion: Should I Purchase a Combi Boiler or Not?
Choosing the right central heating system for your property is an important decision. It has a direct impact on the level of comfort and convenience while influencing energy bills, construction, and more. This article went over the advantages and disadvantages of combi boilers and how they compare to their conventional counterparts. If you are thinking about buying a boiler, considering your needs, your budget, and your hot water demand will help you learn whether combi boilers are right for you or not!
Combi Boiler System FAQ
Do Combi Boilers Use Electricity or Gas?
The label "combi boiler" describes the role of the boiler rather than its fuel source. A combi boiler is a boiler that provides both central heating and hot water to a property on demand. Combi boilers operate using electricity, gas, and renewable sources. If you are looking for a central heating boiler, you can find a combi boiler that uses your preferred fuel source.
Is a Combi Boiler Cheaper than a Gas Boiler?
Though modern combi boilers are comparable in price to gas boilers, they have a few key advantages that make them cheaper in the long term: They are more efficient and consume less energy, reducing energy bills. They provide hot water on demand and don't require a hot water storage tank, which reduces pipework and storage space needs.
A combi boiler can operate using electricity, gas, and renewable energy, which makes it more flexible and provides more options, especially if your property isn't connected to the gas network. These qualities combine to make combi boilers an extremely affordable solution for homes and businesses.