Gas or Oil

pixie11123

I'm moving into a house in south belfast with a hot water tank that needs replaced and quite an old boiler (15+ years).

As far as I know I qualify for a grant of £1000 towards cost of a new boiler which would cost around £1800 according to Power NI and a hot water cylinder would be about £500 all in.

Would it be better for me to get a new combi boiler and get rid of the old cylinder or would it be cost effective to convert to gas?

saverbuyer

pixie11123 wrote: »

I'm moving into a house in south belfast with a hot water tank that needs replaced and quite an old boiler (15+ years).

As far as I know I qualify for a grant of £1000 towards cost of a new boiler which would cost around £1800 according to Power NI and a hot water cylinder would be about £500 all in.

Would it be better for me to get a new combi boiler and get rid of the old cylinder or would it be cost effective to convert to gas?

Depends on the size of the house/number of bathrooms.


Did you want to go for an oil or gas combi? Gas ones are going to be much cheaper than oil.


So options are
1: Replace oil system boiler with new boiler
2: Oil combi and remove tank
3: Gas combi and remove tank
4: Gas system and keep tank

pixie11123

Its a small semi-detached house with 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, kitchen & living room with myself and one other living there.

The hot water cylinder has to go as there are signs of corrosion and could leak soon. So an option is to replace this and leave the boiler until it reaches the end of its life

saverbuyer

pixie11123 wrote: »

Its a small semi-detached house with 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, kitchen & living room with myself and one other living there.

The hot water cylinder has to go as there are signs of corrosion and could leak soon. So an option is to replace this and leave the boiler until it reaches the end of its life

TBH if it's oil, I'd be tempted just to replace the cylinder and wait for the boiler to die.


Oil is probably cheaper than gas at the minute.


If you want to replace the boiler with gas and remove the cylinder you're probably looking around £2000.


More if your pipes are micro bore.

pixie11123

The way I was looking at it was if a new boiler installation is £1800 and I can get a £1000 grant, it would be £800 to replace the boiler to a combi one and I could dispose of the water cylinder?

Whereas a cylinder replacement could be £500 on its own (not sure how much plumbers charge for this)

Heisenbug

I've just had to replace a leaking water cylinder costing £490. It had a slow leak for weeks before we replaced it. The oil boiler is 19 years old and I would like gas but on top of the usual installation I'd need a new water mains as the flow from the lead pipes isn't good enough so the total cost would be closer to £3000 and I don't qualify for grants.

My current plan is to run the boiler until it dies and then potentially switch to gas possibly a system boiler as its already setup up for a separate hot water zone.

saverbuyer

pixie11123 wrote: »

The way I was looking at it was if a new boiler installation is £1800 and I can get a £1000 grant, it would be £800 to replace the boiler to a combi one and I could dispose of the water cylinder?

Whereas a cylinder replacement could be £500 on its own (not sure how much plumbers charge for this)

For a new install where the gas needs to be piped into the house I'd imagine it'll be a bit more than £1800. Also, even though you get £1000 off, I'd expect installers to quote more as you're using a grant. I'd imagine you're looking closer to £2500 than £1800.


If you have a quote for £1800 I'd go ahead with that, it's a great deal. A no brainer really.