Worcester boiler?

ipri

Hi..getting new extension...plus central heating, and water underfloor heating to new kitchen...builder suggests Worcester boiler...says they are more expensive but worth it...any comments welcome.

Wywth

ipri wrote: »

Hi..getting new extension...plus central heating, and water underfloor heating to new kitchen...builder suggests Worcester boiler...says they are more expensive but worth it...any comments welcome.

How much is the Worcester boiler?

What other alternatives have been offered and what price are they?

Why does the builder say the more expensive boiler is worth it?

Ultimately only you can decide if the extra expenditure today is worth it.
e.g. If you plan on selling in a couple of years, you won't care if it's got a 5 year guarantee over a 3 year one.

ipri

Thanks...I believe he was saying it was a reliable buy...we will be staying for a long time!

Wywth

We've a Baxi boiler ... and that's 25 years old.

schrodie

I've been quoted £3000 for a new 97% efficient Worcester boiler plus various controls and changes to bits of pipework. Given that it's suggested that at the most I could save about £200 on my annual £700 gas bill it would take 15 years for me to see any return on my investment!

I think I'll stick with my 25yr old G rated boiler until it falls to bits!

RupertTheCat

I've had a Worcester Bosch boiler for 7 years now. It cost a fortune to fit, but it's been worth it I feel, as it purrs happily along and my bills are reasonable and haven't gone up much over the last few years.

Just make sure it's fitted by someone who knows what they're doing - mine was fitted by a pair of idiots and I had to get a proper Worcester Bosch guy out to sort out the mess. It's behaved perfectly since he started looking after it.

I love my boiler.

C_Mababejive

Wywth wrote: »

We've a Baxi boiler ... and that's 25 years old.

My Glow worm boiler is 33 years old..:p

Pincher

You have to understand that the UFH manifold has a thermostatic mixer that maintains the loop temperature around 40 degrees.
If you feed it boiler output at 70 degrees, only a little bit gets used, and the rest returns to the boiler, at say 65 degrees, and no condensation happens, so you get 75% efficiency instead of the Band A 90% as advertised.

You can have an expensive boiler, but if all the engineer does is to connect the heat demand line from an ON/OFF thermostat, the boiler will simply heat the water to say 70 degrees, because that's what the boiler output dial is set to.

My Glow worm setup has intelligent optimisation to achieve condensation as much as possible, but that's because I have installed external sensors for indoor and outdoor temperatures.

For heating the house up from cold, it will turn the flame up, but when it gets near the target temperature, the boiler output is around 50 degrees, with the returning water lukewarm so it condenses really well. This is the steady state that is ideal for under floor heating, where the thermostatic mixer is not rejecting water that is too hot.

For the final stage of hot water cylinder heating, it will go up to 85 degrees, but in the earlier stages, it will use lower temperatures to keep condensing.

So is the Worcester good because it will reliably produce boiler output at 70 degrees for the next 10 years at roughly 75% efficiency? Or is it a brainiac that actually works at near 90% efficiency by intelligently modulating the flame according to the conditions.