New Boiler

Legacy_user

I need to buy a new boiler for my house and wondered if anyone one had any thoughts on which makes are better / more reliable.
Money is a consideration but I'd prefer to pay abit more to get a trouble free heating system

divadee

no opinion on makes but if iwere you (and i dont know your current heating system) i would defo go for a combi boiler, we have just changed to one in feb and it is brilliant no more tanks in the loft constant hot water which i love!!!! and cheap to run as well.

someone else might be able to give you advice on a make!!

raeble

You should see if your local energy effieciency place can give you some advice on boilers. I'm sure most councils have a list of approved contracters. IIRC if you get a home energy check where they come round to your home, they do offer to pass your details on to three suppliers. Of course this could just be in my local area.

Just to give you another side to combi's if you have one most people get rid of their hot water tanks. If the boiler packs up, then you have no hot water until the boiler is fixed. My Nan has had one for about eight years and must have spent at least a grand on fixing it when it went wrong. This may have more to do with the fitters than the boiler itself but remember to take possible problems into consideration.

System

Vaillant are considered the Rolls Royce of the boiler world. Maybe more expensive than other makes, but for something as important as heating & hot water, it pays to get the best you can afford.

beefster

Try this for a good deal.
http://www.mrcentralheating.com/#

System

Rules and Regs regarding boiler efficiency are changing very soon, so check that any boiler you consider will comply with the new regs. I think boilers will have to be the condencing type from now on class A.

aliasojo

We got a new gas central heating system with combi-boiler installed a few months ago and it's the best thing we ever did.

The boiler was a Worcester-Bosch condensing model which was more expensive to buy upfront but is very economical to run. We were only £9 a week for our gas bill for a 4 bedroomhouse during the Winter. When we were debating whether to buy a condensing model or not, I called our local surveyor who advised that although not a deal breaker, a condensing boiler would be more attractive to future buyers when we sell our house.

We never run out of hot water and the house is usually too warm so the radiators have to be turned off! Only thing was, I missed the hot water tank for heating the airing cupboard and drying washing, but when the old tank was removed we just got a tiny radiator installed in the cupboard instead. Ideal, loads more space to dry washing and plenty of heat.

We also got £100 cash back from npower for buying a model that was on their 'green' list. The installation wasn't even anything to do with them, all we had to do was ask for a form and enclose a copy of our installer's invoice. Maybe it would be worth looking into what incentives are on the go just now with different companies, you may end up with a better model for the same price?

Most people will be told at some point 'such and such' is a good model - every installer has their own opinion. Another poster was recommended to get Vaillant whereas they weren't even on our list - we were told Worcester was the best.

Good luck, hope you find something you're happy with.

Woby_Tide

I'll concur with previous poster. Have a Worcester Bosch Greenstar 35HE for 18 months now and very happy with it, gas bill over a year for 3 bed detached is still only averaging about £15-£20 a month. We also benefitted from the £100 Npower cashback which was an added bonus, removed our old water tanks from loft so extra space up there, removed storage tank from airing cupboard and put the boilr in it's place meaning we still have a warm cupboard for washing etc. Boiler quiet enough so you can't hear it in next room. Does what it says on the tin

aliasojo

Exactly the same model Woby, great minds and all that.

One more thing, flow rate is quite good which means you don't have to wait days for your bath to fill up. My friend's boiler is terrible - she turns her hot tap on to fill the bath and still has time to go and make herself a cuppa! Make sure whatever boiler you get will have fast enough flow rates to satisfy you, and is sufficient for the size of house you have.

Woby_Tide

indeed it does have good throughput, one of the particular advantages of what we've done is by removing the header tanks the water is fed to all our cold taps and boiler at mains pressure so we lose only a touch via the boiler, compared with the flow rates through the previous system when we bought the place I'm glad we switched, the flow was awful, even the toilet cistern took 15 mins to fill

Chester_Draws

Whatever make you chose, make sure the fitters dont skimp on the vital task of flushing out the old system.
To have it done properly can take up to 4 hours, and unfortunately there is little work the fitters can be doing whilst it is flushing. It means you are paying labour whilst little labour is taking place, but the new boiler will only work to full efficiency, if it has a cleaned out system to pump around.
Most fitters will probably tell you its done in an hour, but just check the colour of the water, and have they reversed the flow ?