New Central heating quotes. Big Money

MoneyPit_2

Hi everyone. I am buying a 3-bed 30's semi that has no central heating, just a hot water heater in the kitchen and some gas fires.
We had someone from a well recommended company come and quote for a combi and 7 rads, towel rail for bathroom, taking out the heater and all the certificates/guarantees etc and was.. wait for it... £6800. This seems to be miles more than other numbers discussed on these boards.
After I had picked myself up, Britsh Gas quoted me over the phone at £5,200. So is putting in a new system from scratch that much more expensive? We're in Newbury.

Canucklehead

Good morning: Installation of a complete system i.e. all new copper pipework, rads, TRVs, programmable room stat,upgrading gas supply if required, a boiler suitable for your needs with a good warranty period and reputation, creating electrical connection for boiler, flushing of system to remove flux/other contaminants, balancing and commissioning can be pricey. Installation of pipework is affected by type of floors in your property eg. solid or suspended and lengths of runs required (copper pipe/fittings and climaflex pipe insulation are expensive. Non-standard flueing could add to the costs as well. Quotes should include making good, removal of all waste materials associated with the installation, Buidling Compliance certificate and completion of Benchmark (service/installation log book)
Bottom line is...you need to get in more quotes (full,written specification) from CORGIs recommended to you by a source you trust and compare like for like...usually BG is more expensive than an independent.

HTH

Canucklehead

MoneyPit_2

Thanks for that. The problem I have is that since we are new to the area we don't know anyone to recommend other than our letting agent (who recommended the people who we got to quote) and estate agents who recommended the same people!
I think we are going to go back to them and go through the quote a bit more to see where we might be able to save.
It may also be a factor that the flooding in the area has made all local contractors very busy so may have driven price up.
Cheers.

ixwood

never trust an estate agent! I wouldn't be surprised if they had a "friendly relationship" with the firm and recommended them loads of business.

Razor

It does all depend on the situation. If you were going to have a 40kw combi installed in the loft with 28mm gas supply and other works to comply with the regs such as ladders, lights, flooring etc and if you will already be in the property when the install is carried out, this in addition to the points already made by CanuckleHead then it starts to look a bit more reasonable, get BG to come round and give you a quote and another independant engineers quote, that should give you a good ballpark figure, some jobs are more expensive than others, just depends on the circumstances. I would really advise going thru the quote to see what you can save on, a few hundred quid extra now might be painful but living with 'second best' for years will be much worse.

Razor

Sorry to hijack things but one more thing or I couldn't sleep! If you move in b4 the heating is installed do not use the existing gas fires until they have been serviced, I was asked to service 2 fires in a property a relative bought recently, three buckets of rubbish out of each catchment space, in one case completely covering the spigot, (flue), if they had used them they would have slept a bit too soundly. You do need to be very careful with open flued appliances.