Central Heating Installation (Semi Detached, 3 Bedrooms)

Richie7

Hi,

My mum has received a quote of £6,000 (£5,000 + VAT) to have central heating installed in her home.

This felt a little on the steep side to me, but I may be wrong and just penny pinching!


It involves the removal of 3 x storage heaters, 2 x gas wall heaters and an immersion heater.

There will be 8 radiators installed throughout the house, a mixture of SC and DC. 

The boiler is a Worcester Greenstar 1000 30kw Condensing Combination Boiler. Specs - Wall OUTPUT: 30/102,000 BTU's FLUE: Fan Assisted

They will also provide and fit a Neomitis Radio Frequency Programmable Room Thermostat. 

The system is a 2-pipe flow and return design using 15mm and 22mm copper and plastic tubing.

All the labour included too, fitting a new fuse box.


Does this sound okay? It's not something I've ever been involved in, nor experienced before. I know prices do vary naturally. This is in Merseyside by the way.


Thanks for any advice,


Rich.


P.S. I can provide more information if required.

Albermarle

Looks very reasonable .

ButterCheese

Doesn't sound too bad to me.  I recently had a Worcester boiler installed (no other work, just a new boiler) and that was £2400 on it's own (including VAT and labour).  Though it only took a couple of hours, there were 4 lads working on it. 

The pipework is also quite labour intensive, and copper pipe has nearly doubled in price in the last 5 years (like many other materials).

Radiators are not too expensive but 8 of them will be £300 or more depending on size.

The removal of any gas appliance also is a specialist job and Gas Safe engineers command a higher hourly rate than some other trades.

Finally, there will be flushing of the hot water system, additive added to stop corrosion, and then a leak down test on the boiler which all takes time.  You will be able to get a cheaper quote I'm sure, but you never know what the quality of work will be like.  As long as you can be assured that the company doing the work comes recomended, and are trustworthy.  I hope you know at least 2 other people who have had work done by the company who quoted you?

tacpot12

It is a bit expensive. My Mum has just paid £4,700 to have their old back boiler capped off and replaced with a cheap combi boiler. 

For your Mum, they also have the cost of disposing of the old heaters.

njkmr

If it's a new system with all the pipework needing to go in rather than using existing pipes with a bit of additional then the price is pretty fair. There will be a fair bit of work lifting floor boards etc to install the pipes etc. Make sure they are hiding the pipes were possible as you don't want a nasty looking job with pipes running up and down walls as it looks hideous.
So yep if that's what your getting then it's reasonable.
We paid £3500 to have a new boiler fitted and the old back boiler removed for my mum. No extra rads or anything but there was some moving of pipework as the boiler was being moved from behind the fire into another room.

Richie7

Thanks for all the comments folks. Yes it's all new everything, as the house has never had central heating before (rare I know).

There's also a magna filter being fitted, and it includes disposal of the old heaters and rubbish etc. I may have just been wanting something for nothing, lol, but my initial feeling was £5,000 would be the ballpark figure. However I realise the cost of materials has also increased in recent times, so I should probably take that into account.

FreeBear

Richie7 said: The boiler is a Worcester Greenstar 1000 30kw Condensing Combination Boiler. Specs - Wall OUTPUT: 30/102,000 BTU's FLUE: Fan Assisted

Depending on cold water flow rate, a 30kW boiler should provide plenty of hot water. However, with combi boilers, you need to look at the modulation range and minimum heat output. For this particular model, minimum is 7kW - Not particularly good, and I suspect with just 8 radiators, it may well short cycle. Worcester do do a couple of other models that will modulate down to around 3kW.

As for radiators, I would ask the engineer what delta T (∆T) was used to calculate the sizes. Old school would use 50°C with a flow temperature of 70°C, Modern installations should be using a ∆T of 40°C or even 30°C to give a flow temperature of 60°C or 50°C respectively. This will push the boiler further in to condensing mode which means a greater efficiency. Done right, you can get ~96% efficiency, were as at a flow temperature of 70°C, efficiency will be around 86%.

