New Boiler Advice (merged)

mp7125

Just to update you I went with the Alpha in the end. It took a day to fit and sort out the electrics. Very impressed with the local company - at £1150 felt I got a good deal. They also provide a 5 years parts and labour guarantee, as long as I have the boiler serviced by them for £35 a year. Seems pretty reasonable.

The boiler is so quite and seem to be keeping the house and water nice and warm. Not sure how we survived the last week and a half without it.

Now I need to cancel my BG 3 star heating contract - can't see the point of keeping it. By the way, they quoted £2200 to fit one of their own 30kw condensing boiler (made by Valliant under license). What a rip off!

MyUserNamesTaken

I've just had a Vaillant Ecomax 828/2E fitted. I'm very, very happy with it. The best part is that I didn't have to pay a penny for it, including updating my old system to bring it up to standard. God, I love Home Repair Assistance Grant (available to anyone on Working Tax Credit, by the way.) I also got a new back roof and a new water mains fitted - all paid for by the local council. Yes, I own my own house.

A Home Repairs Assistance Grant is for upto £5000 worth of work. Anything on top of that must be paid for by the owner. If your hot water packs up, you're classed as an emergency. If it's just for repairs, you'll get stuck on a waiting list. Still, better to be on a waiting list and get it paid for, rather than paying for it yourself!

For those who own their own homes and are on working tax credit, contact your local council for information on the HRA grant.

Lorraine_Turner

In response to moneysavingplumber, thanks for your comments. Yes, I agree there comes a point when it becomes more economical to replace a boiler than to repair it, and I do expect to replace mine in a couple of years or so. However, as I mentioned in my last post, the plumber who carried out the repair said that my Potterton Lynx is in good condition for its age, and certainly has a lot of life left in it yet. I do agree that there are honest plumbers out there, but as a landlord with a portfolio of properties in different areas I've also come across a lot who are not, and whose dishonesty infuriatingly has nothing to do with incompetence or lack of information! It is a shame because their dishonesty only serves to create mistrust of the profession and makes life more difficult for the honest, reputable plumbers out there. I can only reiterate therefore, that all we can do in order to protect ourselves as consumers is to carry out as many checks and as much research as possible before parting with any cash. Thank you for your three recommendations for condensing boilers by the way, i.e. Worcester etc. – I will bear them in mind for when I do replace boilers in the future.

Superwoman

Don't know if this has been mentioned before,but my mum in law has just had a complete new central heating system installed completely FREE including cavity wall insulation,draught-proofing and loft insulation. This is available to people OVER 60 who are on certain benefits eg: council tax benefit, income support,pension credit,housing benefit (you only have to be receiving ONE of these ). It is a government funded scheme and is called a Warm Front Grant, it is available to certain other groups of people as long as they qualify for certain benefits. Their tel. no. is 0800 316 2814. Mum in law who is 80 and has lived in the same victorian house for 50 yrs and has NEVER had central heating in her life, thinks she's won the lottery. I must add that the engineers were extremely efficient, very polite and very understanding of her peculiar little ways, all in all a brilliant job done

malibu_137

Further to earlier posts, I need advice on the best boiler to replace my old Potterton Netaheat Electronic 16-22. I live in a 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom semi with 10 rads. I have recently had a loft conversion & now do not have headroom for the header tank for the central heating system... it is felt that my current boiler may not be able to handle a sealed pressure system. I have also just had a megflow system installed.

Any advice would be very much appreciated!

Thank you

Arfermo

I only recently bought this 5 bed 2200sf house and am fed up with a 7 year old Glowworm Hideaway 100B boiler (that has been on a continuous annual maintenance contract with Glowworm since it was installed - obviously poorly done) that is gulping gas at about twice the rate I have been used to on a similar 2000sf property I lived in for 30 years with a Baxi Bermuda 54kbtu back boiler. In the last month I have had cavity and loft insulation brought up to standard and yesterday the plumber modified the piping to make it fully pumped and installed a room stat, tank stat and frost stat all of which were missing for god knows what reason and reset the boiler thermostsat and burner down to (he said) about 80kbtu when it had been at its max and boiling the water through the overflow into the garden, presumably for 7 years and caking the header tank with grot into the bargain!!! I have cleaned out the header tank asked him to powerflush the rest of the sytem and he recommends replacing the boiler for something more efficient in this modern age eg an Alpha CD18R, a sealed header to stop some of the gurgling we now suffer from and applying for a WarmFront grant. I trust him but am puzzled that this boiler is descibed as "Heating only". What does this mean please? He agrees with me that a smaller output circa 60kbtu (or whatever the new kwhr equivalent is) would be better than the Glowworm. His estimate is around £1600 which considering the previous owner was quoted £1960 7 years ago just for the Glowworm sounds pretty good to me. The sealed header bothers me a bit from the point of view of topping up with Fernox or whatever. Comments on the price and advice on the suggested boiler appreciated urgently as he has put me down for mid January for the work.

