What is the going cost for boiler replacement these days

[Eric The Viking]

I'm pretty certain you can get something. We have a Vaillant "system" boiler. It's condensing, so it's efficient, but it's NOT a combi (instant mains-pressure hot water). It looks like most modern boilers - a 4" small flue that's also the air inlet. It does hot water via a piping coil in a pressurised hot water tank.

Worcester Bosch are a good make (I think Vaillant's reputation for being good quality is undeserved), but you might also consider Keston, an all-British company: they are physically small, and their inlet and exhaust piping can be split into two separate small plastic pipes, so they will, for example, fit on internal walls neatly. They're popular in churches and small public buildings because they'll fit almost anywhere. I'd say a Magnaclean is just good sense, and you don't or shouldn't need lots of radiators replacing, as long as they are cleaned and in good order. A proper cleaning flush-out is common sense though, as is using a good quality corrosion proofer (after some wasted money I've gone back to Fernox).

If you find someone by local recommendation, that's probably much better than just a good price. I once allowed a plumber to do one of our bathrooms, after my wife chose them. I ended up redoing almost all of the piping myself because of leaks! A good plumber has two characteristics (a) skill and experience, (b) honesty.

I'm an amateur plumber: I'm no longer allowed to fit my own boilers, but I do radiators and water plumbing as the need arises. Often a plumber's idea of reliability isn't that of the householder: how many times has he been called back to the property in the warranty period? You're interested in how much it will cost to maintain over, say ten years. A good local plumber will know about that...

.

 

[Eric The Viking]

Should add that combis have a mechanism inside to switch from central heating to hot water mode. These wear out and fail expensively. You are in a reasonably soft water area I think (water off Dartmoor granite), which helps, but the advantages of not having a combdi are twofold: boiler is more reliable as it's mechanically much simpler, and hot water flow is better (combis take ages to fill a bath, although they are OK with showers). If you can, insulate your hot piping really well for a combi, otherwise any taps at the end of a long run will take ages to come hot. Also try not to draw off hot water in short bursts, as that makes the mech switch a lot.

 

[Rorschach]

The problem with big companies that employ plumbers on salary, such as BG, is that there is no incentive to be fast and efficient. The plumber doesn't benefit by working hard nor is there much incentive to do a good job other than the fact that they don't want to be called back (likely another plumber would do that anyway).
What this means is that they are slow, and if they are slow then the company doesn't get as many jobs and then the cost skyrockets. BG is probably able to negotiate really good deals on parts because of the quantity they buy, and they want to buy reliable items too so that they make the most from their insurance plans, but they lose vast amounts on labour costs because their plumbers travel a lot and are slow at their job.

The ideal (in theory and discounting cowboys) is really a smaller, local, independent outfit, they should know the reliable boilers as they want to minimise follow ups, they should also be able to get a fair deal on the price, maybe not the lowest but not bad. Most importantly though the labour cost will be much lower because it is in their interest to work quickly and efficiently so they can move onto the next job, but they will also want to do a decent job of it so they don't have to come back as that is lost money.

 

[Woodchips2]

Devonwoody
I had a combi boiler and two new radiators installed in a two bedroom bungalow a couple of years ago for £2,200 by a company from Torquay including a MagnaClean. They took out the old back boiler, cleared the tank from the roof and completed it all in a day. British Gas quoted over £5k and reckoned it would take them a week.
Regards Keith

Pm sent Devonwoody

Regards Keith

 

[lurker]

My plumber is always busy and he tells me proudly he has never advertised in his life.
He was recommended by a friend and I think i have recommended him to maybe 20 others who have been pleased with his work and attutude.
They are out there you just need to find them.

 

[lurker]

" ... The problem with installing a new, condescending boiler ..."
I had one of them in my old house.

I cannot get another replacement boiler for my Ideal Mexico boiler the old system with tank and airing cupboard tank and fitting a small kitchen space. Or can I?

Read again what I wrote earlier

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I have had experience of four condensing boilers, two of them new, and I have yet to come across one that delivered the hot water needed anything like quickly - and if you needed it from two taps at the same time (a ridiculous expectation in 2016, I know ) you could go whistle.

 

[Eric The Viking]

I have had experience of four condensing boilers, two of them new, and I have yet to come across one that delivered the hot water needed anything like quickly - and if you needed it from two taps at the same time (a ridiculous expectation in 2016, I know ) you could go whistle.

Phil, I think you're muddling two aspects of the design:

Condensing boilers recover more heat from burning (gas, usually). It's analogous to a triple expansion steam engine. It doesn't affect the hot water production at all. We have one, but right next to it there's a big pressurised hot water tank, and it fills a bath in about four mins. It is not a combi though.,

Combi boilers have an extra, small heat exchanger built in, that's switched into use when you turn on a hot tap (and the pressure drops in the pipe). That heat exchanger heats the hot water instantly - there's no storage of it.

Combis always significantly reduce the hot water flow, as they have to put the water slowly through the heat exchanger, in order for it to heat up. You could make a boiler with a bigger hot water heat exchanger, but it would cost much more, and probably waste energy.

Combis are compact, and relatively easy to install (as a system) as there are no external tanks. IMHO, as a householder they are a pain to live with, even more if you're in a hard water area, as you need to soften the feed for the hot water or risk damaging the boiler, and that's one more thing to look after.

