Alpha boilers - any experience?

martyp

Hi all,

I managed to find a really great local gas safe registered heating engineer to service my boiler recently although several faults were discovered which would suggest a new boiler should be on the cards...
He's quoted me a good price on replacing the boiler with an Alpha 24X (just over £1k).
The boiler is quite cheap, around £600. My parents have an Alpha and are happy with it. I've just not heard of them before, I know everyone sings the praises of Worcester boilers but I'm not sure what Alpha are like generally and what experiences if any people might have had with them?
Is that a good deal for a new boiler? (I was thinking people often spend £2k+ so it seems so).

marmitepotato

I've got one, had it for a few years now. I'm very happy with it. Only needed to ring the careline once, and that was when I needed it servicing.

martyp

Many thanks marmitepotato

southcoastrgi

& not everyone sings the praises of WB, although that's what they would like you to think, plus i know you think your RGI is the mutts nuts but £1k is too cheap for a boiler change so watch the corners he may be cutting, post up the full quote & we can tell you if he has missed anything, what is your existing boiler ? make & model ? & what is the model of the one he wants to fit ? 24 ?

martyp

Hi southcoastrgi,
Here's the quote detail:
Alpha 24x boiler £610.00
Cleaner and inhibitor £24.40
Filling loop £7.20
Magnaclean (recommended but optional) £97.00
Additional parts £40.00
Labour £300.00

Existing boiler is a Glow-worm hot water express 80, he replaced the DHW flow switch so the hot water now works but the expansion vessel thing has a broken valve I think so he was unable to inflate it. He also advised the fan doesn't sound very healthy and the picture glass is cracked. There is also a leak from the control knob for hw/ch&hw which results in water dripping all over the PCB board casing. It tested safe though just BER really. He advised an external expansion vessel could be fitted somewhere else but would be about £150 or so.

southcoastrgi

martyp wrote: »

Hi southcoastrgi,
Here's the quote detail:
Alpha 24x boiler £610.00
Cleaner and inhibitor £24.40
Filling loop £7.20
Magnaclean (recommended but optional) £97.00
Additional parts £40.00
Labour £300.00

Existing boiler is a Glow-worm hot water express 80, he replaced the DHW flow switch so the hot water now works but the expansion vessel thing has a broken valve I think so he was unable to inflate it. He also advised the fan doesn't sound very healthy and the picture glass is cracked. There is also a leak from the control knob for hw/ch&hw which results in water dripping all over the PCB board casing. It tested safe though just BER really. He advised an external expansion vessel could be fitted somewhere else but would be about £150 or so.

Well i still think his quote is too cheap but this is MSE

boiler make not the best but certainly not the worst but you pays your money & takes your choice.

he has allowed for cleaner & inhibitor (it won't be fernox or sentinal for that price), but he hasn't allowed for flushing the system either power or manual flushing. (to give you a clue BG charge £700, I charge £300 for a powerflush, although i reduce it to £200 if i am doing a boiler change)

I would def recommend having a magnaclean fitted.

No probs with the other things.

There is no allowance for upgrading the size of the gas supply, alot of older boilers have been installed on a gas pipe that is too small, you can't do that with a modern boiler, so unless he has done his calcs this may need doing, you can't just say that the old one is working so the new one will be ok, it doesn't work like that.

There is nothing on there about siteing the condense pipe, this needs to go to a drain or a soakaway.

Labour figure (& i know loads on here will disagree) is too cheap.

Do you have a scale inhibitor fitted to the cold main to your existing boiler ?, if you don't & you live in a hard water area then one must be fitted to the new boiler & there is nothing on the quote for that.

the fitting of a new boiler req's the system to be brought upto the currant regs, ie trv's on the rads (except where the room stat is), a room stat if you don't have one, an auto-bypass valve.

Sometimes getting work done is not all about the bottom line, it's about getting work done correctly, an awful lot of boiler breakdowns (whatever the make/model) are not down to a crap boiler but down to installer error.

If you are happy with the installer & trust him to do a good job, then I think you are getting a very cheap job done.

martyp

Many thanks for the advice southcoastrgi, I'm hoping it would be ok. The bloke hasn't lived in the area long and I think is trying to get more business locally so may be a lower price to get more interest. He charged £45 for the boiler service and £15 for the gas fire service and included fitting the DHW flow switch in that price. He was here for 3 hours as well!
Seems like a genuinely nice bloke so far but I only found him through searching my local gassafe register online not through any recommendations.
I probably can't acquire a new boiler cheaper than he has, even looking on ebay I wouldn't really save anything much.
I'm due to lose my job in the next couple of months and the redundancy payout is relatively small which is why I'd be scrimping a bit on the boiler sadly. He has advised not to use the central heating owing to the problem with the expansion vessel and the pressure rising to 3 when the ch is on. He suggested that caused the two holes that appeared in one of the rads where water sprung out (thankfully we saw that when it happened!).
He said it would take about 1.5 to 2 days to do all the work.
I'll go with the magnaclean if that's a good thing. I have a Ziff limefighter on the incoming cold water pipe.
I've got a downward facing pipe that drips all the time out the front of the house just under where the boiler is located the other side of the wall below where the outside outlet is from the boiler? Is the condense pipe something for modern condensing boilers?

I just found this as well:
http://www.gascall.com/alphaintec24xdetails.html

mwbrown

we have just had a price for fitting a replacement combi boiler (have been quoted £1800 inc vat for either a viessmann 30kw boiler or a 28kw vaillant boiler (with a vertical flue going through the kitchen roof), fitting a magnaclean filter and flushing the system and rads. Minimal pipework required and he will be fitting new TRV to the rads that need them and a wireless roomstat.

I would say £1000 all in is cheap for a boiler replacement (we have had a few quotes starting at £1800 going up to £2490)....

southcoastrgi

looking at that link I think i might as well give up & start stacking shelves (although there is nothing wrong with that before anyone gets on my case), but it does say subject to survey so thats means the price will go up because they will find something,

sorry to hear about your job & from how you have descriced the installer he seems like a good guy, just make sure he does what i said

no the pipe out the front is the pipe from the safety discharge valve & that will drip/run at 3 bar, it should re-set itself but they never do & normally need replacing, but unless you get the expansion vessel sorted the pressure will continue to rise if you put the heating on & therefore the valve old or new will open up.

best of luck & i hope it all goes well.

unclebulgaria

Ive just replaced an Alpha CD32C, I think that was the model, anyway it was only 5 years old. The expansion vessel was kapput, the condense trap had a design fault which made it dangerous but Alpha never got in touch to have it replaced, it had leaks everywhere. IMO they're just above rubbish but like SCRGI has said you pays ya money....
There is currently a deal from Baxi. Baxi Platinum with a 10 year warranty, granted its a dearer boiler but 10 years warranty (so long as you keep the services up to date and its fitted by a decent RGi) is a weight off anyone's mind.