My New Combi Boiler, Help And Advice, Please

[barry1010]

Bit of background - my old boiler was over 40 years old.  It was either on or off, temperature controlled by a knob on the boiler.  I could programme the times it turned on and off but that was all.

My new boiler has a programmable thermostat in the hallway that I have programmed to 21 during the day and 17 at night.  It seems to be working well and is switched off for most of the night and parts of the day.

My average three bed house has to be kept warm 24/7 because of my oldsters.

When I first put it on I had to turn the dial on the boiler up a bit as the house wasn't reaching 21.   I have the valves on all the radiators at the highest setting apart from my bedroom where it is turned off.

This is all very new to me and I'm not sure I am using my thermostat, valves and boiler correctly.  I read the manuals that came with it but they aren't particularly clear.

How much should I expect the central heating and hot water to cost me per day?  

Thanks

[nicebloke1]

I have a wireless system, a stat in the hallway and a receiver on the wall next to the boiler ( not intergrated in the boiler) I'm pretty sure I can if I want,  over ride the stat in the hallway by pressing a button on the receiver. I think I did this once when the batters were dead in the hall stat many moons ago. Regarding the timer on my boiler, its mechanical so I can use that or not use it regardless of the wireless system. I remember requesting the mechanical timer when ordering the boiler, didn't want the hassle of electronics driving me nuts. :0)

[nicebloke1]

^^ batteries :0)

[barry1010]

No idea why but I thought Norwegians got free heating courtesy of their government utilising the geysers.

[The Builder]

That's Iceland Barry 😉

[barry1010]

Oh!  Thanks, I don't know how I get these ideas stuck in my head.

I still believe Bob Monkhouse was a drummer for the Beatles for a short time 

[Hymie]

With gas costing around 8p/kWh; £3.40 is buying you around 43kWhs of energy – I’d say that’s quite good for heating a 4 bedroom house (all day).

[New Judge]

"The Builder, isn't the wallstat is an essential component of a modern heating system - without one being in communication with the boiler it would keep running until manually switched off. I've noticed in your previous posts on this subject  that you say the wallstat is not needed and it's always puzzled me."

A combi boiler detects the temperature of the water returning from the heating circuit. Once it reaches a certain temperature (i.e. when there is little heat loss on its journey through the radiators) it shuts down. If you turned it on during a warm summer day and opened all your TRVs it would quickly shut down because it is likely that the water returning to the boiler is at not much lower temperature than when it left. I ran a combi boiler without a room stat for over 20 years. I never had any trouble controlling the temprature in each room as I required. Nor did I have any trouble with the boiler itself. I installed my central heating system, just getting a gas fitter to commission the boiler. My first boiler had to have a by-pass fitted in the heating circuit close to the boiler so that in the event that all the TRVs closed down, the water still had somewhere go and the pump was not damaged. A "heat sink" radiator was unnecessary because, as above, the bolier closed down when no further heating was required. Modern combis have a built in bypass and when my latest one was installed the fitter removed the bypass.  

[barry1010]

Thanks for all the help - since I changed the boiler to 60 (is that the flow rate) - the usage has dropped to just over 30 kw a day.  This time last year with my old boiler it was over 70kw  a day.

The weather is mild compared to last week so it will be interesting to see how it copes during the next cold spell.

So I am glad I asked instead of bumbling away in the dark hoping, confused and befuddled with new fangled things  😊