 

[Gerry]

Have a look at Intergas boilers
Only 4 moving parts inside and they can be set as either combi or system boilers and hot water only if the heating side is off.
Mine delivers a steaming hot bath of water at full mains pressure and you still need to add cold water even if the outside temperature is below freezing.
We have the Combi Compact HRE 36/30 model.
It heats my 4 bedroom semi (9 double rads) with ease and steaming hot water to the tap takes under 10 seconds.
We love it after suffering a Baxi for years where we couldn't even have a hot bath during winter without having to run it at a trickle.

Gerry

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Eric, you are of course correct. It's the combi boilers I wouldn't give house room.

 

[Eric The Viking]

I think I _was_ correct - Gerry's post indicates the technology is improving (not before time!). I'll follow those links when I get a moment, as they sound interesting.

 

[transatlantic]

I have an oil combi system (located in garage about 8ft from house). The only issue I have with it at the moment is that it takes FOREVER for the hot water to come through, I'm talking 2-3 minutes, sometimes even longer! Which I'm going to assume is a fault with my system, as most people say it takes around 30s max. I'll get it looked into at some point, but at the moment, it's not a huge concern. I only ever use hot water for baths and for washing up. For the bath, the initial cold water cools down the later hot water to a comfortable temperature, and for washing up, I just let it run a bit first.

The cycle is almost always the same though, and how much I turn the tap on doesn't seem to make a difference. It just seems to take forever for the boiler to detect that I'm requesting hot water.

- Turn tap on
- wait 2 minutes
- Hear boiler fire
- vey hot water 10s later

I know that the fact that the boiler is outside isn't helping things, but the fact that I only hear the boiler fire up 2 minutes after turning on the tap suggests to me it's not a slow heating issue, but more of a slow detection issue. Central heating works fine though.

 

[Sheffield Tony]

I lived in a flat with a combi boiler once. I wasn't sure if the "Glow Worm" was the brand, or equivalent power output :lol:

Anyway, the cycle for running a bath went like this:

1: Turn on tap fairly fast - or the boiler wouldn't fire.
2: Back off tap to the thin stream which was all the boiler could manage to sustain hot water at.
3: Wait for the tap washer to expand with the heat, closing the flow to the point the boiler cuts out.
4: Pump overrun dumps all the heat from the boiler into the radiators, before you've noticed what happened.
5: The now cold water cools the tap, and your bath.
6: Goto 1

Won't be having a combi again in this life or the next.

 

[devonwoody]

" ... The problem with installing a new, condescending boiler ..."
I had one of them in my old house.

I cannot get another replacement boiler for my Ideal Mexico boiler the old system with tank and airing cupboard tank and fitting a small kitchen space. Or can I?

Read again what I wrote earlier

Lurker, I would need a new kitchen with yours. no floor space left in ours. :wink:

 

[Marineboy]

Had a baxi back boiler c 1990 when we moved in in 2000. Never got the house anywhere near hot. Stored water supplied from a header tank which due to the building design only just provided enough head to give a weak flow at hot taps.

Had a combi installed about 3 years ago. Heating engineer (they don't like being called plumbers) and his mate on site for two days, put boiler in airing cupboard, removed cylinder and header tank, spent about 2 hours with a core drill getting through our 18" thick solid wall for the flue. Charged me about £2.2k including boiler, excellent job. Hot water is pretty much instant, mains pressure so great showering, radiators are too hot to touch within 10 minutes of firing up.

I think some of the dissing of combis is due to people's experience of when they were unreliable and the usual 'stuff was better when it was simpler.' They are much improved. Mine is a Baxi Duotec, came with a 7 year parts and labour guarantee. Have it serviced every year by Baxi at about £80 a pop. Admittedly, if you have a large family or lots of demand on your hot water a combi is probably not the best solution but if it suits your needs it can't be beaten.

 

[lurker]

Heating engineer (they don't like being called plumbers) quote]

Having seen my son sweat (for more than 14 years) through his various qualifications including CEng. I dont like to see semi skilled technicians passing themselves off as engineers :evil:

Its a criminal offence in Germany and we need the same here.

 

[Marineboy]

Oops, obviously touched a nerve there, for which I apologise. I was just quoting what several er, technicians, have said to me in the past

 

[Austinisgreat]

Heating engineer (they don't like being called plumbers) quote]

Having seen my son sweat (for more than 14 years) through his various qualifications including CEng. I dont like to see semi skilled technicians passing themselves off as engineers :evil:

Its a criminal offence in Germany and we need the same here.

You may well be right lurker,

BUT to become a GAS SAFE (was CORGI ) registered engineer in UK - given adequate skills, obviously, takes a few thousand pounds, and, but more importantly, sponsorship from a company who are corporately members of GAS SAFE.

As an indepenent installer, of whatever age, unless you can provide a portfolio of work you have done under the scheme you cannot get qualified. How many reg installers will take someone on for no pay just to get their portfolio so they can go on and start up on their own as independents? Not a lot.

Anyway this is way off the OP's topic.

I replaced my own floor standing oil fired system boiler last year for about £1200. Its called a Grant.

|HTH

Andrew

 

[devonwoody]

End of winter and my boiler still going strong after 20 years, and thinking should I replace this summer and got this information of price off the web under £1500!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.boilerworx.com/Installation? ... AhHE8P8HAQ

 

[finneyb]

End of winter and my boiler still going strong after 20 years, and thinking should I replace this summer and got this information of price off the web under £1500!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.boilerworx.com/Installation? ... AhHE8P8HAQ

You missed out the all important word FROM £1495

I can hear the extras going ker-ching ker -ching as the bill rises.
Need to run 20mm gas pipe; need to amend the pipework, and the electrics and the flue.

Brian