Boilers are commonplace in pretty much every home in the UK. Boilers are a piece of equipment designed for heating water in the home for various uses around the home, including for baths, showers and central heating systems.
There are different types of boilers available for use within residential and commercial properties. While some older models aren’t as efficient and need to be replaced, they still all fundamentally do the same job, just differently.
How Does a Boiler Work?
Your boiler is vital to ensure a constant supply of heat and warmth and can be fuelled by either being connected to a mains gas supply or LPG (Liquid Petroleum Gas), which needs to be topped up.
A valve attached to your boiler opens during operation, allowing gas to enter a sealed combustion chamber, where it is ignited by an electronic ignition system or a permanent pilot light.
The heat is transferred to the water flowing over the heat exchanger by hot jets connected to a heat exchanger within the boiler. The hot water is then pushed through your radiators and taps by an electric pump.
By Law, all UK boilers must be Condensing boilers that are designed with a heat exchanger configuration that removes the flue gases as much heat as possible. Condensing boilers recover latent heat from water vapour produced as a by-product of the heating process. This heat is then used to heat the water that returns from your central heating system, thus reducing energy waste by requiring less heat energy.