BAXI ECOGEN gas boiler micro chp

JerryW

Does anyone out there have one of these? I had one installed in 2011. There were problems with it, and it was replaced in 2013.

I had a maintenance contract with Baxi, that included an annual service. But when I phoned to make an appointment for this year's service in july, They told me they had cancelled the contract because they were no longer in a position to service the boiler.

I am very upset indeed with Baxi. I had a signed contract with them that they just blithely reneged on. They never bothered to contact or write to me, they just did it. And now I am left with a boiler that cannot be serviced and cannot be repaired by anyone else. At least, I have not found anyone so far that says they can.

If you have a Baxi Ecogen, please say! And let me know what servicing arrangement you have, if any

SaverRate

Is it worth asking companies like Homeserve and see if they will service it? or even (I dread to say) British gas?

JerryW

SaverRate said:

Is it worth asking companies like Homeserve and see if they will service it? or even (I dread to say) British gas?

Sadly, neither will. British Gas at first said they couldn't; then they telephoned me to say thay had make a mistake and they could after all .. but when the man arrived and saw it, he said they couldn't, and BG cancelled the contract ..

Homeserve refused to have anything to do with it, even though the Baxi contract was underwritten by them.

SaverRate

You could try putting a complaint into Baxi, failing that if no local companies will do it I guess you either replace it or wait for it to go wrong then replace it?

JerryW

SaverRate said:

You could try putting a complaint into Baxi, failing that if no local companies will do it I guess you either replace it or wait for it to go wrong then replace it?

I did complain to Baxi but they said they could do nothing as they no longer had the technical staff or spare parts to do it. Imo they have behaved despicably.

So your second suggestion seems to be the only one available for now.. unless I can find someone who knows better? There must be quite a number of other Ecogens out there, still.

lohr500

Harsh though it may seem, you have a boiler that is 10 years old with a design that is even older and from the sounds of it either the parts or knowledge to fix it are no longer available.
Unfortunately with most appliances nowadays that's the reality.

I agree they should have contacted you to advise you that the service contract was going to be terminated but I would hardly call their action as despicable behaviour.

FreeBear

lohr500 said:

Harsh though it may seem, you have a boiler that is 10 years old with a design that is even older and from the sounds of it either the parts or knowledge to fix it are no longer available.
Unfortunately with most appliances nowadays that's the reality.

The Baxi Ecogen was a relatively new design, all be it, based on some rather old technology (Stirling Engine). But much of what we have around us could be considered vintage technology (internal combustion engines to name just one). The problem with the Ecogen is it was relatively expensive (£6K-9K), and had a very low take up - Doubt if there were many engineers trained to work on the things... Baxi discontinued the boiler in 2018, and probably didn't stockpile too many spares. Not really surprising that they have abandoned support for a niche product.

Even if spares were available, I suspect it would work out cheaper in the long run to replace the Ecogen with a conventional boiler.

matelodave

I think the Ecogen was a clever idea, but TBH it wasn't really going to be successful as it had limited appeal and was very expensive. I'm not even sure whether there was potential for getting a feed-in or RHI payment. It would be interesting to see how many were actually installed during their lifetime

Being a bit of a pioneer can cost you a lot of money if you back the wrong technology.

I was a bit wary when I plumped for an Air Source Heat Pump back in 2010 but its so far probably paid for itself and may even have made itself cost effective when leccy was cheap.

I'm not so sure about the cost effectiveness nowadays with the silly cost of energy and I do dread the day when it needs to be repaired or replaced. However there are a lot more heatpump service agents about than there were 13 years ago so hopefully I wont be left in limbo

JerryW

matelodave said:

I think the Ecogen was a clever idea, but TBH it wasn't really going to be successful as it had limited appeal and was very expensive. I'm not even sure whether there was potential for getting a feed-in or RHI payment. It would be interesting to see how many were actually installed during their lifetime

Being a bit of a pioneer can cost you a lot of money if you back the wrong technology.
...

Yes, we had feed-in payments, but the payments stopped in 2021 when the original boiler would have been 10 years old. It is still reducing our bills though as we coincide routine tasks like washing etc with when it is running. What is RHI?

Overall I'm still glad we bought it .. I would just like to find a way to keep it going. It is quite technical .. needs a device to interrogate it .. and heating engineers with Stirling engine expertise are few and far between!

matelodave

RHI was an alternative to the FIT scheme for systems that didn't directly produce leccy. FIT was for for any electricity generated whereas RHI was Renewable Heat incentive and designed for systems the produced heat rather than leccy, like biomass, heatpumps or even solar thermal.

I got quarterly payments amounting to £5k over seven years based on the calculated EPC heat demand compared to deemed  COP of 2,5 for my heatpump. (1kwh of leccy in for 2.5kwh of heat out)