Canucklehead

Hi

I'm not surprised your gas bill is high with the lack of controls you had. Even with your old boiler you will be saving .
The Glowworm you have now is a 'heat only' boiler.. more info here http://www.which.co.uk/reports_and_campaigns/house_and_home/Reports/utilities_and_services/utilities/Boilers/boilers_product_report_574_93349_3.jsp
I suspect it will need a good flush , converting to sealed will help prevent system corrosion in the future and should get rid of noisy circulation. Inhibitor can be added via a radiator in these systems.
The Alpha boiler should serve you well enough.I wonder if he calculated the output required by the whole house method, this would take into account the improved insulation.http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/uploads/documents/housingbuildings/ce54.pdf

Good luck.

Corgi Guy.

Arfermo

Canucklehead wrote: »

Hi

I'm not surprised your gas bill is high with the lack of controls you had. Even with your old boiler you will be saving .
The Glowworm you have now is a 'heat only' boiler.. more info here http://www.which.co.uk/reports_and_campaigns/house_and_home/Reports/utilities_and_services/utilities/Boilers/boilers_product_report_574_93349_3.jsp
I suspect it will need a good flush , converting to sealed will help prevent system corrosion in the future and should get rid of noisy circulation. Inhibitor can be added via a radiator in these systems.
The Alpha boiler should serve you well enough.I wonder if he calculated the output required by the whole house method, this would take into account the improved insulation.http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/uploads/documents/housingbuildings/ce54.pdf

Good luck.

Corgi Guy.

The Corgi guy who installed the boiler I have been bequeathed was clearly a botcher as, apart from all the missing bits I have mentioned above, despite the istallation manual saying a draincock on the boiler was a "must" there was none on the floor mounted boiler in the garage and the foam piping insulation above looked OK on the face one could see but behind all the pipes there was nothing at all but the block wall. Is there anybody one can really trust I sometimes wonder. I mentioned my problem to a pal today who said that reporting the Corgi guy to the Corgi people would achieve nothing either from what he has heard so presumably the saga will continue. How bad do they need to be get struck off?

Canucklehead

Arfermo wrote: »

The Corgi guy who installed the boiler I have been bequeathed was clearly a botcher as, apart from all the missing bits I have mentioned above, despite the istallation manual saying a draincock on the boiler was a "must" there was none on the floor mounted boiler in the garage and the foam piping insulation above looked OK on the face one could see but behind all the pipes there was nothing at all but the block wall. Is there anybody one can really trust I sometimes wonder. I mentioned my problem to a pal today who said that reporting the Corgi guy to the Corgi people would achieve nothing either from what he has heard so presumably the saga will continue. How bad do they need to be get struck off?

You're welcome

Corgi Guy

colinebannon

I too have a Baxi Bermuda back boiler (over 20 years old). I too had the BG Homecare agreement for the last year. Cancelled it this month. I had trouble with them but I think I got my money's worth with parts and labour;) . More seriously I have had 2 CO detections over the last year. My work colleague (an old gas engineer) has recommended that I replace the old boiler, but if it's not broke.....and the detector keeps us safe, I guess :eek:
Reading the threads I guess the recommendation is the Alpha system. Would this involve me having to remove the whole system? I am keen to remove the immersion heater and all the pipe work in the attic so that I can create more space and maybe convert the attic one day. Is this a good strategy? Or should I leave the pipe work in? Money is a little tight right now and I could do with just doing the basics. My colleague does not recommend that I buy a £399 boiler in B&Q as "it is like buying a yugo"
I hope that u can help.