Baxi Combi Boiler

...manufacturer. I went for Baxi because they specialise in heating – it isn’t simply another string to their bow. They have an excellent reputation, not just amongst people who use their products but amongst the professionals – the heating engineers who install and service the boilers. When my boiler had its first annual service the heating engineer told me that he’s now fit dozens of them and only ever had one problem. Baxi solved that by taking the ...
...of which model in the Baxi range is best left to the heating engineer as he has the expertise to calculate the heating and hot water requirements. The fact that a particular model suits me does not mean that it will suit someone else. The boiler recommended for our house was the Combi 105e, first marketed in October 2000. We decided on this model because it has a greater capacity to supply hot water than the smaller Combi 80e model (12.7 litres of ... more

The original kitchen in our house was designed by a sadist. It was three metres square, with three doors and a large window on the only wall without a door. For more than twenty years I had floated various ideas to turn it into a reasonable kitchen, but they always ran aground on the rocks of there being far too many places where things couldn’t go and far too few places where they could.

As always with these things the solution was very simple. Talking it over with my daughter one day she pointed out that the thing to do was to extend the kitchen by a metre and lose a door which was rarely used in any case. I suggested the idea to several people and the reaction was always the same: it was so obvious that no one could understand why it hadn’t been thought of before.

There was, however, one snag. Well, there were to be many snags along the road to my new kitchen, but this was the first of the really big ones. Right in the middle of this wall which everyone now happily wished gone was our central heating boiler. If the wall went, the boiler had to go too. The only thing to do was to Think Big.

The existing boiler had been labouring away with few problems for more than twenty years. It did, however, have one major drawback in my eyes: it was a conventional boiler. A conventional boiler supplies hot water from a storage cylinder to several taps simultaneously until such time as all the stored hot water has been used. If you want more hot water you then have to wait for the full cylinder to be reheated. If someone has a bath it’s an hour before anyone else can have one. In addition to the hot water cylinder there also has to be a storage tank in the loft space so that the water circulating in the heating system can expand and if this is a metal tank it will corrode one day and you will have a shower where you least want one. What I wanted was a combination boiler or ‘combi’ as it’s commonly known.

A combi boiler heats water instantaneously as you turn on a tap and ceases to heat water as soon as you turn it off. Hot water is constantly available, but it is only available to one hot-water tap at a time and it may take a little longer to fill a bath than with a conventional system although I can’t say that I’ve experienced this. The systems are particularly good for pressure showers as hot water is at mains pressure and this can make for a very invigorating shower! With a combination boiler the central heating system and the domestic hot water are both supplied from the same unit and there is no need to have a cold water storage tank, an expansion tank or a hot water cylinder. There is also a great deal less piping.

A combi boiler is no good for the sort of family where Dad wants to be having a bath whilst daughter showers in her en suite and Mum washes up in the kitchen. The system simply will not cope with that many taps all wanting hot water at the same time. There is also a delay between turning the tap on and the hot water reaching it. How long depends on the distance between the boiler and the tap. For me this can be as much as a minute (in a not-very-large house) and if your water supply is metered this waste might be something you would want to take into account. Yes, I know I know I should save it to flush the loo, but life gets in the way.

So, with the decision made that I wanted a combi boiler the next choice was the manufacturer. I went for Baxi because they specialise in heating – it isn’t simply another string to their bow. They have an excellent reputation, not just amongst people who use their products but amongst the professionals – the heating engineers who install and service the boilers. When my boiler had its first annual service the heating engineer told me that he’s now fit dozens of them and only ever had one problem. Baxi solved that by taking the boiler back and replacing it with a new one. New models are thoroughly tested before being released and technical backup is excellent.

I decided to have a local heating engineer install the boiler and at the same time to replace several old radiators and any of the pipe work which he thought to be suspect. Fitting a new boiler which is going to force water round at greater pressure will quickly find any weaknesses in old radiators and pipes. As a precaution the entire system was also to be treated with a cleaner and sealant. I went for an engineer who was recommended by a friend and was pleasantly surprised by the price of £2450 as I knew someone who had been charged £3500 by British Gas for very similar work.

The choice of which model in the Baxi range is best left to the heating engineer as he has the expertise to calculate the heating and hot water requirements. The fact that a particular model suits me does not mean that it will suit someone else. The boiler recommended for our house was the Combi 105e, first marketed in October 2000. We decided on this model because it has a greater capacity to supply hot water than the smaller Combi 80e model (12.7 litres of water per minute with the temperature raised by 35 degrees centigrade, as opposed to 9.8 litres). Additionally the central heating output is 31kw/hr as against 24kw/hr on the smaller model. Although our house is not particularly large its requirements were at the upper limit of the smaller model’s capacity. The larger model provided a system which works comfortably as opposed to one which might struggle in certain circumstances.

Our boiler has been installed in the cupboard which previously housed the hot-water cylinder. As luck would have it we had a perfect fit. There has to be a flue to an outside wall, but the flue has been designed in such a way that the boiler can safely be sited at right angles to the wall. There’s a display which gives details of operating and fault conditions which can be very useful. When the building work was causing chaos throughout the house the boiler stopped working. By telling the heating engineer what the display showed we were able to get the system working again without him having to visit - and the builder repaired the pipe that he’d damaged!

In summer we use the system to supply hot water and the central heating system remains inactive. In winter the system supplies both heating and hot water. There are independent controls for both the central heating and water temperatures.

So, do I like it? Yes, I’m delighted. Last night I switched the central heating on for the first time this autumn as the house was chilly. The radiators were fully heated within five minutes and the house felt cosy within ten. Last winter the gas bills reflected the fact that we had a more efficient heating system and the house felt better. It’s a small point which has made the biggest impression though. When I have a bath the water feels softer and the bath is pleasanter because I’m bathing in fresh water that’s only just been heated rather than water that’s been circulating in the system for a while. My skin and hair feels better.

Are there any disadvantages? Well, I can’t think of any apart from the wasted water when a tap is turned on, but inevitably there will be some waste with any boiler. You might feel that the inability to supply more than one hot water tap at a time is a disadvantage, but if that was what you needed this wouldn’t be the boiler you would choose.

For further information visit www.baxi.com or telephone 0870 606 0780.

 

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