Choosing the right boiler

Combi boilers

A combi boiler heats your radiators and gives you hot water straight from the mains whenever you turn on a tap. There's no cylinder and no loft tank, so it takes the least space. It suits flats and smaller homes where one shower runs at a time.

System boilers

A system boiler heats a hot water cylinder, so several taps and showers can run at once. Its expansion vessel is built in, so there's no feed and expansion tank in the loft; with an unvented cylinder the cold water tank goes too. It suits homes with more than one bathroom.

Regular (heat only) boilers

A regular boiler uses a hot water cylinder and a cold water tank in the loft. It's common in older homes that already have the tanks, and in homes where the mains pressure is low.

What to think about

The right boiler depends on more than the type.

• How many bathrooms you have and how many people use them at once
• Your mains water pressure
• Where the boiler will go, and whether it can move
• Whether a heat pump would suit your home instead

Condensing boilers

New gas and oil boilers are condensing boilers: they recover heat from the flue gases that older boilers sent up the chimney. If your boiler is old enough not to be a condensing model, a new one will be noticeably more efficient.

Ask us

We're accredited with Ideal, Vaillant and Viessmann and we'll recommend a boiler that suits your home and budget, or tell you if a heat pump would suit it better.