Boiler woes

hampshirebabe

We've got a Worcester 24CDI combi boiler, it was here when we moved in 18 years ago. In the last 6 months its started playing up, only a bit, its still working very well. The problem is every now and again it stops working, and we need to press the reset button on the front. Its not a huge problem, except in the winter it meant sometimes the heating didn't come on automatically. Its happened twice in the last 4 days.

But is it the strat of it going wrong? Is 20 years a long time to have a boiler?
Another problem we've had is with the shower, we have mixer taps with a shower head coming off, not an electric shower, and in the last year or so its become very temperamental, if you add a tiny bit too much cold water it stops heating the water so you get a cold shower.
We've been thinking of getting an electric shower installed, but its a new instalation so would need electrics and pipes done, but if the boiler is on its way out maybe a new boiler would solve the shower problem anyway?
Any idea roughly how much having a boiler replced would cost, or just how long it might take?

[Deleted User]

Twenty years is a good length of time.

Do you have it regularly serviced?

hampshirebabe

Not regularly, but sometimes.

hampshirebabe

Should add we have fairly low water pressure here.

[Deleted User]

hampshirebabe wrote: »

Not regularly, but sometimes.

That sounds like it may be the cause of your problem.

When did an engineer last peer inside it?

southcoastrgi

The problems as you say may be linked, older boilers can last 40 years but modern boilers have a life span of 10/15 years, very difficult to give an indication of cost without seeing it as it may be a straightforward fix or the boiler may not be worth repairing

JohnB47

hampshirebabe wrote: »

We've got a Worcester 24CDI combi boiler, it was here when we moved in 18 years ago. In the last 6 months its started playing up, only a bit, its still working very well. The problem is every now and again it stops working, and we need to press the reset button on the front. Its not a huge problem, except in the winter it meant sometimes the heating didn't come on automatically. Its happened twice in the last 4 days.

But is it the strat of it going wrong? Is 20 years a long time to have a boiler?
Another problem we've had is with the shower, we have mixer taps with a shower head coming off, not an electric shower, and in the last year or so its become very temperamental, if you add a tiny bit too much cold water it stops heating the water so you get a cold shower.
We've been thinking of getting an electric shower installed, but its a new instalation so would need electrics and pipes done, but if the boiler is on its way out maybe a new boiler would solve the shower problem anyway?
Any idea roughly how much having a boiler replced would cost, or just how long it might take?

What does the system pressure gauge say? It's normally around 1.5 bar.

akira181

It could be any number of things causing the boiler to play up but since it still works and only needs reset, it sounds like it could be fixed by a gas engineer quite cheaply if you use refurbished parts. That said, 20 years is a good run for a boiler and it sounds like the issues have been mounting up in the past months. Unless you start replacing components every time something fails, it will continue to get progressively worse.

The shower problem is likely down to the boiler as well if it's only started happening in the past year (assuming everything else has stayed the same during that time). Probably due to the ageing components not being able to heat the water fast enough to keep up with the desired flowrates or buildup in the pipes restricting water flow through the heat exchanger.

An electric shower would bypass the boiler issues but if you have low pressure as you say, then you may need to boost the cold water, which will require a pump and a cold water storage tank. The system pressure gauge on the boiler only refers to system pressure on the central heating circuit (i.e. radiators), it doesn't tell you what the domestic hot water pressures or mains pressures are.

Best bet is to just replace the boiler instead of prolonging the inevitable in my opinion. My 22 year old Valiant boiler had an efficiency rating of 78% when new, I'd be surprised if it achieved 40% in it's final years. New boilers have an efficiency ratings in the high 90's, so there's some small savings to be made in gas bills. Don't expect massive savings though as it's only a small combi.

I paid "mates rates" to get it fitted, £1200 plus dinner and drinks all in. It took him a little less than a day to remove the old, fit the new, and make some minor changes to the existing pipework. He said to replace a boiler in the same position without major changes to pipework / flues, he would normally charge anywhere from £2,000 to £4,000+ depending on what boiler the client wanted.