It's new combi boiler time.

[bonzobanana]

Which rate Worcester, Vaillant, Ideal & Baxi as best buys, with Worcester & Vaillant equal best overall. On reliability alone the best are Worcester Ideal & Viessmann. Worcester scores a bit lower on ease of repair because engineers don't like the way you have to pull them all to bits to get at anything. (Worcester & Vaillant have been coming top for years, others tend to bob up & down the charts.)

My old floor standing non-condensing boiler was an Ideal, and it just ran and ran for 30 odd years with just two replacement thermocouples, the current one is a 7 year old Worcester combi. It's OK, the main grumbles I have are about condensing and computerisation in general rather than Worcester in particular.

I personally don't rate Which at all, seen loads of useless advice in their pages. I don't get the respect for their advice at all. A recent news release where they stated corner shops are more expensive than supermarkets was another one of their garbage news reports that was just stating the obvious. I remember their advice on the reliability of cars which was completely contradicting the data from warranty direct a few years ago. Warranty direct was showing German cars had poor reliability, most expensive repairs and were most likely to have engine and transmission failures yet Which was recommending the same German cars. I pretty much have zero respect for their advice personally. If they are recommending the most reliable boiler it will be more of a fluke rather than through proper research and data analysis I suspect. My mother now has a Baxi boiler and it seems to very well made and operates faultlessly without any weird noises unlike her previous two combi boilers. It sounds and looks more solid than past boilers. I'm not going to pretend this is an indicator of long term reliability though and its an old boiler that was kept in storage and never used until it was fitted and years old so the current models may not be as good. This older Baxi fitted seems about twice the size of the current Baxi model.

https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/consumer-news/62383/german-cars-among-worst-engine-failures

 

[mjr]

Instantaneous water heaters need to be higher power than that needed for heating, otherwise you have a poor flow rate when running hot water. As my system used to be, I had a 15kW boiler for the heating and a 22kW multipoint for hot water, now it's a 28kW combi. Even 22kW was a bit on the slow side in mid winter.

Yes, it's a stupid "solution" of applying more thrust until that piggy flies! No boiler is as efficient at both 7kW for space heating and 30+kW to heat cold mains to hot fast enough, but the artificial cheapness of gas encourages this wasteful approach - for now. Better to have a tank unless you have no space.

 

[Profpointy]

I’m the middle of starting to do the same. Current bolier working good - but 22 years old. British Gas just quoted £6.7k for new installed 😳

That is around double what we paid a few years back. We got a Valent, which is very much a premium brand, using our regular plumber, who is good value as his work and thoroughness is first class.

I felt bad boxing in his pipework on a shower install

 

[Goldenretriever]

Son's received a quote for replacement Worcester boiler, £3850 for system and £4200 for combi. I didn't think these were too bad, high for here but not near Oxford. When I renovated his first house down there, some of the quotes were eye watering, for the plumbing. Mine traveled down from Norwich for a few days, much cheaper, but then I worked on his house. Bit of back scratching always helps.

 

[rogerzilla]

British Gas engineers mostly don't like Ideal boilers but I've had two (the first being an ancient Stelrad Ideal system boiler, the current being an Ideal Icos condensing system boiler) and neither ever went wrong in a cumulative 13.5 years.

The Potterton 15HE, on the other hand, broke down every year for ten years and almost every part was replaced. Three circuit boards, several gas valves, several flow valves, and even the condensate trap plug (which developed a hole, dripping all over the kitchen worktop). Once it suffered an loud electrical explosion when another circuit board self-immolated, and the house stank of burning insulation for a week.

I had a couple of Worcester combis and they were ok but the pump jammed on one of them. This can happen with any pumped system when a piece of grit or scale gets trapped, and I was able to free off the pump impeller with a BFO screwdriver -they provide a slot on the end of the impeller spindle for just this purpose - without the need for an engineer.

 

[mickle]

We recently had our 20+ yo boiler replaced for free. They also relocated it from the kitchen into the space formerly occupied by the HW cylinder. Its a Worcester Bosch. Very happy we are with it too.

 

[Psamathe]

My experience of plumbers is:
There are quite a few different makes and technologies and plumbers tend to get trained and experienced with only one main brand (maybe two) - basically too much work for no gain to do all the training, carry all the parts, etc. for all the brands. Thus they will always suggest only the brand they deal with which may or may not be the best solution for yourself.

Very few plumbers seem to be showing much interest in renewables/low climate impact technologies - so they don't suggest them although they may have worthwhile grants available and be long term better solutions. eg Had my boiler repaired last year and chatting to the plumber about heat pumps and he was unbelievably negative coming up with "issues" that must be more imagined than real. My impression is that the renewable technologies are supplied & fitted by specialists who would not normally be "plumbers".

