Protecting against heating boiler maintenance
Protecting against heating boiler maintenance
Although you don’t have to worry about heating in the warmer months, everybody needs hot water for washing up, showers and so on, which is why you never want to be caught out with a broken gas boiler. It is strange though that the heating boiler is never considered to be an important piece of equipment until it stops working. Suddenly it becomes a very important and rather expensive piece of essential equipment.
Generally a tenant paying rent is not liable to repair a malfunctioning central heating system as the landlord is responsible for maintenance and repair of his premises. But if you’re a homeowner, you may want to think about putting a little aside to cover the costs should anything go wrong.
If your central heating system is over ten years old, it might be worth investing in a new model; this can cut your fuel costs down considerably, especially if you get a high-efficiency model. The type of heating boiler that you should buy depends on your family size and the available space at your home, the existing gas boiler also affects your choice. A combi gas boiler is the most widely known, and is good for small homes with few people, or people who don’t want to wait for their hot water. Unlike a storage central heating boiler, a combi central heating system warms the water directly at the mains, thus eliminating the tank section. Although it is a great luxury to have on demand hot water at the turn of a tap take care if you’re in the shower when someone runs the hot tap!, the system will have a limited hot water heating capacity.
A sealed system central heating boiler uses a single storage tank, usually in an airing cupboard, and enables a large family to have several taps or showers on the go at once, without compromising hot water or water pressure. The benefit of using a system central heating system is that it can be installed quickly and easily in a relatively small area. But if hot water is used too quickly it would run out because the storage tank hot water would be depleted and is replenishment is not instant.
An open vent gas boiler is the norm in most older homes, and takes up the most space; two water tanks in the loft and a storage cylinder in the airing cupboard. This type of central heating boiler is similar to the sealed system in that it lets hot water to come out of more than one tap at the same time, but it also takes time to warm up and has wavering water pressure.
A Back boiler is another boiler which provides good water pressure, allows several water outlets but occupies quite a bit of space. The space inside a chimney breast is often used to accommodate a back gas boiler; but installing a new back gas boiler system to replace another type of central heating boiler is not cost effective. It is great if your new home has a back gas boiler already as this type of gas boiler costs less to install, if you need to replace your back gas boiler it is better to replace the old one with the same type rather than getting a new type of central heating system installed.
It is expensive to get the any of these types of central heating system repaired. Setting aside a marginal amount each month for a central heating boiler insurance can ensure speedy and professional repairs if a sudden breakdown should occur. Take out a boiler breakdown policy that covers annual central heating boiler inspections as well as call-outs and repairs and you could save yourself an extra amount per year.
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