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Central Heating

Convert from boiler with water tank to megaflow. Do I need to change the boiler?

Anonymous user 09/03/2024 - 3.29 PM

We're buying a house that has a conventional boiler with hot and cold water tanks and an airing cupboard. The owner tells me the boiler is only around 3 years old. I'm not a big fan of noisy shower pumps and could really use the loft space back that the water tank is taking up, and as we're having the loft converted now would be a good time to take out the tank and replace the hot water tank with an unvented cylinder, but it seems extravagant to replace the boiler when its so new. It's a Vailant Eco Fit pure. Will we need to replace the whole system, or can we just change the tanks out and keep the boiler? We don't want a combi as we have a large house and more than one bathroom. Thanks

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6 Answers

Hone Contracting

Rating: 5 out of 5

Guildford

Hello, If you’ve got good water flow rate (Not pressure) get rid of it all, get all the loft space back and install a combi boiler somewhere out the way. It will be more efficient in the long run. Sell the old boiler.

Answered28 June 2022

D & R Property and Plumbing Maintenance

Rating: 4.9 out of 5

New Romney

your boiler will be able to serve an unvented cylinder, if your main is not up to it an unvented cylinder will cause same problems as a combi, you need a minimum pressure of 1.5 bar with a flow rate of 20 ltrs a minute .get a qualified plumber to check it out for you.

Answered28 June 2022

Wardrop Gas Services Ltd

Rating: 5 out of 5

Burry Port

If you have a large house with more than one bathroom an unvented cylinder would definitely be the best option. The tanks in your attic would be removed so you can carry on with your loft conversion. You’ll also have less upheaval as you’ll only be replacing the cylinder. You will have to consider a 22mm pressure relief from the cylinder to outside though. You may also need to upgrade the water supply to the cylinder to 22mm. There are lots of ifs and buts and to be honest you really should get someone out to discuss your options as it’s very difficult to offer the proper advice without seeing exactly what you have. Hope this helps.

Answered1 July 2022

Plumb and Plumber

Rating: 5 out of 5

Paignton

The answer is to keep the existing boiler and install an invented cylinder in place of the existing hot water cylinder, this frees up the loft space as tanks there now redundant and the advantages of having an invented cylinder as opposed to a combi boiler when you have multi hot water outlets is by far your best option

Answered3 July 2022

Anonymous user

Hello, if it is a gravity fed system the boiler will be a heat only boiler. If you want to install a mega flow type cylinder it will need to be pressurised therefore changing the heat only boiler to a system boiler. You could also go down the route of doing away with the tanks all together and going for a combi, but this depends on size of the house, number of bathrooms, water flow rate and pressure.

Answered4 July 2022

MA4 Plumbers

Rating: 4.9 out of 5

Clapham Junction, London

You don't need to change the boiler unless is a vented one. if the eco fit pure is a vented, then you must have a F&E small tank at higher level, therefore not all the space in the loft will be available. In any case you can accommodate an F&E tank within a small cupboard, the tank is only 18l. For the cylinder, get an unvented, maybe with double coil ready for heat pump installation. Good luck

Answered26 July 2022