Unvented or open vented...which is it to be?

[Kez]

Oh if only life was so simple.

I have to make a decision soon as to whether we go for an unvented or an open vented heating system.

I live in a 2 bed bungalow in a village without gas, and the system we have at the moment is an electric boiler which is built into the side of a cylinder.

It was installed about 7 years ago when the bunglow was built, and is an unvented type without a cold water storage tank in the loft. It delivers all our hot water needs including the domstic hot to the taps and the hot water circulating around the radiators.

When it works, it's good....and thereby hangs my problem because over the 7 years it's given me no end of problems all of which seem to be surrounding the various saftey devices that have either leaked or failed in some way.

All in all I've had enough and I've decided to have it taken out and replaced with a new system.

The decision that now needs to be made is do I stay with mains pressure and basically have another electric system (we don't have room for an oil fired boiler and fuel tank) or do I have the plumbing altered and into an open vented system with a cold water storage tank and a pump for the shower.

Can anyone help me with any thoughts?

[SimonD]

I would suggest considering an air source heat pump, if you have no gas.

The Mitsubishi EcoDan might be a good place to start because it has an inverter driven compressor. This is the latest generation heat pump and gives better low temp performance.

Once installed, your leccy bills could go down by between a half and two thirds.

The sealed versus open vent dilemma is not really relevant, over 7M houses in the UK have sealed systems, they are not intrinsically a problem.