Warm Front advice

Arfermo

I am 73 so qualify for a grant according to the WarmFront site mere due to age. There is no mention of a requirement for my existing boiler being irretrievably broken?
I only recently bought this 5 bed 2200sf house and am fed up with a 7 year old Glowworm Hideaway 100B boiler (that has been on a continuous annual maintenance contract with Glowworm since it was installed - obviously poorly done) that is gulping gas at about twice the rate I have been used to on a similar 2000sf property I lived in for 30 years with a Baxi Bermuda 54kbtu back boiler. In the last month I have had cavity and loft insulation brought up to standard and yesterday the plumber modified the piping to make it fully pumped and installed a room stat, tank stat and frost stat all of which were missing for god knows what reason and reset the boiler thermostsat and burner down to (he said) about 80kbtu when it had been at its max and boiling the water through the overflow into the garden, presumably for 7 years and caking the header tank with grot into the bargain!!! I have cleaned out the header tank asked him to powerflush the rest of the sytem and he recommends replacing the boiler for something more efficient in this modern age eg an Alpha CD18R, a sealed header to stop some of the gurgling we now suffer from and applying for a WarmFront grant. I trust him but am puzzled that this boiler is descibed as "Heating only". What does this mean please? He agrees with me that a smaller output circa 60kbtu (or whatever the new kwhr equivalent is) would be better than the Glowworm. His estimate is around £1600 which considering the previous owner was quoted £1960 7 years ago just for the Glowworm sounds pretty good to me. Am I likely to get a grant and the sealed header bothers me a bit from the point of view of topping up with Fernox or whatever. Comments on the price and advice on the suggested boiler and grant situation appreciated urgently as he has put me down for mid January for the work.

jellymid

Hi Afermo,
Sorry can't help on the technical stuff, you would probably be better off posting on the In My Home section. However, I have never heard of anybody applying for a grant through a specific plumber before. If he has done work for them in the past on this basis may well be ok. As to replacing a working boiler- however inefficient - I'm sure a lot will depend on the assessor that warmfront send around. From the other postings on this site - I wouldn't bank on it, but worth trying.

djohn2002uk

Can't help with choice of boiler etc. but as for the sealed tank, no worries. You can get tubes of Fernox which you put into a gun the same as sealants. It comes with a connector which attaches to a radiator where the bleed nipple is after closing both valves. You then open one valve and inject it. Then close the valve, remove the connector and replace the plug in the rad and open the valves. The beauty of this method is that the Fernox is pumped around the system immediately.

Arfermo

Hello all,
Have had a survey for loft insulation done today. The nice gentleman told me that the cost is £320, so I assume this leaves about £2400 for Central heating. Have not yet got the name of the contractor and central heating boiler has not been mentioned.
rgd
seb
Hey sebastianj vbmenu_register("postmenu_7092643", true); - re your note above, have you obtained enough quotes after approaching the Energy Savings Trust (www.energysavingtrust.org.uk )? They are very helpful and altho' I have a large house (2200sf) I only paid £199 for the loft to be brought up from a poor 50mm with another 200mm on top making a theoretical 250mm (10 inches) which is the current recommended level.

Arfermo

djohn2002uk wrote: »

Can't help with choice of boiler etc. but as for the sealed tank, no worries. You can get tubes of Fernox which you put into a gun the same as sealants. It comes with a connector which attaches to a radiator where the bleed nipple is after closing both valves. You then open one valve and inject it. Then close the valve, remove the connector and replace the plug in the rad and open the valves. The beauty of this method is that the Fernox is pumped around the system immediately.

My rads are pretty old and I seem to have at least 4 different types. Do the Fernox tubes you refer to cater for all variations of nipple? Ought to ask a supplier I suppose but thiought you might know.

Arfermo

jellymid wrote: »

Hi Afermo,
Sorry can't help on the technical stuff, you would probably be better off posting on the In My Home section. However, I have never heard of anybody applying for a grant through a specific plumber before. If he has done work for them in the past on this basis may well be ok. As to replacing a working boiler- however inefficient - I'm sure a lot will depend on the assessor that warmfront send around. From the other postings on this site - I wouldn't bank on it, but worth trying.

The plumber who sorted my system out yesterday only said that grants from Warmfront are available if one qualifies and that he is a registered installer for them. He does not apply for the grant - like any plumber/installer, he only rebates the bill by the grant money when he is presented with the voucher that the Warnfront people dish out. For this reason I suggest it might be tactically unwise to advise any installer that a grant voucher has been obtained lest he ups his bill and whips the benefit for himself. I am a suspicious old sod I am afraid as I have been diddled too often in the past.

djohn2002uk

Arfermo wrote: »

My rads are pretty old and I seem to have at least 4 different types. Do the Fernox tubes you refer to cater for all variations of nipple? Ought to ask a supplier I suppose but thiought you might know.

My rads range from some which were installed with the system in the early 70s to a couple that were changed when walls were skimmed a couple of years ago and the rads are different design but the bleed valves haven't changed in that time.

getting-sorted-sarah

Warm Front have specific contractors, they allocate these. A boiler has to be malfunctioning before it is considered for replacement.

There is no qualification for a grant on the basis of age alone - Afermo, if you are 73 you also need to be in receipt of Pension Credit or Council Tax benefit to qualify. This is a means tested grant.

Arfermo

getting-sorted-sarah wrote: »

Warm Front have specific contractors, they allocate these. A boiler has to be malfunctioning before it is considered for replacement.

There is no qualification for a grant on the basis of age alone - Afermo, if you are 73 you also need to be in receipt of Pension Credit or Council Tax benefit to qualify. This is a means tested grant.

Looks like I am out of luck but thanks.

margaretclare

Arfermo wrote: »

Looks like I am out of luck but thanks.

You can also get it via Attendance Allowance, which is not means-tested. That was how we got ours done in January - we're not on any means-tested benefit e.g. pension credit, but I'm on AA so we got it through that. Great. Saved us £2,700 for the installation and is continuing to save us money on gas usage which is approx half what it was a year ago. I'm a great believer in 'if you don't ask you don't get'.

Margaret