Where should I relocate my boiler?
Finding a home for your boiler can be a difficult task, particularly when renovating an existing home. Step in David Hilton with sage advice
Like a ‘fun’ uncle at a wedding dinner, your boiler can be difficult to find a good place for. When replacing a boiler, planning an extension or remodelling an existing space, the question of whether there are any good options for relocating the boiler often arises.
You may want to move it away from your bedroom due to the noise it makes when you are trying to sleep; you may be seeking to optimise the use of space in your kitchen; or it may be that you’ve chosen to replace a floor-mounted boiler with a wall-hung model that can’t be safely fitted in the same area.
The cost of moving the boiler, and the amount of disruption the move causes, will depend on the locations you’re moving it to and from. If the current boiler is in the ground floor kitchen and you have made up your mind it needs to be relocated to the loft, then the pipework will all need to be moved, which in turn will probably mean lifting floorboards, chasing walls and ceilings and then making everything good again. For a boiler that’s already on the first floor it will likely be a lot simpler to get to the same result.
There are enough options for boiler location that I won’t be able to provide an exhaustive discussion of every one here, but we should be able to do justice to the more common options.
Location, location, location
I would not advise installing a boiler in a bedroom, and unless there really is no alternative, I definitely wouldn’t put one in a bathroom. Although it’s not illegal to do so, there are additional safety risks that need to be addressed if you do, and there are many better options. Boilers make a bit of noise and in any wet room they must be installed in a cupboard, with the electrics safely isolated away from any water and the spur situated outside the room.
If you have a utility room then that’s the obvious choice, as you will already have plumbing and electrics in there and any noise from the boiler firing up will be contained. There is also likely to be enough space for the hot water cylinder if you have a system boiler. You will, however, need to make sure that there is access to the boiler for servicing and that the room is not also being used to store products that could damage or obstruct wires or pipework.
The kitchen is another popular option, but if you go with this route you will need to plan out where any cylinder will go and the routes for the pipework and boiler flue. Most modern boilers are wall hung and often fit into specially made cupboards with an increased depth and no back panel.
If your old boiler was in the airing cupboard, then you should seriously consider putting the replacement there as well to make use of the existing pipework. The airing cupboard could also be used to house a new water cylinder serving a boiler located in the loft.
On this note, the loft is a common place to put the boiler because such a setup frees up a lot of living space. There are a number of things to be considered if this plan is to be viable: the loft must be boarded out and have properly installed electric lighting and a permanent loft ladder; the boiler needs to be installed on a non-combustible surface such as a masonry wall or fireproof board; the flue should be safely terminated through a wall or the roof plane and there must be enough space for an engineer to safely work on the boiler.
If the cylinder is also going to be in the loft then you need to be sure that the structure is sound enough to take its weight — and that it will fit through the loft hatch in the first place. As the roof is likely to be a cold space, it is important to make sure that the boiler has frost protection and that all the pipework is well insulated. The loft may be difficult to access, so it might be worth using wired controls mounted in the home, rather than relying on the ones on the case of the boiler.
THERE MUST BE ENOUGH SPACE FOR AN ENGINEER TO SAFELY WORK ON THE BOILER