Conventional Boilers
Conventional heat-only open-vent boiler
Heat-only boilers are mainly fitted in larger houses, and came as standard in many new houses built during the seventies, eighties and nineties. They are fitted in some new builds, however combination boilers are starting to buck the trend for the spacesaving element. They provide heat for radiators directly, and produce hot water which is stored in a separate hot water cylinder. You normally have two tanks in the loft, one for the domestic hot water feed and one to feed the central heating. You are limited where you install these in your house, as the feed tank in the loft must be a set distanec higher than the boiler.
This type of boiler can be wall mounted, floor standing, or even behind your fire, as a combined back boiler fire unit. These arrangements take up more space than a combi boiler system, but because there is a large tank of stored hot water you can use several taps at once. This makes this type of system more suitable for larger houses, and for those with families.
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Please note that with a standard vented cylinder, you are restricted by the amount of water stored in the cylinder, so larger users may wish to choose their set up wisely. For instance you might run a bath, then need to wait for the boiler to heat up the water in the cylinder again before you can run another. You can overcome this by installing an unvented hot water cylinder, or a thermal store cylinder with a mains coil.
These boilers may be connected to a fully pumped system or for slightly older systems a gravity water pumped heating system.