Old back boiler

Tired_3

Hoping someone can help me.

Will hopefully be completing on house soon and wondered if anyone knew anything about old back boilers.

Currently there is a old gas fire in the living room which I have been told is connected to the back boiler and if I had this not very good looking gas fire removed it would mean the heating would not work. Is this correct?

If so, what are my options? I was toying with the idea that the boiler may need replacing, but was hoping to get away with it if possible.

Happy_frank

The back boiler is an integral part of the fire. It may be possible to replace the front part of the fire but only with one compatable with the back boiler, as it an old boiler your choices may be limited or none existant.
You certainly can not just remove the fire.

Tired_3

Thanks for letting me know

Suppose I will have to look into how much a new boiler will cost me then, as shouldn't think I will get a nice looking fire which will connect to the old boiler.

misgrace

I had a back boiler for years, and was stuck with the horrible old fire.
You normally have to get it serviced once a year, cause of the carbon monoxide, and you must have a vent in the room.
Its does use more gas than your normal potterton or bosch.

Its only the last 3 years or so that we have had it taken out, as I think the healthy and safety laws are trying to phase the back boiler out, under certain circumstances you can have help from your council towards removing it and replacing it with a new boiler, unfortunately we didnt get any help as we both work, but if your on benefits, or a certain age you can get help.

It did cost us a fair bit to get it taken out, and the old flue, and have a new combi boiler, but at least its not an eysore anymore.

BTW, forgot to add, we removed the acual fire, and put a radiator cover over the gap for a good few months, believe me, it was nicer than the fire, and the bolier still fired up and heated the rads, it didnt affect the heating in anyway, but the actual fire wont work if you take the front off.
hope this helps a bit.

misgrace

Tired wrote:

Thanks for letting me know

Suppose I will have to look into how much a new boiler will cost me then, as shouldn't think I will get a nice looking fire which will connect to the old boiler.

Tired, you can get a half decent fire thats suitable with back boilers, its called a 'baxi fire or baxi boiler', look it up on your search engine, and you will see there is about approx 4-6 fires that are quite modern.

jen1

Hi, We had a back boiler in our old house but had it removed and combi boiler put into our airing cuboard instead. We done this to sell our house quicker just over a yr ago. The combi cost us £2200.00 which included removing bb relocating boiler and flushing system through.
Hope this helps those bb fires are not pretty!

missk_ensington

I had exactly the same system as this, and I had it all removed. Fires are available but I didnt find one that I thought looked nice and they were almost as expensive as a new boiler!

If you want to do it cheap, supply materials yourself, get a cheap boiler £399 from b&q and get quotes for installation only. I ended up paying £1100 inclusive of everything. The cheapo boiler isn't the best thing ever invented, it takes 10-15 seconds for water to run hot and stuff but other than that I haven't had any problems with it and its guaranteed for, I think 2 years.

Hope this helps, but I advise you get rid of the back boiler as not only will it incease your gas costs and looks a sight, as well as being hard to maintain and difficult to obtain parts of anythjing goes wrong, but when you buy the house someone is likely to chip you off the asking price to get it changed, which is what I did when I bought it since its genera;;y taken as red that buyers will replace a back boiler.

Hope this helps (albeit a bit late) x