On Fri, 27 Nov 2015 11:27:23 +0000, Neil Williams
wrote:

On 2015-11-27 09:33:32 +0000, e27002 aurora said:

My limited experience with combi boilers is that they are far from
reliable.

I have experience with precisely one, and it has been as reliable as
one might expect a system boiler to be.

How many have you experienced, and how old? The technology doesn't
differ that much from a system boiler. It's just that if it fails
there is no hot water backup.


One, well I did say limited, :-). And, its age was, to me unknown.
Before I bought this condo, I rented an apartment here in town for two
years. It had a combi boiler, it heated the water for the radiators
and instantaneously heated the water for the shower and faucets. Twice
during my stay I called out the repairman because the hot water supply
failed.

Moreover, when the pilot light went out, relighting and restarting the
system was an art form, a torturous one.

Added two that, two homes that I have owned, one in the US and one in
the UK had instantaneous water heaters. Both worked well for the
first year. After that, we experienced problems.

A tank with heaters works best. My UK home has a modern tank with two
immersion heaters. My US home has a tank with a gas heater.