To buy A Grant condensing oil burner or not?

justaquestion

Hi folks,

I have an old cast iron oil boiler (boiler house) and burner part is probably 18-20 years old, all working fine, in fact in the past service guys used to remark on the cast iron boiler unit saying hot good it was.

The guy that services it now says that it is over 90% efficient but I would save on oil if changing to something such as a Grant condenser unit.

I know that I would get £400 of a boiler grant towards the cost but the price would still be around £1400 + the grant about £1800 in total.

Just wondering has anyone else being in same dilemma with a good working at the moment unit, but still bought the new condensing type?

At the moment I probably use about 2000 litres of oil a year.
have you saved on oil etc, how reliable is the new unit.

Thanks for any advice.

guiriman

On simple numbers you're using just north of £900 of oil per year at the minute (based on current prices). Let's say your new boiler will last 14 years (to make it simple), so you need to save £100 a year to break-even. That's 11% less oil used so you can compare that with how much more efficient it's going to be.

Old_Git

Last week I got a new condensing boiler .My old boiler was installed in 1991 .
I did price around .One plumber recommended the Grant boiler four plumbers recommended the warmflow boiler .Apparently warnflow have improved their spec on the production line and include a 7 year warranty.
For comparison my boiler cost £1500 including £50 for a tiger loop.The Grant (when paid )will bring this down to £1100.

Streamside

The condenser burners seem to require meticulous servicing in comparison with the older burners.I had a grant one installed as part of a house extension and it literally blew itself to pieces after about 4 years. The builder had gone out of business and his plumber didn't want to know. New plumber suggested that a 2nd hand circulating pump may have been used, burner wasn't adequate for the 24 radiators and replaced it with a v large warmflow burner.Meanwhile my ancient original burner which we'd used for 20 years was used as spares for two local community halls.

justaquestion

Thanks a lot for replies. Think I will just live with the present setup as its working fine, old boiler unit is at least 30 years old, made of cast iron, service guys used to admire it years ago saying it was good, but nowadays they seem to be pushing the condensing kind.

Burner part is going on for 20 years, I think I will just forget about the grant, not a good enough reason to buy a new condesning unit, as it does seem they need more servicing and the condensing pipe I believe can freeze over making it stop working in cold weather.

Ticked

I’m not an expert in boilers, but 50 years in engineering and maintaining my and friends boilers points to Worcester Bosch being an excellent unit. Also, the quality of the burner is very important, there are some really shoddy burners on the market. Swedish made ones seem excellent, Nuway ok, but the cheapie Italian ones - run away!

Spotty100

I had to get a new boiler because the one I had was well past its sell by date. My servicing bloke and the fitter we called both said to put in a condensing boiler. I have to admit our costs plummeted after we started using it and it's a lot cleaner because it's only exhausting water vapour in the main. It isn't harder to service either; I've watched yer man do it and he just scrapes out the baffles and replaces the jet on the burner. £30 it costs me every year.

In saying all of that I'm also aware that a cast iron boiler would cost a fortune to replace, like for like, because I've been told they're a lot better than anything else so perhaps just replacing the burner on that unit would give you the economy and efficiency you need?