Twenty year old Potterton boiler and BoilerMate 2 - suggestions?

[peter7463h7]

Hello there

Earlier this year my partner and I moved into a twenty year old three bedroom house, which has an original Potterton Suprima 40 boiler (downstairs, in the kitchen) and an original BoilerMate 2 upstairs. As far as we know, these have been regularly serviced (BG Homecare). Twenty years seems a reasonable lifespan for a boiler and hot water system so we're thinking of replacing them. Our neighbour has recently replaced his BoilerMate (which started leaking) with an unvented hot water cylinder.

Does anyone have any ideas/suggestions as to what our best options might be? I'm guessing we could go for:

1. A combi boiler.
2. A new conventional boiler and "ordinary" vented cylinder.
3. A new conventional boiler and unvented cylinder.

Have I missed anything out? We don't use masses of hot water and we're not looking for anything too cutting edge/state of the art, just a reliable system that can be easily serviced (we're insured with British Gas Homecare). Oh, our boiler also heats the water for the radiators. Any comments, suggestions would be much appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Scott_D]

How many bathrooms
Whats the flow and pressure of the incoming mains
Got a budget in mind

 

[Ermintrude]

Get a local installer to fit u a decent combi boiler. I would strongly recommend Baxi duo tec combi. Baxi are the parent family of potterton. Once installed u get 7 years unlimited parts and labour...... So u can stop paying BG.

 

[stevetheplumber]

id get a new boiler and keep the boiler matemake sure bt keep the system full of fernox and it will do you another 20 years god knows how old mine is ive had it 20 years and it was taken out of a job then

 

[Ray Stafford]

Why are you replacing it, if it works alright?

Yes, 20 years is a reasonable age for a system, but it might well last another 5 or even 10 years.

Its like putting grandma to sleep on the grounds that "70 years old is a good age, and it's only a matter of time..."

 

[peter7463h7]

How many bathrooms
Whats the flow and pressure of the incoming mains
Got a budget in mind

Three bathrooms, but as I said there's only two of us and we rarely use more than one bathroom at a time. Can't give you a figure for the water pressure but it seems high to me (we need to have the mains stopcock only partially on otherwise the water shoots out of the taps).

 

[lame plumber]

Why are you replacing it, if it works alright?

Yes, 20 years is a reasonable age for a system, but it might well last another 5 or even 10 years.

Its like putting grandma to sleep on the grounds that "70 years old is a good age, and it's only a matter of time..."

your Mrs been getting ideas Ray?, still you could help push up a few tulip blooms in your back garden 🙂

 

[Ermintrude]

3 bathrooms screams out unvented. Fit a 40kw combi and a solar diverter. When your not fully occupied leave unvented switched off, when you call for hot wasser it is provided by combo. Will need a check valve or two. Get rid of the boiler mate before it gets rid of about £700 of your money. Oh and when house is occupied switch on cylinder and it's automatically used to provide hot water. Legionella is a risk if not heated regularly tho.