So:
Buying a new boiler is a long term decision and does not need to be rushed. eg I've had my central heating system drained for the last5+ years and no longer even use it for hot water (repair was because it was leaking oil in the house but it had not been used for years).

Make the best decision based on your needs and the climate and don't go along with a relative just because you don't want to upset a relative. There are plenty of excuses you can give your cousin for not using him that would avoid family issues.

Ian

 

[stephec]

Thanks everyone, I looked at heat pumps but a 1930s house would need too many immediate modifications to rule one out for now, might have it as a long term plan.

 

[mjr]

Thanks everyone, I looked at heat pumps but a 1930s house would need too many immediate modifications to rule one out for now, might have it as a long term plan.

A 1930s house is unlikely to have thin microbore pipes which is the biggest showstopper, but maybe you don't have a good place for the outdoor collector. Just don't believe all the gibberish the gas fans are putting out about heat pumps needing super insulation or some such: that helps any heating system. Good (but not super) insulation is needed for some grants, but grants aren't obligatory.

 

[Dadam]

We had ours replaced last December when our 16 (ish) year old Glowworm packed up, in the cold snap of couse. We had it replaced on our boiler cover policy which covered a new boiler if ours was beyond economical repair. However we did have to pay the installation (995) as ours was over I think 7 years old. Given this we didn't have much choice of boiler and the one they installed was a Navien NCB300 28kw. I'd not heard of the brand but touch wood it seems great. Much better than the old one, which was clearly getting tired; we had the engineers out to it several times over the last few years (luckily our cover has no callout charge). It seems more efficient too as it should be, but I've not run the figures yet; I'll do that at 12 months so it's comparing apples with apples.

 

[si_c]

A 1930s house is unlikely to have thin microbore pipes which is the biggest showstopper, but maybe you don't have a good place for the outdoor collector. Just don't believe all the gibberish the gas fans are putting out about heat pumps needing super insulation or some such: that helps any heating system. Good (but not super) insulation is needed for some grants, but grants aren't obligatory.

Yeah, good diameter piping and larger radiators is the biggest thing to get heatpumps to work well as far as I understand it. Insulation works out to be the more the better - but it's substandard at present then getting insulation into the roofspace is relatively easy to do and worthwhile even if still using gas.

A heatpump will moderate it's output to however much heat is actually required to maintain temperatures in the house, so the biggest step is to get some proper heat loss calculations done then you'll know what size appliance is needed.

 

[stephec]

A 1930s house is unlikely to have thin microbore pipes which is the biggest showstopper, but maybe you don't have a good place for the outdoor collector. Just don't believe all the gibberish the gas fans are putting out about heat pumps needing super insulation or some such: that helps any heating system. Good (but not super) insulation is needed for some grants, but grants aren't obligatory.

The whole central heating system was replaced seventeen years ago so that should be alright, and the loft insulation is decent.

Even with the full £7000 grant though it would cost at least £1500 more for a heat pump, and that's without trying to find somewhere suitable for it to go with the minimum of building work.

Hopefully they'll be a bit more mainstream by the time our new boiler croaks.

 

[rogerzilla]

To work out the radiator size required for a heat pump, you need to know the flow temperature. This might be as low as 50 deg C, so assuming you want to heat a room that's around 15-20 deg C. the delta-T is 30 or 35 deg C. That requires a LOT more radiator BTU/kW than a typical gas system where you can whack the flow temperature up to 80 deg C.

We need to replace the entire CH system in the next house but, as heat pumps are still too expensive to install and save little or no money in use compared to gas (i.e. they will never pay for themselves), we'll probably get a gas boiler but size the rads and pipework for a heat pump if necessary in future.

 

[gbb]

First thing I asked my son (BG worker)...which ones to avoid ?
I can't rememberbthe specifics now but as he explained, BG will only generally fit quality and reliable boilers, as they warranty them, they won't install cheap, unreliable boilers to have to come back to them time and time again. It's not in their interest.
A full system flush is a necessity for the warranty (was on ours at least 2 or 3 years ago, Viessman fitted)

Tb, anything under £4 k is probably a quite good price. Ours was circa £3k iirc with mates rates, that was a new HW tank included plus power flush (around £100 just for that), plus an external filter/trap etc etc

 

[slowmotion]

Engineers often tend to use boilers that they get the best deal on. It makes them price competition when the need arises.

Boiler manufacturers often have "loyalty schemes" for installers. If the installer specifies their brand for a client, the installer gets "points" towards the cost of a summer holiday, a new car or whatever. It encourages plumbers to specify a particular brand. It's worth knowing that when you ask them which manufacturer is the best.