Superseal Magic Box -

mastermixlee

I am a gas engineer and have a strong knowledge of heating systems and different ways of heat transfer. Firstly, the comment of having the boiler stat set to 30 degrees and supposedly still providing hot water...really!!? So you are telling me that 30 degree water going into a cylinder coil will heat the water above 30 degrees!!!?? Impossible...unless the installer turned the immersion heater on when you werent looking....that would make your gas bills look lower at least ;-) though not too great for your electric.

Which brings me to my next point. 3 pumps for the job of 1... the newest high efficiency pumps use around 45 watts per hour one max speed setting. This system requires 3 pumps which are more than likely also using 45 watts per pump, so the electricity consumption is going up... also along with the fact that there are now 3 pumps to fail and replace. No matter how clean a system is or how well maintained, pumps will fail, sometimes very quickly.

This system seems to use a very similar concept as a Boilermate. Which funnily enough hardly anyone replaces with a like for like, but tend to go for an unvented cylinder system afterwards due to the high maintenance costs of 3 pumps etc with no benefit seen in bills.

I can completely understand people coming on here to big it up and help sell it, especially if they are
potential installers of the product. It is a very easy job to hook one of these up, and make an absolute killing in the process!!

If i was cold hearted and could actually manage to sell things to customers like this I could retire 30 years earlier than currently needed....or work 1 day a month. Whilst that prospect sounds extremely tempting, I cannot hold that sort of thing on my conscience.

Long story short,

I am all for helping people save money with new devices and designs, but this is not one of them.

This system may "save" you money on your gas bill, but in reality that "saving" is just transferring to pay extra electricity costs, maintenance costs, and obviously a huge chunk more to the installers/manufacturers.

Dont waste your money people, this seems just as bad as the ones who sell new high efficiency boilers or solar heating to 90 year olds based upon saving money on bills. You will never see your money back once all costs are taken into consideration.

Fruit_and_Nut_Case

Welcome to MSE :wave:

Did you plough your way through the whole thread? I think most posters are pouring cold water over the idea (pun intended), not endorsing it.

You also state...

mastermixlee wrote: »

...the newest high efficiency pumps use around 45 watts per hour...

Why specify 45 Watts per hour? Presumably they use 45 Watts however long they're running.

Ed_Unted

I worked for Superseal, and I have to say the post above from "mastermixlee" is right on the money - well said, that man!

My thoughts are as follows: Superseal will charge you up to £8,500 (you read it correctly, EIGHT THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED QUID!!!) for a new boiler with their, ahem, "advanced central heating management system". There's nothing actually wrong with that system - as others have said, the "magic box" involved is basically a buffer tank, it's just an empty vessel - and the rest of the system is additional pumps, thermostatic radiator valves and a new management system.

It's never worth £8,500, and even with a very high gas bill the savings you make will never return that initial investment over the lifetime of the system.

Far better to find a reputable company who will fit a new, efficient condensing boiler for, say, £2,500 to £3,500 for the average detatched house, including chemically flushing the system to remove the rust deposits that reduce its efficiency. You can expect the new boiler to be between 85% and 90% efficient; if your current boiler is, say, 65% efficient then you will experience a saving on your heating and hot water bill of between 30% and 40% per year.

Job done, more heat, less cost - and thousands saved on the Superseal price!

PS - I also have to comment on poster "Shaun1986", who has vigorously promoted and defended the "Magic Box" system on this thread. Shaun first registered and posted after this thread had begun, and all of his nine posts have been on this thread.

Although his defences of the system have been pretty well torn to shreds by other posters, notably Martyn1981 and Zuepater (take a bow, lads!), I found it quite remarkable just how closely some of Shaun's arguments seemed to match, almost word for word, the sales pitch taught to Superseal's sales team.

Now, it may well be that Shaun has a photographic memory and can remember what he was told at the time of sale, but forgive me for thinking it more likely that he either works for Superseal or has been coached by a member of their sales staff before posting.

Call me cynical if you like, but that's how it looks to me!

Ed_Unted

Having had my say on the product in the post above, I thought I'd give you an insight into my experience of Superseal as a company.

Their sales staff are all self-employed, and paid on results - no basic, they have to sell to earn. They are expected to be available for appointments 12 days out of 14 (very good of them to allow Sundays off!) and can be sent anywhere for the appointments - it wasn't unusual for me to have an hour's drive between calls, and often I'd end up with a call at say 8.00pm a hundred or so miles from home, meaning it could be around midnight or later when I got home. All at your own expense, too; you need your own car and pay for your own fuel.

If all that wasn't enough to make their sales staff keen to get your business, the pressure from the sales managers is relentless. An example: I went to sell the system this thread is about to a couple. The man was clearly in pain and apologised in advance for the possibility that he might not be able to sit through the presentation, but he managed. At the end they said they were definitely interested, but explained their circumstances - the following week he was having tests to establish whether strong medication was improving his blood circulation, and if it wasn't he was facing amputation of a leg. If that happened, they would be moving to a smaller house with no stairs and a smaller garden and it wouldn't make sense for them to buy the system, but if the news was good then they'd be happy to go ahead - could I contact them in ten days for a decision?

