Any gas heating engineers on the forum? Advice needed.

[ey_tony]

Hi guys, last week my gas boiler finally gave up the ghost after 27 years of service. The boiler an IDEAL Classic RS250.
I called someone out today to give me a price and a more or less 'modern like for like swap was quoted as £2900.00 for the swap (equivalent modern Ideal boiler) including Hive smart thermostat.
The brickwork around the new small diameter flue will need doing but other than that it's virtually a straight swap. The house is a compact 4 bed detached just over 25 years old.
To be honest I haven't a clue with regard to pricing these days so if there are any heating engineers reading this, is this a fair price?

 

[Spectric]

Get more quotes and also make sure the price includes a system flush and a filter is included as you may not have one on the old system. Also the new boiler will be a condensing type and require a condensate pipe to a drain which will all be new so a little more work. So get more quotes and make sure they are listing what that entails so you have no surprises and can do fair comparisons between the quotes.

 

[ey_tony]

Get more quotes and also make sure the price includes a system flush and a filter is included as you may not have one on the old system. Also the new boiler will be a condensing type and require a condensate pipe to a drain which will all be new so a little more work. So get more quotes and make sure they are listing what that entails so you have no surprises and can do fair comparisons between the quotes.

Thanks Spectric...will do that.

 

[Ed209]

Is it definitely beyond repair?

 

[Bingy man]

My experience of ideal classics is they were good system boilers , cast iron heat exchanger etc but they were prone to condensation and rotted from the inside to out - parts are limited and expensive so new boiler is the best solution. As per @Spectric system flush. and filter is essential. And get several quotes insist on a valiant or Worcester Bosch as imo these are the best . Usually the cheaper the quote the cheaper the cheaper boilers will be fitted ( ferrolli biasi etc ) also they tend to just drain fit new boiler and fill up and Fxxk off leaving your new boiler to circulate old , sludged and contaminated water through equally sludged radiators. Try this - apply a magnet to any copper pipe in the airing cupboard and if it is attracted to the pipe then the pipe contains sludge ( iron oxide ) hope this helps ..

 

[Pedronicus]

It would be helpful to know what symptoms/fault caused the Classic to 'give up the ghost'.

 

[Duncan A]

Typically, around here (Northampton) quotes are £3.5k to £4k, but that would be for a Vaillant or Worcester Bosch and include a flush, fitment of magnetic filter and the aforementioned condensate drain.
If replacing a standard boiler with a combi, there may well be additional costs such as removal of the hot water cylinder and fixing any leaks in the now - pressurised hot water pipework

 

[Spectric]

If replacing a standard boiler with a combi,

If you have a system boiler with hot water tank then keep that system, combi's are not as efficient and can have higher maintenance cost over there lifetime but some might try and push you down that route, either way modern boilers will be hard pushed to give 27 years of service.

 

[Sideways]

If you are having new components fitted, radiators, boiler, whatever, a good flush out should come first.

To make the point, this is what I found flushing my own.
I did this myself by feeding mains water into the filling loop and opening and closing radiator valves etc around the house to concentrate the flow through different pipes.
It's a poor man's DIY flush after running the system with cleaning additive in for a few weeks and before fitting some nice new vertical radiators.

A magnetic filter is an absolute must for your central heating. I mismanged my own CH for a while some years ago and the price was a long run of 15mm plastic pipe that totally blocked with black magnetite flakes. I had to replace the pipe run and I've been much more dilligent about it since then including fitting a filter.

I ran many buckets of water through our system until it came out clear. You have to be careful with the taps so that you never leave main pressure water pushing into the system unless there's an open tap for it to get out of. That way pressure doesn't build up.

The pump is just to empty the plasterers bucket. When full it's too heavy to carry to the drain and pour out.

Your boiler fitters should do this with a machine made for the job.

 

[johnb80]

Hi guys, last week my gas boiler finally gave up the ghost after 27 years of service. The boiler an IDEAL Classic RS250.
I called someone out today to give me a price and a more or less 'modern like for like swap was quoted as £2900.00 for the swap (equivalent modern Ideal boiler) including Hive smart thermostat.
The brickwork around the new small diameter flue will need doing but other than that it's virtually a straight swap. The house is a compact 4 bed detached just over 25 years old.
To be honest I haven't a clue with regard to pricing these days so if there are any heating engineers reading this, is this a fair price?

