first:utility - new energy company launches

NonGeographicalMan

melb wrote: »

We have had the boiler about 12 years and it seems great to us in terms of heating the house really quickly but that isn't the same as being efficient is it? it's a normal boiler rather than a combi

12 years is only half the life of a typical well maintained gas boiler. They usually only need replacing in the end because the water jacket rusts through and/or spare parts are no longer available.

So far as being told to replace a boiler unnecessarily is concerned I think if you speak to some of the indepndent boiler servicing guys on the phone you can soon tell the difference between the guys who know their stuff and love to keep old boilers going and the cowboys who just want to condemn your old one and install a new one as soon as possible. It goes without saying that all the big companies like British Gas will never service your boiler properly, will always overcharge and try suggest your boiler is knackered and in urgent need of replacement (by them of course).

What about these guys who do Energy Assessments when people sell their house these days. They shouldn't really have an axe to grind and should only want their fee to do the assessment.

The thing is from what you say your energy bills are very large so this does seem to be an issue worth pursuing.

Cardew

Agree with the post above about a 12 year old(presumably non-condensing) boiler only being at half life.

In fact there is not much on these boilers that affects their efficiency; on mine the only adjustment is to the level of the pilot.

melb

actually our boiler isn't well maintained as nobody has been near it for 12 years. Actually we did have to get someone in as we had a situation a few years back where the water only heated up when the central heating was on but I think they just replaced a valve which they said were notorious for being cheaply made and needing replacing

NonGeographicalMan

melb wrote: »

actually our boiler isn't well maintained as nobody has been near it for 12 years. Actually we did have to get someone in as we had a situation a few years back where the water only heated up when the central heating was on but I think they just replaced a valve which they said were notorious for being cheaply made and needing replacing

But you said that the expected saving with First Utility was £600 against your current suppliers and that suggests your energy bills must be enormous and well over £2,000 as the very largest saving one can hope to make by switching supplier is about 30% (and only that much if you have never switched away from the default incumbent supplier for your region).

I am the first to accept that many simple gas boilers do not need servicing annually if you do not let your property (if you let your place it is the law to have it serviced annually) and also have other reasonable precautions like carbon monoxide detectors in place. However servicing them any less often than once every 3 years is undoubtedly asking for trouble in terms of their efficiency as you do get accumulations of calcium deposits on the heat exchanger in hot water areas and probably some other things with the gas jet or whatever that the servicing guy can tweak.

Is it really worth you saving a £60 servicing cost on your gas bill of say £1300 that you might reduce by £350 if there is some basic aspect of the boiler needing repair or the heating system never having been designed sensibly (in terms of pumps and valves etc) that they can address. I would have thought you need to call in some kind of energy efficiency engineer to look at all aspects of the issue incuding any faults in the boiler, whether the design of the system can be improved by minor revisions or additions to pumps and valves and whether you need to install a lot more insulation in your home.

melb

thanks for all your advice which I will take on board - I think we just thought if it ain't broke don't fix it but never thought about it needing servicing which of course we do with our car without thinking twice.

NonGeographicalMan

melb wrote: »

thanks for all your advice which I will take on board - I think we just thought if it ain't broke don't fix it but never thought about it needing servicing which of course we do with our car without thinking twice.

I thought it was common knowledge that gas boilers were meant to be serviced in theory annually, not least because of the safety dangers connected with gas if it leaks or doesn't burn properly (remember those children in Greece who were on holiday killed by carbon monoxide poisoning). On the whole I would say that car servicing is more of a con and a ripoff and that once your car is over three years old the MOT will tend to pick up anything that actually needs doing rather than just stuff the garage think they can con you in to having done to make themselves more money.

I would try to visit https://www.yell.com and look up gas boiler or similar and then have a ring round a few of the smaller independent guys locally and see if they have sensible words to say about why the boiler might be faulty or what they could to make it more efficient by changing the setup without replacing the boiler itself.

Either way in this situation I really do think you should get it serviced. You do realise that if it blows up or causes a fire and it hasn't been serviced for 12 years that your insurers might possibly even consider you to be negligent and refuse to pay up.

dweeby

melb wrote: »

I've just been on energyline and this company came out tops with expected saving of over £600. anyone any recent experiences please? thanks

For what it's worth, they're by far the cheapest for me as well!

On the energylinx site, they're going to save me ~£211 versus Atlantic gas +electric (not the cheapest - I know!), and on the (MSE recommended) energyhelpline the saving appeared to be more. On both sites, firstutility was by for the cheapest.

We're spending ~£1400/year on energy (big house/old boiler).

EDF would be ~£75/year more...

I'm surprised there isn't more about firstutility on here.

NonGeographicalMan

dweeby wrote: »

I'm surprised there isn't more about firstutility on here.

They only offered a smart meter tariff until a couple of weeks ago that often wasn't especially cheap. This new cheap tariff using ordinary meters is a new departure for them. I expect they are now taking advantage of the obvious opportunity to undercut the cartel fixed high pricing of the big 6.

Cardew

dweeby wrote: »

I'm surprised there isn't more about firstutility on here.

As said above there has been quite a bit about them.

Their prices have fluctuated a great deal - they were very expensive, and it would appear that they launched the company before the all accounting systems were in order.

The non-smart meter tariff is not available in some areas.

Their Smart meter Tariff is the only one for my area and whilst they are cheapest for me(as a high user) there is a 2 year contract, a £100 exit penalty and the big discounts(that make all the difference) are only paid after 12 months.

The worry is they could hike their prices in that 2 years and you have to pay, or lose discount and pay exit penalty.

It seems to me that the OVO tariff is a better bet.

Even on their Isave tariff the discounts are only paid after 12 months.

Cardew

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

I thought it was common knowledge that gas boilers were meant to be serviced in theory annually, not least because of the safety dangers connected with gas if it leaks or doesn't burn properly (remember those children in Greece who were on holiday killed by carbon monoxide poisoning). On the whole I would say that car servicing is more of a con and a ripoff and that once your car is over three years old the MOT will tend to pick up anything that actually needs doing rather than just stuff the garage think they can con you in to having done to make themselves more money.

I would try to visit www.yell.com and look up gas boiler or similar and then have a ring round a few of the smaller independent guys locally and see if they have sensible words to say about why the boiler might be faulty or what they could to make it more efficient by changing the setup without replacing the boiler itself.

Either way in this situation I really do think you should get it serviced. You do realise that if it blows up or causes a fire and it hasn't been serviced for 12 years that your insurers might possibly even consider you to be negligent and refuse to pay up.

To be quite honest I think that servicing of many of the older boilers will do nothing to improve their efficiency.

I have 2 boilers and I have looked at the full manufacturers servicing instructions and there is no adjustment on either that affects their running(save checking level of pilot light).

Th servicing schedule consists of cleaning and visual inspections and I watched BG fitter for many years and that is all they did.

Before anyone says that BG do not do it properly, they do it to the full manufacturers schedule. - I checked.

However, as has been mentioned on here there is the safety aspect to consider - flue blocked etc.

For that reason I am not advocating skipping sevices, although with my boiler in an outside boiler room - it isn't a concern to me.

Once the 'safety card' is played - we have nowhere to go!!!