If you punch the numbers in to this calculator -> https://www.stelrad.com/basic-heat-loss-calculator/ - You can run it with different ∆T values and double check the engineer's calculations.

£5K sounds like a reasonable price - A neighbour had a new heating system installed a couple of years back. 3 bed semi in Eastern England, and it cost them over £8K. I replaced my system last year, paid some £2.5K for just a boiler install and did all the plumbing & radiators myself. Probably spent £500-600 on materials and over a week doing the work. Oversized the radiators by 30-50% over what the Stelrad calculator suggested. Got a nice warm house that doesn't cost a fortune to heat as a result.

However, If I was doing the work now, I'd seriously look at fitting a heat pump. Octopus were quoting me £2700 for an ASHP, hot water tank, and new radiators throughout - That government grant of £7500 makes a huge difference. Whether your mother would qualify for the grant is another question (she might qualify under the ECO4 scheme or get a local Warm Homes grant).

MysteryMe

I see snuck in at the bottom is fitting a new fuse box / consumer unit which will cost several hundred pounds (I paid close to £1000 inc VAT earlier in the year) so IMO that's a reasonable quote

Richie7

FreeBear said:

Richie7 said: The boiler is a Worcester Greenstar 1000 30kw Condensing Combination Boiler. Specs - Wall OUTPUT: 30/102,000 BTU's FLUE: Fan Assisted

Depending on cold water flow rate, a 30kW boiler should provide plenty of hot water. However, with combi boilers, you need to look at the modulation range and minimum heat output. For this particular model, minimum is 7kW - Not particularly good, and I suspect with just 8 radiators, it may well short cycle. Worcester do do a couple of other models that will modulate down to around 3kW.

As for radiators, I would ask the engineer what delta T (∆T) was used to calculate the sizes. Old school would use 50°C with a flow temperature of 70°C, Modern installations should be using a ∆T of 40°C or even 30°C to give a flow temperature of 60°C or 50°C respectively. This will push the boiler further in to condensing mode which means a greater efficiency. Done right, you can get ~96% efficiency, were as at a flow temperature of 70°C, efficiency will be around 86%.

If you punch the numbers in to this calculator -> https://www.stelrad.com/basic-heat-loss-calculator/ - You can run it with different ∆T values and double check the engineer's calculations.

£5K sounds like a reasonable price - A neighbour had a new heating system installed a couple of years back. 3 bed semi in Eastern England, and it cost them over £8K. I replaced my system last year, paid some £2.5K for just a boiler install and did all the plumbing & radiators myself. Probably spent £500-600 on materials and over a week doing the work. Oversized the radiators by 30-50% over what the Stelrad calculator suggested. Got a nice warm house that doesn't cost a fortune to heat as a result.

However, If I was doing the work now, I'd seriously look at fitting a heat pump. Octopus were quoting me £2700 for an ASHP, hot water tank, and new radiators throughout - That government grant of £7500 makes a huge difference. Whether your mother would qualify for the grant is another question (she might qualify under the ECO4 scheme or get a local Warm Homes grant).

Thanks for that detailed post. 

A heat pump would require getting an energy certificate, and I'm not sure my mum would qualify either for the grant. She has her heart set on central heating though, so I'm confident she won't budge from that now anyway.

With regard the boiler, this stuff is rather outside of my expertise. So what you're basically saying is it may be too big? I'll mention it to them before we agree on anything anyway. I'm assuming a 3KW may also be cheaper?

For reference the price was actually 6K(5K+VAT). 

Albermarle

Richie7 said:

FreeBear said:

Richie7 said: The boiler is a Worcester Greenstar 1000 30kw Condensing Combination Boiler. Specs - Wall OUTPUT: 30/102,000 BTU's FLUE: Fan Assisted

Depending on cold water flow rate, a 30kW boiler should provide plenty of hot water. However, with combi boilers, you need to look at the modulation range and minimum heat output. For this particular model, minimum is 7kW - Not particularly good, and I suspect with just 8 radiators, it may well short cycle. Worcester do do a couple of other models that will modulate down to around 3kW.

