What boiler is right for you?

There are many boiler types and they can use a variety of different fuel sources. We won’t go into many of them but focus of the 3 main types of gas boiler and we’ll touch on electric boilers.

The 3 main gas boilers are: System, Combi and Regular boiler. The system boiler is one that not only generates hot water for your central heating and hot water cylinder, but it will also power it around your system without the need of external pumps. These are efficient, but they are not the most efficient of the 3. Why they may be considered better in some cases, is that combined with an unvented cylinder you get mains pressure on your hot water so showers at any level of your property work well. These boilers are best used on sealed systems and not gravity fed.

The most efficient of boilers are the Combis. These heat your house and generate hot water on demand so there is no wasted energy. They do have limits on how much hot water they can generate and pump out, so large houses with many bathrooms may struggle when demand is high. However, in most cases this just means a family establishes a routine that works under that system.

The last of the non-electric boilers is the Regular boiler. This is very similar to a System boiler, but it has less working parts and so requires external pumps and other controls to end up as the same. These are cheaper and are usually installed alongside a vented cylinder under a gravity fed system. This setup is the least efficient and there are regulations/conditions in place that have to be met if there is no alternative but to maintain this rather dated system.

There are electric version of these boilers and, under perfect conditions and energy prices, these can rival gas and oil boilers in cost efficiency at least. The technology is still improving and we are more than qualified to install one of these if your situation requires it.