Anyone had a new oil boiler installed recently?

[bertterbo]

I'm looking to upgrade mine as its 15+ years old, and often has issues. It's a comb.

I'm in a 2 bedroom bungalow, and mine is installed in the garage.

What did you pay?

 

[Richard_C]

Yes, this is its second winter. Old one had done 32 years. Job was close on 6500 but that included a couple of new rads, all new water tank, pump, control valves, trvs and contollers/thermostat. Plus, while it was drained down had a few gate valves replaced with quarter turn balls, new tank ball valves as well. 5 bed house. Went for a grant blueflame, about 300 more at the size we needed but supposedly more efficient.

Part of the thinking was I am "getting on" so wanted to have everything as reliable as possible, I doubt I will be wanting to change valves etc. In a year or few. Also, planning to live here for a long time so see it as an investment not just a revenue cost.

I thought carefully about ashp but house not really efficient enough and would probably needed a piggyback oil boiler anyway. Reckon it saved me 200l of oil in first year, but can't really compare because it wasn't that harsh a winter.

I am very keen on using local firms who employ their own staff so got a couple of local quotes. There was a minor problem a few weeks later, rang and they said sure, I'll get him to call on his way back this afternoon. All done, no charge, no arguments, you wouldn't get that from a call centre.

Not able to advise, except to say think it all through, what do you want - just a boiler or more besides. Your job won't be the same as mine so what I paid isn't that relevant, but the actual labour cost for just a boiler is probably similar no matter how big the boiler is.

 

[Yojevol]

Had a new medium size Ideal combi installed a few weeks ago. A very simple replacement of the old Baxi. Included a magnetic filter in the return pipe. Being a condensing boiler it needed a drain which, fortunately, was right there in the cupboard. The plumber advised that this was often a problem. It took him a day to do and he came back a few days later to flush the system and introduce protection fluid. Cost £2K with a 5 year guarantee.
Brian

 

[flying haggis]

15 years old! Huh, mines 30 !
Now I know as I had said that it will need replacing!...

 

[bertterbo]

Had a new medium size Ideal combi installed a few weeks ago. A very simple replacement of the old Baxi. Included a magnetic filter in the return pipe. Being a condensing boiler it needed a drain which, fortunately, was right there in the cupboard. The plumber advised that this was often a problem. It took him a day to do and he came back a few days later to flush the system and introduce protection fluid. Cost £2K with a 5 year guarantee.
Brian

That seems cheap, is that actually oil? Or gas?


I've been quoted £4k to just swap out the old one with the new one. No other changes.

 

[eribaMotters]

15/20 years seems to be the time frame for "modern" combi boilers. Older floor mounted cast iron jobs good for 30+ years but they are a lot less efficient.
There really are to many variables to come up with a price comparison, but with a few extras such as replacing TRV's, programmer etc I'd have thought £3-4K.

Colin

 

[Yojevol]

That seems cheap, is that actually oil? Or gas?


I've been quoted £4k to just swap out the old one with the new one. No other changes.

Gas

 

[Jester129]

Had a new combi gas boiler fitted April time, 32kW. Straightforward replacement, went for top of the range (=expensive!) Viessmann.
Their own man fitted it in a day, the old boiler soon disappeared when left outside for scrap. It comes with a 10 year guarantee with
(wait for it) parts AND labour included. Never heard of that before from British suppliers, anyone else? These are German.
Paid what I thought was a lot but from the above it looks not at £2.7k. Happy with it so far anyway.

 

[deema]

About to have a boiler replaced in a rental in Cheshire, we buy high end boilers as we don’t want the difficulty of it failing. We are paying £1,850 for a boiler fully installed old one taken away.

 

[COWS]

Oil boilers are a lot more expensive than gas so can't really compare the cost. I had a repair done on my 22 year old one a few weeks ago and the engineer advised a replacement for ballpark 4-5k.

 

[Pedronicus]

Oil boilers are a lot more expensive than gas so can't really compare the cost. I had a repair done on my 22 year old one a few weeks ago and the engineer advised a replacement for ballpark 4-5k.

Indeed. I was wondering why folk kept referring to having their gas boiler replaced when the thread title specifically mentioned oil.

 

[deema]

Because we are idiots! And I’m guilty as charged. Sorry!

 

[Stuart Moffat]

I have an oil boiler (not a combi) It’s an HRH Wallstar. About 20 years old. We’ve lived here for 15 years, and had it serviced every year by the local guy who originally installed it for my predecessor. It has been reliable, but did break down one year on Christmas Eve. The same guy was round and quickly fixed it. I asked him about replacing last year, and he said it would be a shame, and that whatever I replaced it with would neither be more reliable, nor last as long, albeit perhaps a bit more efficient. He pointed out tha it was only the cabinet and non functional bits that were 20 years old and the subtly changed the subject!

 

[Agent_zed]

Whilst it's entirely up to you what you do, I would advocate for investing in other/additional tech whilst you are at it. You've seen the volatile nature of oil/gas and who knows what is likely to happen in the coming years. It's a finite resource so only really likely to go up in price.

Water solar panels are such a good addition, to my mind it should be mandatory on all houses especially new builds. They generally supply hot water for 8 months of the year in the uk. I will be adding some soon.
I've got solar PV and was making 2.2kw some days last week which meant free heat from my little panel heater and tumble drier. You get used to putting things on when the sun shines in various combinations depending on how much power there is.

Waste water heat recovery is also worth doing. some of the ones I was looking at that fit under the shower return about 40% of the heat back into the incoming water, rather than just literally flushing it away.

 

[Jameshow]

Indeed. I was wondering why folk kept referring to having their gas boiler replaced when the thread title specifically mentioned oil.

I got a gas boiler fitted about 2008 if that's any help!

 

[MikeJhn]

It seems from this thread and a few others on UK workshops that comb boilers have a short life span compared to the older type non comb oil boiler, my own is a floor standing cast iron water jacket with a Riello burner and over 30 years old, according to the flue gas analyser is 86% efficient, putting in a new boiler does seem to be a waste of money.

 

[bertterbo]

I am now thinking of going with a normal boiler (not combi) and a water tank. It's more expensive, and takes up more space, but seems to be a lot more reliable, and has the added benefit of you still having hot water if the heating fails.

 

[Agent_zed]

I am now thinking of going with a normal boiler (not combi) and a water tank. It's more expensive, and takes up more space, but seems to be a lot more reliable, and has the added benefit of you still having hot water if the heating fails.

you can also add heat pumps and solar water heating and backup immersions and also get an airing cupboard back if you put it in the house. I have a dumb gas boiler which heats my tank. It's an indirect tank so I've got an external heat exchanger (think its a 90kw plate exchanger) which uses a CH pump to cycle water through the exchanger when the taps go on. Been using that for 5 yrs + with pretty much no problems except when I soldered a pipe and a blob of solder found its way into the flow switch, but once i shook it out its been fine since.