As for radiators, I would ask the engineer what delta T (∆T) was used to calculate the sizes. Old school would use 50°C with a flow temperature of 70°C, Modern installations should be using a ∆T of 40°C or even 30°C to give a flow temperature of 60°C or 50°C respectively. This will push the boiler further in to condensing mode which means a greater efficiency. Done right, you can get ~96% efficiency, were as at a flow temperature of 70°C, efficiency will be around 86%.

If you punch the numbers in to this calculator -> https://www.stelrad.com/basic-heat-loss-calculator/ - You can run it with different ∆T values and double check the engineer's calculations.

£5K sounds like a reasonable price - A neighbour had a new heating system installed a couple of years back. 3 bed semi in Eastern England, and it cost them over £8K. I replaced my system last year, paid some £2.5K for just a boiler install and did all the plumbing & radiators myself. Probably spent £500-600 on materials and over a week doing the work. Oversized the radiators by 30-50% over what the Stelrad calculator suggested. Got a nice warm house that doesn't cost a fortune to heat as a result.

However, If I was doing the work now, I'd seriously look at fitting a heat pump. Octopus were quoting me £2700 for an ASHP, hot water tank, and new radiators throughout - That government grant of £7500 makes a huge difference. Whether your mother would qualify for the grant is another question (she might qualify under the ECO4 scheme or get a local Warm Homes grant).

Thanks for that detailed post. 

A heat pump would require getting an energy certificate, and I'm not sure my mum would qualify either for the grant. She has her heart set on central heating though, so I'm confident she won't budge from that now anyway.

With regard the boiler, this stuff is rather outside of my expertise. So what you're basically saying is it may be too big? I'll mention it to them before we agree on anything anyway. I'm assuming a 3KW may also be cheaper?

For reference the price was actually 6K(5K+VAT). 

In the past a boiler would fire up to heat the central heating water to the set temperature. Once up to temperature it would switch off, and then when the water temperature dropped again after a few minutes, it would switch back on full blast, and then off and on again every few minutes. A process known as short cycling.
A modern boiler will instead turn itself down when the required temperature has been achieved, and not just on and off at full power. The same way you would turn the gas down if heating a pan on the hob, once it was hot enough.
This is called modulation and some boilers can modulate down lower than others ( 3 KW being good), but some can only go down to say 7KW and may still short cycle in certain situations.

As you are having a combi boiler you need a high KW boiler to be able to heat the hot water quick enough. However 30KW will be much higher than you would need for the central heating ( unless you have a 25 room house) and not all boilers can modulate over a range from 30 to 3 KW. Probably the cheaper ones would not but you would need to check. 

FreeBear

Albermarle said: As you are having a combi boiler you need a high KW boiler to be able to heat the hot water quick enough. However 30KW will be much higher than you would need for the central heating ( unless you have a 25 room house) and not all boilers can modulate over a range from 30 to 3 KW. Probably the cheaper ones would not but you would need to check. 

Worcester Bosch Greenstar 4000 also have a 10:1 modulation range, as does the Greenstar 8000 - Both a bit more expensive than the Greenstar 1000. But you get a 10/12 year warranty with them (the 1000 is only 5 year). Looking at the specs of the 4000, if you can run a low flow temperature, it is potentially 98.9% efficient (at 30% load). Combined with a minimum output of 3.3kW, I'd rate it as an excellent choice.

My boiler, a Viessmann 050 30kW - Will hit 32kW when heating water. For central heating, it can modulate from 28kW down to 3.2kW (for a claimed 10:1 modulation range). And it suits me perfectly (the OpenTherm connectivity was a significant part  of my choice).

Just looked up the WB Greenstar prices. A 1000 can be had for £720, and a 4000 for £1308 - Nearly double the price, but I think worth it for a 10 year warranty and better modulation range (which leads to better overall efficiency). A short cycling boiler burns more gas as it fires up and imposes greater wear & tear on the components.