Replacement boiler - financial options and general advice?

Shoxt3r

Hi there,

Unfortunately, following our annual service with Your Repair, our 20-year boiler (we've been in the property about 7 years) has been deemed "end-of-life" and will need to be replaced. The main reason is due to "kettling" (we live in a hard water area). The engineer also advised that during the last service the screws on the gas valve next to the boiler were overtightened and therefore have seized so the valve will also need to be replaced.

The engineer gave a ballpark figure of £3,000 for the boiler replacement along with £200.00 for the gas valve replacement. Obviously we will get a few independent quotes before we proceed and he warned us off larger companies including British Gas where we could expect to pay at least double those figures.

In short, I'm wondering if there is a grant which is available or at least a payment plan we could use to pay for this replacement/repair rather than having to pay the lump sum in one go. We're a single-income family (though my wife doesn't claim benefits for herself, only Child Benefit). I earn £37,500 before deductions which appears to make us ineligible according to the Simple Energy Advice website (https://www.simpleenergyadvice.org.uk/grants) though I suspect it's also because we don't claim any major benefits such as Universal Credit?

According to their terms and conditions, Your Repair will allow us to terminate our service plan with them (we currently pay £22.00 a month) with no termination fee, though because they didn't install the boiler and we don't have full service records they won't help any further. I've contacted Your Repair and am currently waiting on a reply regarding this.

Any advice on our options would be really helpful!

Thanks in advance!

onomatopoeia99

Run a bottle of X800 around the heating loop?  Fixed the kettling in mine after I moved in.

Bendy_House

Hi Shoxt.

Make and model of boiler, please? And is it sealed - unvented - 'system' - or does it have a wee F&E tank in the loft? Does it have a pressure gauge?

£3k sounds a bit high, but we don't know the situation regarding flues and stuff.

Shoxt3r

onomatopoeia99 said:

Run a bottle of X800 around the heating loop?  Fixed the kettling in mine after I moved in.

Thanks, unfortunately that isn't the only fault but was apparently the main one. The others were "OP pressure + BP" and "Combustion Test Point blocked", coupled with the gas valve being seized.

Bendy_House said:

Hi Shoxt.

Make and model of boiler, please? And is it sealed - unvented - 'system' - or does it have a wee F&E tank in the loft? Does it have a pressure gauge?

£3k sounds a bit high, but we don't know the situation regarding flues and stuff.

Thanks! Sure, it's a Glowworm Micron 50FF. Unsure on the sealed/vented/system points. The system setup appears to be the same as this image, but with everything aside from the thermostat and programmer being located in the loft. The flue is directed out of the roof.

If some photos of the actual system would be helpful to explain it further just let me know!

KnownMaynard

If the aim is to spread cost do some research on your local plumbers. The guy who installed mine now does 0% financing over 3 years for new installs. He's Herts/Cambs area but I am sure he is not the only one. 

Definitely agree with avoiding the big players like British Gas if you can. 

Shoxt3r

Yeah that's the main aim really, spread the cost as much as possible. I'm also trying to find out if there are any government grants available to help pay for it.

I'm unsure if local businesses would offer this type of thing - lots of them are one-man band companies and it seems a sensitive subject as I don't want to put them off before I've even had a quote from them.

I've mainly been looking into heating engineers - would this be covered under plumbing as well then? Sorry for being naive.

Bendy_House

Shoxt3r said:

onomatopoeia99 said:

Run a bottle of X800 around the heating loop?  Fixed the kettling in mine after I moved in.

Thanks, unfortunately that isn't the only fault but was apparently the main one. The others were "OP pressure + BP" and "Combustion Test Point blocked", coupled with the gas valve being seized.

Bendy_House said:

Hi Shoxt.

Make and model of boiler, please? And is it sealed - unvented - 'system' - or does it have a wee F&E tank in the loft? Does it have a pressure gauge?

£3k sounds a bit high, but we don't know the situation regarding flues and stuff.

Thanks! Sure, it's a Glowworm Micron 50FF. Unsure on the sealed/vented/system points. The system setup appears to be the same as this image, but with everything aside from the thermostat and programmer being located in the loft. The flue is directed out of the roof.

If some photos of the actual system would be helpful to explain it further just let me know!

Thanks - that's very clear.

The Micron 50FF is a straight-forward, non-condensing, heat-only boiler of around 15kW rating. There are numerous modern replacements around the ~£1k mark. These will be 'condensing', so should be noticeably more efficient, which is good news since gas prices are rocketing.

Depending on where your boiler is located, this could be an easy swap or a bit more involved. The most complex part is the flue, and the current trend is to take that straight out through an adjacent wall. Is that possible with yours? Your current boiler exhausts through the roof, so I guess there must be a reason for this - is the boiler located away from a suitable outside wall? If so, could a new location be found for the replacement boiler which is closer to an external wall?

