If you want to find out more about system boilers, you&#;re in the right place. The many boiler models on the market for anyone looking to install a new central heating system may seem confusing, but we can help you work out which is best for your property.
If you want to learn more, please visit our website.
In this blog, we&#;ll take a close look at system boilers, exploring the types of property they&#;re best suited to, their key benefits and taking a look at how they work. We&#;ll also explain which alternatives would be your best bet if a system boiler isn&#;t right for you.
A system boiler works together with a hot water cylinder to provide central heating and hot water to our homes. The boiler heats water directly from the mains to warm up our radiators, and fills the cylinder with boiling water that&#;s used for our sinks, showers and more.
To boil the water required to keep us warm and comfortable, system boilers use the mains as a heat source &#; or sometimes bottled gas or oil. System boilers are best suited to larger homes with several radiators and bathrooms, which always create more demand for hot water.
For a family of four or more, a system boiler could be the most efficient and convenient way to heat your home and your water.
Let&#;s take a closer look at how exactly system boilers provide hot water and central heating for our homes.
In a gas-powered system boiler, the process starts with the flame heating up water in an enclosed hot water system. The hot water is pumped around the radiators to give out heat, as well as the hot water cylinder, where it warms up the water inside.
Electric boilers work in exactly the same way, but heat up the circulated water using an electric heat exchanger instead of a gas flame.
The water in the system is used over and over, being pumped through the coil in the hot water cylinder and the radiator system. The water that comes out of the tap is from the cylinder &#; it never goes near the boiler itself.
Neither the radiator system nor the hot water system is in operation 24/7. They turn on and off automatically with thermostats and timers. If there&#;s no demand for hot water or hot radiators, the system will stop boiling water. If there&#;s only demand for one of them, a valve will stop water flowing to the other one, so you save energy.
Most households set their system boilers to start warming up the water in the cylinder in the small hours of the morning. By the time the inhabitants wake up and need washes, baths and showers, there&#;s a cylinder full of piping hot water to draw from. Once the hot water is used up, however, the process of heating the cylinder will have to start all over again, which is why you&#;ll have to wait if you want more hot water.
System boilers normally use mains water pressure to make hot water flow from the tap. Cold water enters the cylinder at the bottom, and hot water is drawn from the top. If you use water faster than it can re-heat (i.e. if you run a bath or two), the water will go cold and you&#;ll need to wait for it to reheat before you get more hot water.
The system boiler has several advantages over combi boilers and heat only boilers. Let&#;s look at them individually.
Like system boilers, combi boilers use circulating boiling water to both power radiators and heat water, but they don&#;t use a hot water cylinder. Although the hot tap and shower water is heated up incredibly quickly, there are several reasons a system boiler might suit your home better than a combi:
If several people in a household all want hot water at the same time (for example a kitchen sink, a bath and a shower), with a system boiler they&#;ll all be able to get it without a drop in flow or temperature.
Electric immersion heaters can be fitted to the cylinder to heat water. These can be used to take advantage of cheap overnight electricity or electricity from solar panels. They can also act as a backup should the boiler break down or need servicing.
If you have greater need for hot water, you can install a bigger cylinder with a system boiler, whereas combi boilers have a limited flow of hot water &#; and that&#;s the most you&#;ll ever get.
The heat only boiler (also called a conventional, traditional or regular boiler) is similar to the system boiler in that it stores its hot water in a cylinder. The biggest difference is that it requires another tank to store cold water, which in turn feeds the hot water and acts as an overflow for any excess hot water and to relieve pressure in the system.
Because it&#;s gravity-fed, this cold water tank is normally in the loft, and the system is not under pressure. There will often be a second cold water tank up there to maintain the levels in the radiators, too.
Here are some reasons why a system boiler may be a better choice for your home than a heat only boiler:
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Because there&#;s no need for loft tanks, system boilers take up much less space. That&#;s ideal if you have a converted loft or are limited for storage (or, of course, if you don&#;t have a loft).
If you&#;re installing a new central heating system from scratch, a system boiler is generally cheaper than heat only because there&#;s less pipework and fewer tanks to install.
Generally speaking, if you have a small household or live on your own, the chances of you needing hot water from two separate taps at the same time are quite low. In such cases, you will probably be fine with a combi boiler.
Another reason would be if you don&#;t use much hot water &#; say you have one shower a day and have a dishwasher. It&#;s probably not going to be worth heating up a whole cylinder of hot water, so again a combi boiler should be enough.
System boilers are enclosed, so work at mains pressure. Heat only boilers deliver hot water using gravity as they are not under pressure. If you don&#;t have high water pressure where you live, a system set-up might not work very well.
If your home already has a heat only boiler installed (as is the case in most homes built before the s), you might save money by replacing the heat only boiler itself and keeping the rest of the equipment in place.
If you need help deciding which is the best boiler for your household, why not try our quick and easy boiler selector tool? Or for further advice, you&#;re always welcome to talk to our experts when it comes to picking a boiler that&#;ll fulfil all your needs.
If you have a hot water system, you should only time your heating and hot water on the boiler, this can be done using either a programmer (left image) or timer (right image).
If you have a programmer click here.
If you have a timer, learn how to use it below:
Most mechanical timers, regardless of the make, will work in the same way.
Turning your timer on and off
Next to - or on - the timer there will be a switch. This switch allows you to turn the boiler on (1) or off (0). The clock face sets the timer.
Setting the time
To begin with, you need the set the clock to the right time by turning the outer dial clockwise until the arrow in the inner circle points to the correct time, using a 24-hour clock. For example, if it is 7.30 pm then you need to make sure the arrow is pointing halfway between 19 and 20.
Programming the timer
Use the tabs to set the time when you want the boiler to turn on. Each tab represents 15 minutes around the 24-hour clock. If you want your boiler to come on between 6:15 am to 9:30 am, you want to push all the tabs in during that time. In some boilers pushing the tabs outwards will set the timing instead, find this out in your boiler&#;s instruction manual. If you don&#;t have your manual on hand, you can figure it out by moving the tab where the inner arrow is pointing to, from this you can observe whether moving the tab outwards turns the boiler on or off.
If you have a conventional boiler, you will only have one dial on the front of your boiler. This controls the temperature of water that runs through the primary circuit in your system that heats your radiators and hot water accordingly.
To change the flow temperature, use the dial with the radiator icon. A lower flow temperature means your radiators will not get as hot and your home will heat more slowly. But, it means the boiler wastes less gas. Try turning it down to a lower setting to see if it is enough to keep your home comfortable.
We recommend setting this between 60-70 degrees to ensure optimum efficiency when heating your radiators and stored hot water.
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