Which Boiler to Choose

Which boiler to choose for your home can be a little daunting as there is quite a choice, each with a number of pros and cons.

Lets quickly run through the main types of boiler: condensing, combination, green, oil, gas, electric and duel fuel.
If this was a test, you would of course get full marks for guessing that the first two, a condensing boiler and a combination boiler, are really designs of boiler, as opposed to the others, which are marked by the type of fuel they burn. So, you can have a gas-fired, or oil-fired condensing boiler.

A condensing boiler is the boiler of choice at the moment. Because they are so efficient – nearly 90%, compared with the 70% of a standard combination boiler – they are the ones that should be installed in our environmentally conscious world. The downside with a condensing boiler is that although they burn less fuel and therefore cost less in the long run, because they are more complicated in design and require more equipment, they are more expensive to install.

A standard combination boiler is great for smaller properties and households. But as they heat water on demand, they can struggle to cope with heavy workloads. Manufacturers have developed various improvements for the combi boiler, allowing it to cope with the need to store hot water and be more efficient, this does increase their cost.

The green boiler is something which you will see more of over the coming years. Currently, because the burning of green fuels for domestic purposes is in its infancy, most green boilers are being operated by local authorities, companies and schools. But that’s set to change as we become more confident with burning ‘new-age’ green fuels. These include straw, wood chips, forest waste and even sewage sludge.

Various lobbying groups are keen to point out that with over 20 million tonnes of green fuels available every year, there is much the domestic consumer can do to help the country’s target of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by over three million tonnes annually.

But, domestic boilers that run solely and efficiently on biomass fuels, are arguably not yet developed enough to hit the mainstream market.

So, it’s back to the good old basics of oil, gas, electric and duel fuel.

Oil is possibly the fuel of the past, but for many rural, or remote regions of the country, it’s the main option for domestic heating systems. One of it’s biggest downsides is that it is an actively traded commodity and price rises and drops can hit within days.

At the time of writing, oil has dropped to half of its value as the coming recession bites, but when the economy picks up, it is now understood that the oil will rise once again, and possibly to very high levels.

But you could argue that gas is becoming as volatile commodity as oil. Now that North Sea gas reserves are becoming depleted, the U.K. is buying more gas on the open market and therefore, costs are as much in the hands of global economics as oil.

Electricity has always been seen as too expensive and an inefficient way to run modern heating systems in the U.K., but as the government seriously considers a new generation of controversial nuclear power stations, this might well indeed become the future fuel.

Of course, duel fuel systems might become popular as a way of hedging your bets, believing that there will always be an expensive fuel commodity and a cheaper one. This would, in theory, allow you to switch between the two and maximise your household budget. But, how practical that is depends on the boiler manufacturers.

So, the choice of boiler is usually affected by one major consideration: cost. How much will it cost to install and how much will it cost to run. You need to do a bit of homework to decide which will work best for you.