Something to consider, and I think worth asking quoting fitters about, is whether it's worth going 'sealed' (unvented) at the same time. This would have the simple benefit of losing the wee F&E tank in the loft, and a potentially major one of you not having the risk of fresh hard water getting into the system, causing scale. A sealed system is easier to monitor, and if a leak occurs, you'll know about it; you can only top it up knowingly. A vented system supplied from an F&E tank would simply replenish the leak - introducing more hard water - without you necessarily being aware of it. The fact that your current boiler has seemingly scaled up suggests that this has happened on occasion over the years.

I suggest getting at least 2 more quotes from recommended and trusted LOCAL installers, and possibly one from, say, https://www.boxt.co.uk/boilers as well, as folk on here seem to rate them? Discuss with them the flue exit, and whether it's an issue. If so, whether a move to a different location is an alternative.

Essentially, I'm thinking that - if there aren't any significant installation issues like this - then a new system/heat-only boiler of that size should surely be more in the £2k ballpark, supplied and fitted?

Do you have a mortgage on your house? If so, have a chat with your lender and see if they'll release an additional amount to cover this; unless you are struggling to pay the current repayments, then adding ~£2k+ to the loan should be barely noticeably, and they should be very willing to do this as it's of direct benefit to their 'risk' = your house.

(A good 10+ years ago, I prompted sis-in-law to look at better mortgage rates, and to also add ~£20k to the loan amount for 'home improvements'. She ended up with a smaller monthly repayment, and a brand new Peugeot RCZ...)

Shoxt3r

Bendy_House said:

Thanks - that's very clear.

The Micron 50FF is a straight-forward, non-condensing, heat-only boiler of around 15kW rating. There are numerous modern replacements around the ~£1k mark. These will be 'condensing', so should be noticeably more efficient, which is good news since gas prices are rocketing.

Depending on where your boiler is located, this could be an easy swap or a bit more involved. The most complex part is the flue, and the current trend is to take that straight out through an adjacent wall. Is that possible with yours? Your current boiler exhausts through the roof, so I guess there must be a reason for this - is the boiler located away from a suitable outside wall? If so, could a new location be found for the replacement boiler which is closer to an external wall?

Something to consider, and I think worth asking quoting fitters about, is whether it's worth going 'sealed' (unvented) at the same time. This would have the simple benefit of losing the wee F&E tank in the loft, and a potentially major one of you not having the risk of fresh hard water getting into the system, causing scale. A sealed system is easier to monitor, and if a leak occurs, you'll know about it; you can only top it up knowingly. A vented system supplied from an F&E tank would simply replenish the leak - introducing more hard water - without you necessarily being aware of it. The fact that your current boiler has seemingly scaled up suggests that this has happened on occasion over the years.

I suggest getting at least 2 more quotes from recommended and trusted LOCAL installers, and possibly one from, say, https://www.boxt.co.uk/boilers as well, as folk on here seem to rate them? Discuss with them the flue exit, and whether it's an issue. If so, whether a move to a different location is an alternative.

Essentially, I'm thinking that - if there aren't any significant installation issues like this - then a new system/heat-only boiler of that size should surely be more in the £2k ballpark, supplied and fitted?

Do you have a mortgage on your house? If so, have a chat with your lender and see if they'll release an additional amount to cover this; unless you are struggling to pay the current repayments, then adding ~£2k+ to the loan should be barely noticeably, and they should be very willing to do this as it's of direct benefit to their 'risk' = your house.

(A good 10+ years ago, I prompted sis-in-law to look at better mortgage rates, and to also add ~£20k to the loan amount for 'home improvements'. She ended up with a smaller monthly repayment, and a brand new Peugeot RCZ...)

Ah that's good to know that at least once this is all done we'll be saving significant amounts of money on our energy bills!

I suspect that this will be quite an involved job because the flue goes through the roof - but maybe they can reuse the flue that's already there? If we need to have that replaced as well then we'll need some new roof tiles put in (we just paid a roofer about a month ago to repair a broken tile due to poor fitting by the original installers which cost £200.00 to fix so hopefully that's not the case!).

Unfortunately, unless the pipework gets completely re-routed to send the flue out the front or back, there is no other way to have the flue as it's a terraced house - I would presume anyway! We also have limited space to put the boiler anywhere else - I get the feeling that placing the boiler in a utility room or the like is the ideal solution these days but for some reason the original owner went with the roof - one guess is cost as it's located next to the water tank that way?

Thanks for the tip about whether we could go with a "sealed/unvented" system. Is there a particular reason/benefit for having a F&E tank?

Thanks for the quote tips as well - will certainly be lining up a few companies to come and quote, as well as Boxt - they came up in a search and I wondered who they were.

Yes the house is mortgaged - we can cover the current repayments but I'd be reluctant to increase the mortgage by much as we've only just had it re-assessed and reduced which has been helpful. But, if it avoids having to go down a finance route then perhaps this is the better option anyway. As you say, £2,000 is unlikely to add very much at all to the repayments.

