£1240 for work on central heating

rkhull

Hi all,

I moved into my house just over a year ago and have always known that the central heating wasnt quite right.

Over the last year I've saved up a bit of money to sort it out, whilse noting what I think the problems are.

I have a Sime boiler and called the local licensed Sime agent (im in Hull) to have a look at my system for me.

We seem to be on the same wavelength about what needs doing (see list below), but this quote is £400-£500 over what I was expecting.

1. Replace a circuit board on the boiler due some of the controls being broken.
2. Split and add pipes on 7 radiators because they are currently single-entry.
3. Add thermostat valves to the radiators.
4. Add in a radiator in my lounge (removed by previous owners).
5. Add a wireless room thermostat (currently don't have any sort of thermostat)
6. Flush system and de-scale
7. Refill system and add inhibitor

When he come to have a look he reckoned this would be around a days work, and whilst I realise that theres materials involved (he said the board for the boiler would be around £160, £10 each for the TRVs, maybe £100 for the room thermostat), even if he charged £300 for the days labour there seems to be something Im missing?

keystone

rkhull wrote: »

Hi all,

I moved into my house just over a year ago and have always known that the central heating wasnt quite right.

Over the last year I've saved up a bit of money to sort it out, whilse noting what I think the problems are.

I have a Sime boiler and called the local licensed Sime agent (im in Hull) to have a look at my system for me.

We seem to be on the same wavelength about what needs doing (see list below), but this quote is £400-£500 over what I was expecting.

1. Replace a circuit board on the boiler due some of the controls being broken.
2. Split and add pipes on 7 radiators because they are currently single-entry.
3. Add thermostat valves to the radiators.
4. Add in a radiator in my lounge (removed by previous owners).
5. Add a wireless room thermostat (currently don't have any sort of thermostat)
6. Flush system and de-scale
7. Refill system and add inhibitor

When he come to have a look he reckoned this would be around a days work, and whilst I realise that theres materials involved (he said the board for the boiler would be around £160, £10 each for the TRVs, maybe £100 for the room thermostat), even if he charged £300 for the days labour there seems to be something Im missing?

Item 2 will be the expensive part if it means converting a single pipe to two pipe system. Thats a lot of pipework to be done, floorboards lifted etc etc. Theres potentially more than a days work there TBH if it all turns to the proverbrial on him.

In any event if Sime require one of their agents to do the servicing work then prolly the ONLY bit you need him to do is the first Item. Get a couple of others round to quote you for 2 - 7. Then you'll have comparative numbers to measure his quote against.

Cheers

baldelectrician

If it was me I would save up longer and ditch the Sime for a decent model (Valiant / Vokera / Worcester Bosch)

Then get all the stuff done at once

plumb1_2

baldelectrician wrote: »

If it was me I would save up longer and ditch the Sime for a decent model (Valiant / Vokera / Worcester Bosch)

Then get all the stuff done at once

Yes, imo get rid of the Sime and get a better boiler installed.

The above work is a lot more than 1 days work, changing the single entry valves to 7 rads,drain down and refil =1 day.
Powerflush = min 1/2 day+ other work
It is a 2 day job, unless you want a bish/bash job, even if there are 2 men on site he cant powerflush and alter pipes at the same time.
Plus the single entry valve's would be piped up in 8mm, better to replace them with 15mm or 10mm min, and re-piped from the main heating pipes(22mm)

Save up and get a good job done, cheaper in the long run.

rkhull

Thanks for the responses chaps.

Of those 3 I'm most likely to get some comparative quotes.
In an ideal world I'd be ripping it all out and starting from scratch, unfortunately there are a few factors influencing me the opposite way:-

The boiler that's in is only 7 years old and the only problem I have with it is that I can't change the temperature up or down,
I have laminate floors or tiled floors down in 4 of the 7 affected rooms so would be suffering more expense and disruption than just replacing pipes,
and most importantly - it's taken me a year to save up enough for this job as it is, so saving for a boiler upgrade could be a couple of winters away.

On top of this, I'm the sort of person that has to convince himself to spend the money, and has to make sure he spends it when he's done that!

The quote I've got is a fixed price quote, so whether it takes them 1 day or 3 days I've assumed this is an all in price, I was just hoping that someone would be able to tell me if they thought it was a fair price for the work being done.

Cheers, RK

EliteHeat

Do you mean you have twin pipes going to a single valve on one side of the radiator? What size is the visible pipework?

heating-eng

think i would invest the money in a full new system myself ..