The rise of the Combi - Part 4

The majority of Continental Europe has traditionally been ahead of the UK heating market, particularly in terms of energy efficiency and the use of condensing boiler technology, which was one of the key reasons why the then Worcester Group acquired the Belgian company, Radson in the late 1980s.

 

"The Radson acquisition gave us access to the Alutherm product which we brought into the UK" says Martyn Bridges, director of marketing and technical support at Worcester, Bosch Group.

"The Radson product was a good performing boiler in terms of efficiency an NOx, if a little heavy and not as installer friendly as we would have liked, but at the time efficiency just wasn't an issue in the UK. The sort of boilers being installed then would probably be SEDBUK 'E' or D now. Consumers needed a financial reason to embrace change and, with relatively cheap fuel, it just wasn't there."

By the late 1990's, the Radson product has evolved into the first Bosch Greenstar. "The first Greenstar was ahead of its time in many ways, but we wanted to do something more tailored for the UK market. At the time the CDi standard efficiency combi was the most popular combi boiler series on the market, installers told us they wanted a condensing version of the CDi.

Worcester decided to take the 24CDi standard efficiency combi boiler as the "donor" product and put the secondary stainless steel coiled heat exchanger from another product in the Bosch group into the channel in the back of the 24 CDi RSF product and re-ran the flue gases through it. This resulted in a SEDBUK band 'C' condensing boiler, (more latterly to become band 'B') with thee same features and flow rates of the 24 CDi SE combi.

The first Greenstar was the forerunner of the HE Series launched in 2001 which comprised five combination boiler and two system boilers. "The HE Plus was fitted with lots of new technology including a load compensation unit and text display, but some of the innovation made it occasionally unfriendly to the installer and complicated to programme, particularly in the social housing market. But, it got us up and running in the HE market and at its peak we were selling 70-80,000 a year."

However, major change was on the horizon for the UK's heating industry, with the Goverment making ominous noises about action on climate change and the incorporation of new efficiency standards into the Buliding Regulations.

"By early 2003 we knew there was strong possibility that the Government would demand, at some point in the future, that all boiler replacements would have to be high-efficiency SEDBUK 'A' or 'B' rated boilers" says Martyn. "Although we couldn't be certain that the Government would enforce the change, and almost up to the last minute we were expecting a change of heart, we knew that high-efficiency was the future and that we needed to do something specifically for the UK market."

The Goverment's changed to the Building Regulations, Part L, ere a revolution in domestic heating that many thought the industry would struggly to cope with, but the change was more evolution than revolution for Worcester. "In many ways we were already ahead of the game as we had taken a brave decision in early 2003 to develop a floor-standing condensing appliance which was eventually launched in 2004."

The project team settled on four key design characteristics for the new condensing boiler, namely weight, ease of programming and use, suitability for the social housing market and, crucially, installer friendliness.

"The installer was critical, if he or she looked at the new boilers and saw something familiar, easy to understand and install, we knew we would be onto a winner," Says Martyn.

The end result was a new fleet of 14 high-efficiency condensing boiler models all designed from scratch with the UK market as the sole specification to fulfill.

The new Greenstar range was launched in the UK market in late 2004 and early 2005, a hectic six-month schedule in advance of the changes to the Building Regulations. Now, five years later, the Worcester Greenstar range is unquestionably the UK's most succesful condensing boiler, amongst installers and homeowners alike, with more than 1,500,000 manufactured to date.

"The cornerstone of the Greenstar, installer friendliness, ease of programming and incredible reliability and robustness, is what made it succesful at launch and continues to drive its success today."

It is estimated that there are currently more than 12 million combis installed and working in UK properties. 50% of all heating and hot water in the UK is via a combi boiler and research shows the market is still growing.

So what does the future hold for the combi? "The theory is that new technologies, such as solarreverse the need for a combi as we revert back to storage cylindders," says Martyn.

"However, manufacturers are making combi boilers compatible with solar aystems and it must be remembered that many housebuilders over the last thirty years have been designing houses on the assumption that they will be equipped with a combi, in other words no tank or cylinder space. So there is plenty of life in the combi yet."

Martyn also believes that exciting inventions like the hybrid concept of twinning a combination boiler with an air to water heat pump is a better solution for a combi and we are currently working hard to make design alternations that make combis more compatible with a renewable solution. Ultimately, the combi concept is too good to throw away."

 

Source - Worcester Bosch - The Installer's Choice

Posted Date: 06th Jul 2010