Below are some pictures to give some better context to our setup. Really not sure what the last picture shows - presumably an old setup which was hastily "plugged up"? I'm also a bit clueless as to what the "British Gas" and black/white dial sitting above the boiler is doing?

Ebe_Scrooge

Shoxt3r said:

Yeah that's the main aim really, spread the cost as much as possible.

I'm unsure if local businesses would offer this type of thing - lots of them are one-man band companies

What you need to remember is that anyone who offers you a finance option is supposed to be FCA registered.  The big companies like BG are registered, it's highly unlikely that your local family-run plumbing firm will be (though as has already been pointed out, that's the sort of people your really want to be doing the job).

Additionally, bear in mind that there's no such thing as free credit - someone has to pay for it somewhere along the line.  This may be made obvious (as in your car insurance, where it plainly states it costs more to pay monthly than it does if you pay in one annual premium).  If you see an offer of "interest-free" credit, I'd be willing to bet the cost of the job is inflated to cover the finance costs - no credit is truly interest-free.

A 0% purchase credit card might be an option - if you are eligible for one, and if your installer will accept credit cards (some large firms will, most "one-man-bands" won't).

Shoxt3r said:

I've mainly been looking into heating engineers - would this be covered under plumbing as well then? Sorry for being naive.

Strictly speaking, a plumber can do all the "watery" and "pipe-y" stuff, but won't do heating.  That's where a heating engineer is needed - they know boilers, and importantly are trained and licenced to deal with gas (do check that they're registered with the GSR www.gassaferegister.co.uk).  You will often find "plumbers" that are actually also GSR qualified, so they can do heating as well.

another_casualty

It's doubtful you'd get a grant OP 
If you are on universal credit ..and a home moaner then you would get a grant .
However, I'm not sure what companies offer this . Despite being with edf, I got the grant through eon . Cut off times also for applying etc . 

May be of help to others here..

Once you get your new boiler , it will be under guarantee for x amount of years.
My boiler being Worcester Bosch will only be annually serviced by them . It costs more , but the method in my madness is that as no other company is maintaining it , they can't blame anybody else and in theory there shouldn't be any problems in the future 🤞

just a thought ..

Bendy_House

Shoxt3r said:

Ah that's good to know that at least once this is all done we'll be saving significant amounts of money on our energy bills!

I suspect that this will be quite an involved job because the flue goes through the roof - but maybe they can reuse the flue that's already there? If we need to have that replaced as well then we'll need some new roof tiles put in (we just paid a roofer about a month ago to repair a broken tile due to poor fitting by the original installers which cost £200.00 to fix so hopefully that's not the case!).

Unfortunately, unless the pipework gets completely re-routed to send the flue out the front or back, there is no other way to have the flue as it's a terraced house - I would presume anyway! We also have limited space to put the boiler anywhere else - I get the feeling that placing the boiler in a utility room or the like is the ideal solution these days but for some reason the original owner went with the roof - one guess is cost as it's located next to the water tank that way?

Thanks for the tip about whether we could go with a "sealed/unvented" system. Is there a particular reason/benefit for having a F&E tank?

Thanks for the quote tips as well - will certainly be lining up a few companies to come and quote, as well as Boxt - they came up in a search and I wondered who they were.

Yes the house is mortgaged - we can cover the current repayments but I'd be reluctant to increase the mortgage by much as we've only just had it re-assessed and reduced which has been helpful. But, if it avoids having to go down a finance route then perhaps this is the better option anyway. As you say, £2,000 is unlikely to add very much at all to the repayments.

Below are some pictures to give some better context to our setup. Really not sure what the last picture shows - presumably an old setup which was hastily "plugged up"? I'm also a bit clueless as to what the "British Gas" and black/white dial sitting above the boiler is doing?

Wow! That's some setup!

Ok, so you are already in the loft space? Cool - that's nicely out of the way. No, they cannot 'reuse' the old flue, but I'd hope that having that hole already in the roof would make the job a lot easier - they'd likely just need a new flashing.

'Significant' savings with the new boiler? Hmm, perhaps 10% - hopefully.

The F&E tank was the traditional method of these systems, and has  - I guess - the benefit of simplicity, along with the whole system being at a low pressure. Having it 'sealed' will be at a greater pressure, but that shouldn't be an issue. See the wee tank sitting on top of that hellish construction? That's the F&E tank, and it would be great to get shot of that.

No idea what that black/white control is - any chance of a closer shot? I thought it was a frost 'stat, but that's the square white thing beside it - it'll be cold up in the loft, so that will fire up the boiler if there's any risk of frost.

I'd get an extra layer of insulation on that hot tank too, to cut down heat loses up there.

No idea what that old flexi duct was. Where does that wall go?!

That is a very amateur-looking installation... :-(