I called my sales manager and relayed this info to him. The response? "F--- that for an excuse, create some urgency in there and sign them up tonight!" He wasn't exactly quiet, and since I was sitting in between them they heard every word. They were disgusted, I was embarrassed and any chance of a sale died in that moment.

That's the sort of regime their sales staff suffer under - if they do visit you, please be sympathetic as you send them on your way.

By the way, in case Superseal read this post and consider complaining to the forum administrators about it - before posting I rang the couple involved, who remember the occasion well, and they are willing to verify the truth of what I've said. Oh, and he still has all four limbs -unlike Superseal, who don't have a leg to stand on in this instance.......

rogerblack

Ed_Unted wrote: »

Far better to find a reputable company who will fit a new, efficient condensing boiler for, say, £2,500 to £3,500 for the average detatched house, including chemically flushing the system to remove the rust deposits that reduce its efficiency. You can expect the new boiler to be between 85% and 90% efficient; if your current boiler is, say, 65% efficient then you will experience a saving on your heating and hot water bill of between 30% and 40% per year.

There are a couple of problems.
Firstly - 65% efficiency means an unusually old boiler.
Secondly - while modern boilers may indeed hit that in lab conditions, recent (well, ~2011 IIRC) research by the energy saving trust indicated that as usually installed, they were only several percent better than conventional boilers, falling well behind their nominal specs.

Ed_Unted

rogerblack wrote: »

There are a couple of problems.
Firstly - 65% efficiency means an unusually old boiler.
Secondly - while modern boilers may indeed hit that in lab conditions, recent (well, ~2011 IIRC) research by the energy saving trust indicated that as usually installed, they were only several percent better than conventional boilers, falling well behind their nominal specs.

Hi Roger, thanks for the response.

I still sell boilers and central heating systems, and if the clients have a service plan in place for the existing boiler I always ask to see the "bill of health" form issued when the most recent service was carried out. Often I find the efficiency stated to be 70% or less - and the boilers concerned aren't necessarily "unusually old", either; often 15 years or less.

And the Energy Savings Trust website gives various examples of the savings that can be made by installing a modern condensing boiler, figures that are not dissimilar to those I quoted.

Finally, I think a key phrase in your post is "as usually installed", and I don't disagree. Many heat-only boilers were fitted in such a way that it was impossible to run the heating system without heating the hot water tank as well, and that was a huge waste of energy. Thankfully, nowadays you can use the two independently.

What_a_mess

Hi Guys, can't contribute much to the magic box forum but I have just had my first encounter with SUPERSEAL their name certainly being as appropriate as magic box, which by the sounds of it is not so magic after all, because they certainly try SUPER hard to SEAL you up or should I say stick you up.
They tried to sell me a Biomass Pellet heating for....are you sitting........
£60k yes ladies and Gentlemen £60k and before somebody asks if I own Downton Abbey....no I don't! We have quite a large old house which needs quite a lot on energy to keep it warm so an alternative solution to fossil energy heating was on the agenda. The facts and figures about the pellet heating and the savings where all logical and true it was just the calculation to what the system should cost that was so way way out.
After some research I discovered the hardware for the same unit they offered me costs retail list price ( including a full margin for the dealer) around £16.5k so then the other £43.5k must be for the piping, ducting, insulation and labour...........well what a scam. They try and stitch sorry SEAL you up good and proper. Can't recommend them to anybody, stay well away from them. Now working with some serious guys on this issue. Cheers.

Ed_Unted

To "What a mess" above - thanx for posting, the more folk who become aware of what Superseal do the better.

You're right in saying that a decent biomass for a typical detached house should come in at around £16,000 or so. Probably your larger, older and more draughty property requires something a bit more expensive - but, honestly, £60K?? :rotfl:

Looks to me like they worked out what would be the maximum price they could get away with with you - and then promptly doubled it.

Please post on here what it eventually cost you, as it'll be interesting to see how it compares to the quote from Superseal.......

leccy

I am no central heating engineer but after having a cold call re magic box I asked what was the difference between their box and turning the boiler stat down and the pump speed up, they said their box was MAGIC.
Also on an open vented system is there not a possibility of pumping water through the exspantion pipe into the header tank due to the increase in speed of water flow, I assume increase of speed = increase in delta P,
I stand to be corrected by those that know more.
Leccy

1961Nick

leccy wrote: »

Also on an open vented system is there not a possibility of pumping water through the exspantion pipe into the header tank due to the increase in speed of water flow, I assume increase of speed = increase in delta P,
I stand to be corrected by those that know more.
Leccy

I've had that happen after a C/H engineer left the pump on max instead of 2. The expansion tank was in an attic bedroom & we couldn't understand where all the condensation was coming from.

The problem may only manifest itself when TRVs start to close or the motorised valve ports to H/W. If you do turn it up it might be an idea to test all possible scenarios.