Goodbye, My Ideal E-type Boiler.

[DrFfybes]

What sort of gas fire?

The "live fuel effect" gas fires that mimic a coal fire are shockingly fuel-inefficient, to the degree the guvvermint were considering banning them a few years ago, according to rumour in the trade. I think I've seen figures of 20% bandied about so you might find it no more expensive to turn the gas fire OFF and heat the whole house with the boiler running at approx 80% fuel efficient.

It is a living flame, and is inefficient. However from the meter readings we can run it all evening for a couple of quid, about same cost as running the 28kW boiler for an hour or so, as we are heating one room.

We have a long house, most of which we simply don't heat, we turn the TRVs down when we leave rooms, but even with the TRVs on frost setting or just over, they still come on a little bit meaning all the pipework and microbore in the plaster sheds head from the system.

We are slowly getting the piping sorted. In the cold snap we opened the rads and ran the boiler at 65C, it got through £1.80 of gas (so about 18kW) in the first hour, and when I checked next time the burner was cycling on and off. This suggests the system as we use it can't pass enough water around to use the full output of the boiler unless we open more rads. At 55C flow it uses £1.20/hour, but in the really cold weather this isn't enough to keep the rooms warm.

Paul

[Watis]

Have others found a really significant saving in consumption by fitting new boilers?

regards

Howard

Yes. Personal experience of three replacement gas boilers. All three were old Baxi boilers, brilliant things in their day. All three modern replacement boilers gave an immediate ~30% reduction in gas consumption for no loss of comfort.

This matches my experience too.

In the summer, with the boiler only needed for hot water, the saving is in the order of 60 - 70%

The pilot light must be a major factor in the cost of running these old boilers.

Watis

[BullDog]

Have others found a really significant saving in consumption by fitting new boilers?

regards

Howard

Yes. Personal experience of three replacement gas boilers. All three were old Baxi boilers, brilliant things in their day. All three modern replacement boilers gave an immediate ~30% reduction in gas consumption for no loss of comfort.

This matches my experience too.

In the summer, with the boiler only needed for hot water, the saving is in the order of 60 - 70%

The pilot light must be a major factor in the cost of running these old boilers.

Watis

Yes, I think you're probably correct.

[88V8]

My Ideal Standard E type CF 105 is still running! What would you do?

Keep it for sure.
Check the header tank every year, check the additive concentration. The boiler should go on and on.

A pox on modern complexificatious apparati.

And another thing... when reckoning the economic case for an 'upgrade' one has to allow for the loss of investment return on the capital, say 5%?
When that is included the payback time for many improvement measures recedes into the distant future, if indeed ever.

V8

[dubre]

I am reluctantly entering this debate because I know that I am tempting fate. We have an E-Type boiler which was installed in 1983. A fair amount of agonizing has taken place over the years as to whether it should be replaced or not. Various efforts have have been made to condemn it( smart meter installer et al). It was serviced by a gas registered fitter last year. Some years ago a neighbour suggested I follow him and fit a combination boiler. This has now had to be replaced and he has had lots of trouble with the recent edition.The last time I did the sums I found that it would take at least 25 years to recover the cost of a new installation.New energy costs, new sums of course.

We have a 4 bed roomed detached house(1965) with "risky" cavity wall insulation. Lots of roof insulation, so much so that I worry about pipes etc freezing. PV panels on the roof.
Our Energy costs this winter:- Oct. G £32, E £72.,Nov. G £33, E £119.,Dec. G £127, E £123., Jan. G £93, E £115 all plus VAT
How does this compare to your costs?

| fully accept that modern boilers are more efficient albeit that some of the manufacturers figures are nearly as flaky as the car manufacturers for petrol consumption.

The pilot light problem will be mitigated this year as soon as the windows are opened the boiler will be shut down. I should say that during the winter all windows and vents are closed to avoid the expulsion of expensive,warm air and a dehumidifier runs around the clock( set at 60%) . All water heating in the summer with electricity as an experiment.

My aim is to convert fully to electricity as elec. gets cheaper? to avoid boiler servicing costs and gas standing charges.

[88V8]

We have an E-Type boiler which was installed in 1983. ... to avoid boiler servicing costs and gas standing charges.

Our two gas boilers - original replaced with a larger one when we extended the house - were never serviced in the thirty years from 1982 - 2012 when we sold the house.
Peer at the burners now and then, check for blue flames, vacuum the burners occasionally, check the thermocouple and the header tank annually, otherwise if it works it works.
Save your money.....

V8

[Howard]

I have a feeling that our boiler, rated to fit the house when it replaced the old one, is significantly more powerful than necessary. We have 19 radiators but as there are only two of us most of the time we only have 9 on so our boiler modulates down except on start up in the morning. It's a catch 22, we could turn up the TRVs in other rooms but the heat would be wasted!

I’ve just checked our gas consumption for the year and (whilst high) it is lower than I expected - less than 18,000 kWh (compared with over 22,000 kWh average for the previous five years). Two factors may be significant. We have changed from baths to daily showers and I changed the hot water setting from being on all day to two single hour sessions morning and evening. We have a large thermal store and so this hasn’t made any difference to hot water availability. What I was hoping when I changed it was that it would make the boiler work hard, and more efficiently, twice a day instead of ticking over to keep the hot water up to temperature. I don’t know if this makes sense but the meter reading shows the drop in consumption. There hasn’t been a significant increase in our electricity usage as our ASHP uses very little when topping up the temperature in our main room.

regards

Howard

[staffordian]

What sort of gas fire?

The "live fuel effect" gas fires that mimic a coal fire are shockingly fuel-inefficient, to the degree the guvvermint were considering banning them a few years ago, according to rumour in the trade. I think I've seen figures of 20% bandied about so you might find it no more expensive to turn the gas fire OFF and heat the whole house with the boiler running at approx 80% fuel efficiency.

I can heartily agree with this.

We moved into our bungalow in 2013 and inherited one of these in the lounge, and an Ideal Isar combi boiler for central heating and hot water.

We had moved from a property with a Potterton Prima boiler, which wasn't especially economical, and where we tended to use the cental heating morning and evening; the rest of the time just heating the lounge with gas fire (living flame but behind a glass screen; which I think are reasonably efficient), so used the same technique when we moved.

After a year or two of being fed up with having a warm lounge but suffering with other rooms being cool, we said hang the expense, we'll use just the central heating and keep the whole place warm.

And our bills turned out no higher than before.

[Ryck]

If you are running an old open boiler (gravity fed) like the Ideal CF by replacing your thermostat with a NEST control of the boiler is enhanced as you can set 30 minute heating slots. That means excessive recycling is avoided. You can separately set the heating times as well for each day of the week. NEST learns how your home warms up or how draughty it is, so it only uses the energy it needs. Better still you can control the NEST remotely. You can alternatively set it so that when you leave the property (with your smartphone) it will switch off and switch on when you return. There's also a 'base' rate override you can set so the heating will kick in when your 'base' temperature is set. Furthermore, the NEST takes account of the weather prediction for your area.

For Geeks there's an API as all Google Nest Thermostat models are supported in the Smart Device Management (SDM) API. It can be found at developers.google.com/nest/device-access

[Ryck]

For those who still have an Ideal boiler the User Manual can be found here: freeboilermanuals.com/assets/pdf/ideal/e-type.pdf

Good idea to download a copy just in case the asset is removed for whatever reason.