Central Heating Estimate 2 up 2 down £6500

meanmum

I've had the following rough estimate from a small local company, which is based on 1 year old prices, so warned it could be even higher.
It's to fit a complete CH system into a house with no existing CH (already has gas supply & 2 gas fires in main rooms but no other gas heating):
Ideal Vogue 32kW inc flue 1100
Magnaclean 95
Honeywell wireless clock 125
Copper 350
Fittings 150
8 radiators 540
Towel rail 96
Trunking 40
Valves 120
Inhibitor 10
Materials (clips etc) 300
Labour 3600
Total £6526

The ballpark figure we had from a trusted builder we'd used previously, who would subcontract the job, was £4200 inc VAT. Hence I was quite surprised at this £6500+ estimate.

What do you folk think?

kev_pecker

I'm not a gas engineer or plumber, so you're getting an amateurs view. Just to give you some idea one of my colleagues had the same job done (different boiler) a couple of years ago for £3-3.5k.

The price that stands out is £3,600 for labour, I would be surpised if one person couldn't do the job in a week max, which would make the daily rate enormous!

The standard advice is get at least 3 quotes then you'll see if the price is reasonable or not, I suspect the later.

Plumber90

Are you in or near London with labour rates like that?

meanmum

No, in East Cheshire. It does seem a lot for labour, but I've no idea how many man hours a job like this takes........

brightontraveller

Answered it yourself builder (who is subbing it and most likely getting kickback) is cheaper than the firm? Get other quotes don’t waste you time with this joker,,,,

meanmum

We used the same firm previously & were quite happy with them - charged £500 labour (inc VAT) to fit a new combi boiler, which took them more than a day, with 2 of them there for some of the time, if I remember right.
Is there a guidance for "normal" day rates for plumbing?

southcoastrgi

2 up 2 down, decent boiler & rads, separate upstairs & downstairs zones (to comply with building regs), around £4k - £4.5k

booty40uk

8 rads and a towel rad in a 2 up 2 down???


£300 buys a hell of a lot of clips and screws.


A bundle of 22mm and 2 bundles of 15mm will be approximately £270.


£150 will buy you enough fittings for the above copper for 4 jobs.


The price you have is ridiculous. Around £4000 tops.

Susan_2001

Seems an awful lot of money that. However you've had more work done than us.

To give you an idea of price.
We've just had an Ideal Vogue 40 with their matching remote wireless Vogue controller fitted, including a gas pipe upgrade of a few metres and external pipework put into our drain for the condensed water and system drained and sorted for just over £2,000 including vat it would have been £120 cheaper if we'd had a different room stat and controller but we wanted the matching one for the boiler. That was with an Ideal accredited installer.

Fantastic boiler by the way, we fully recommend the Vogue 40, showers have never been so good the boiler is so quite and the matching stat/controller is so easy to use. Keeps the temperature in the room a constant temp incredibly well.

Hope you get sorted.

orionmoo

Had an heating engineer recommend Ideal boilers to us this last week (and another recommended Baxi) but after doing a bit if digging and discussions with a family member who is a chartered engineer they said avoid both makes as they're not highly rated/reviewed. We're getting a 29kW Worcester Bosch with flue and Nest thermostat for £1,300. Take the cost of Nest of that and that's pretty much the same cost as the Ideal they've quoted you.

We have a 4-bed 2 bathroom property (only 2 of us though) and we've performed our own heat loss calculations and worked out that a 29kW would be adequate. We currently have a 15kW thermal store boiler (Powermax 155) and it's worked fine (until now) with 2 showers!

Edit: I understand some on here do not rate WB for whatever reason; A third heating engineer said he didn't either and would rather install Vaillant. But I can't ignore a recommendation from a family member with three engineering degrees! He usually knows what he's talking about..

southcoastrgi

A powermax & a combi are two totally diff animals so you can't compare the two, you will have less flow rate from your new 29kw, unless your chartered engineer fits boilers I wouldn't take too much notice however many degrees he's got