The so-called 'experts' have no idea, do they?

Cardew

ollski wrote: »

Lol do you all still drive around in your first cars because of the carbon footprint of making a new one, sitting on your 1975 choc brown and orange sofa, watching your crt tvs?

Hardly a fair analogy - all a boiler does is heat hot water!


Take your efficiency figures with a pinch of salt, although most 20+ year old non fanned flue boilers will be 55 - 65% efficient

My 1988 boiler has an efficiency of 65% according to SEDBUK and that model was first produced 29 years ago.

There is considerable speculation about what modern condensing boilers(with a theoretical efficiency of 90%) achieve in 'real world' operating conditions.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors stated recently :

The average cost of installing one of these modern boilers is £1,720, but saves on average just £95 off people's gas bills." See:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...erts-warn.html

As someone with high gas consumption, I would have more to gain by getting a higher efficiency boiler, than the average UK consumer.

If I could get a guarantee that any new boiler would last 20 years like my old one it might be worth considering. However even those with a 5 year guarantee require expensive annual servicing by an approved fitter.

ollski

Cardew wrote: »

There is considerable speculation about what modern condensing boilers(with a theoretical efficiency of 90%) achieve in 'real world' operating conditions.

There is indeed due to the fact that they are rarely installed correctly to optimize the system to keep the boiler in condensing mode as much as possible. However nobody seems to be interested in speculating about the efficiency figures given for 30 year old exsisting boilers. There is no way that after 30 years of operation it will be anywhere near as efficent as it was.

Are you sure my analogy is unfair?, yes it does only provide hot water to clean, wash and live in comfort but why is that secondary to a tv, sofa or more modern car?

MillicentBystander

Just checked out my boiler's efficiency rating on the SEDBUK site and it was 75% when new. It's a Glow-Worm and to give you some idea of its age, the helpline number is on a large sticker on the front and starts with 081! I'm no expert at all but IMO these old boilers are basically like a huge office/workshop geezer with very little in the way of sophistication - which is probably why they traditionally need so little attention during their lifetime, unlike the increasingly sophisticated boilers we have now.

molerat

My 25 year old boiler is undoubtedly not fuel efficient but it is cost efficient. It requires no more than a quick clean out every now and again and has had one board (£60), one fan (£80) and one thermostat (£25) in that time. It runs 24/7 and has been out of action for 5 days in 25 years. Even if it cut my gas bill in half it would take 6 years to pay for a new boiler. If it aint broke don't fix it. Several of my neighbours have had new boilers in the past few years, you can tell who they are by the gas fitter vans parked outside as soon as it gets cold

MillicentBystander

molerat wrote: »

My 25 year old boiler is undoubtedly not fuel efficient but it is cost efficient. It requires no more than a quick clean out every now and again and has had one board (£60), one fan (£80) and one thermostat (£25) in that time. It runs 24/7 and has been out of action for 5 days in 25 years. Even if it cut my gas bill in half it would take 6 years to pay for a new boiler. If it aint broke don't fix it. Several of my neighbours have had new boilers in the past few years, you can tell who they are by the gas fitter vans parked outside as soon as it gets cold

Exact same thing here! It's made even worse for some of them because they were 'bragging' they were having a new combi boiler fitted 'to save loads on the gas bill'. Everyone of them that I spoke to had working boilers. Stupid.

KimYeovil

(Dang. Unable to contribute to this page as it would involve agreeing with Millicent.)

penrhyn

By Grabthar's hammer what a savings!

MillicentBystander

KimYeovil wrote: »

(Dang. Unable to contribute to this page as it would involve agreeing with Millicent.)

Just so you know, your post is a contribution, BTW. And about as useful as 99% of your other contributions on this forum, seemingly. Back to the Werther's.....

Pincher

It just shows why engineers should run this country.
No more PPE (Politics, Philosophy and Economics) graduates from Oxford who go straight into politics.
How can you let anyone who says "I did pee-pee in Oxford" run this country?

Private Pensions, Right to Buy, Personal Home Ownership, Compulsory condensing boilers, the list is endless.

If elected, I promise to put in rigorous engineering discipline into running this country. The civil service entrance exam will be science and numeracy biased.

Home Ownership will be licensed by the new Domestic Residence Licensing Authority. Having qualified, all licensed home owners will be deemed knowledgeable and therefore liable for legal penalties for substandard housing. Home owners unable to pass the exams will be given two years to sell up or pass the exam.

The majority of housing stock in the U.K. will of course fail this high standard and be uneconomic to upgrade. We put the homeless into chain gangs, creating a cheap labour force to demolish poor housing and rebuild decent housing. We will need architects, geologists, environmental scientists: engineers and more engineers.

With the majority of the population in labour camps,
rebellion is inevitable. So we need to recruit top engineers to create mob control robots. The manufacture and maintenance as well as operation of this fourth armed forces will be a major job creation opportunity. We also need top chemists to produce pacifying gases.

Such draconian measures will of course be extremely unpopular, so I pledge to suspend free elections so that my strategic goals cannot be swayed by irrational voter sentiment until such time as the country has been whipped into shape.

This has been a party political broadcast by the Campaign for Population Reduction, CPR.

MillicentBystander

I'll have what Pincher's drinking.