Take the government grant and make the switch to a Heatpump. Your house being 25 years old will have decent insulation and you would be taking advantage of the grants available now. Have a look on the Octopus website, they have some interesting offers on their Cosy 6 heatpump and they do a full survey first.
I went down the DIY route to a heatpump because I wanted to keep my gas boiler too, I have the luxury of being able to compare the running costs on both at the flick of a switch. The heatpump is at worst on par with gas and at best about 2/3 the cost of gas. My intention is to run this winter with gas boiler on standby and then in the spring next year if all goes well have the gas supply removed. There is a lot of bad press about heatpumps this is down to poor design and install.

 

[Spectric]

Don't forget the corrosion inhibitor, it is essential to keep things clean and sludge free and a good one to use is Fernox F1.

 

[Sideways]

I went down the DIY route to a heatpump because I wanted to keep my gas boiler too, I have the luxury of being able to compare the running costs on both at the flick of a switch. The heatpump is at worst on par with gas and at best about 2/3 the cost of gas. My intention is to run this winter with gas boiler on standby and then in the spring next year if all goes well have the gas supply removed. There is a lot of bad press about heatpumps this is down to poor design and install.

@johnb80 I'm curious about the same.
Do you fancy doing a separate thread on your choice of heatpump and how you fitted it into the system alongside the gas boiler ?

We have friends who have taken the grant and make the switch. This winter will be it's first proper test.

 

[johnb80]

@johnb80 I'm curious about the same.
Do you fancy doing a separate thread on your choice of heatpump and how you fitted it into the system alongside the gas boiler ?

We have friends who have taken the grant and make the switch. This winter will be it's first proper test.

Nothing much to it really. Ebay Mitusbishi 14kW Ecodan heatpump, flow and return water pipes Tee'd in above the boiler (just the other side of a wall), 32amp supply installed, all connected into home assistant for it to log and make decisions. Really impressed to be honest, I didnt change rads or hot water cylinder, I did try prior to install heating my house with a flow temperature from the gas boiler at 35 deg C and it was fine so the heatpump at 45 deg C was easy and very efficient. Average COP is about 4.3 even on peak rate electricity that works out at around 5.3p kWh of heat. Buying from ebay I got the pump new, unused but robbed of a sensor for £1800, the sensor was £31 and all good.

 

[RobinBHM]

Hi guys, last week my gas boiler finally gave up the ghost after 27 years of service. The boiler an IDEAL Classic RS250.
I called someone out today to give me a price and a more or less 'modern like for like swap was quoted as £2900.00 for the swap (equivalent modern Ideal boiler) including Hive smart thermostat.
The brickwork around the new small diameter flue will need doing but other than that it's virtually a straight swap. The house is a compact 4 bed detached just over 25 years old.
To be honest I haven't a clue with regard to pricing these days so if there are any heating engineers reading this, is this a fair price?

I had an Ideal Vogue system boiler fitted in Feb and Ive been very pleased indeed with it.

I did loads of research at the time and from what I read, the Ideal vogue is a reliable boiler, its liked by plumbers to install and maintain, parts are readily available and reasonable. The other boiler which is well regarded at a lowish price point is the Baxi / Main boiler.


It replaced a Stelrad Ideal gravity boiler, open vented

I paid about £4k for the boiler in a new place, it had a full powerflush and a new hw cylinder, Id say your price of £2900 is very good

the heating engineer installed it with hot water priority system layout and weather compensation -which is fantastic.

the problem with central heating systems is that heating up the hot water cylinder fast enough to cope with usage requires high flow temps, but heating only requires low flow temperatures, especially when its not that cold outside. UK systems, usually S plan are a real compromise as they only operate at a single temp.

the Ideal vogue has 2 temperature terminals and the boiler can have heating of hot water cylinder at 80c and the central heating set by the weather compensation, which for me since Ive had ranges from 32 deg to 48 degrees...........which is great as the return temp is always low and the boiler is always in condensing mode for heating

I have found the heating of the house at lower temps makes for really comfortable heating, often the radiators are just luke warm but the house is lovely and warm.


here is a video about it:

 

[John Brown]

That's interesting, as we will probably be forced to get a new boiler soonish. I'd always assumed that proper "system" boilers had separate temperature settings for CH and DHW, and that our Frankenstein system(combi boiler with the on-demand DHW blanked off and external diverter valves for the solar assisted water tank) was a peculiar problem. So I was surprised when Deema posted something about his new boiler. I'd thought that the Legionella issue would have mandated two different temperatures.