What Is A Condensing Boiler?

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Condensing boilers minimise heat loss and through a series of design features. A condensing boiler uses the latent heat of water produced from burning gas to increase its efficiency. In other words they reduce the amount of fuel being used by recycling the waste gasses as it were.

With a normal boiler, fuel like gas is burned which produces hot gases which get passed through a heat exchanger where most of the heat is transferred to water which rises the waters temperature.

One of these hot gasses is water vapour which comes from the burning of the hydrogen within the fuel. With non-condensing boilers this is normally wasted and ejected out of the flue. But with a condensing boiler, these gases are instead allowed to rise through the primary heat exchanger and then get go through a secondary heat exchanger which extracts more heat and has the effect of lowering the temperature of flue gas.

Modern condensing boilers usually are classed as 'A' rated, which means they are very efficient and economical. This means they use fuel at least 90% more economically to create the same about of heat.

A condensing ...
... boiler can be a system boiler, open vent boiler or even combi boiler and are suitable for any type of property. Many people think that a combi or combination means condensing, but this is not the case. You can get both condensing and non condensing combi boilers.

One of the most beneficial design features of a condensing boiler which allows them a lower work load is that they 'modulate'. This simply means that rather than turn on and off to keep the right temperature, they simple slow down and tick over to keep the right temperature. This is a lot less work for the boiler.

This modulate feature combined with an optimising stat means it will monitor the temperature outside to see if the temperature is higher or lower than the day before. With this information it will work out how long it will take to warm up the house and make adjustments. It kind of learns at it goes along which is clever really.

To make sure you get the right type of boiler you really need to get an engineer around to your home. There are many different factors which should be taken into consideration when choosing the right boiler. You need to get the right DHW heat output, the right central heating output. To work this out an experience engineer will look at things such as whether you home has double glazed windows, how many windows, how many radiators, if the property has high ceilings, the amount of rooms including bathrooms. Also whether you live in a hard or soft water area because if you live in a hard water area you will need to choose a boiler with a stainless steel heat exchanger so it is easy to descale the limescale.
Northern Gas Heating - the UK's local supplier of new Condensing boilers. Contact us today if you are looking at replacing or installing a new boiler.