It would happen now!

I woke up last saturday to find that my boiler had failed, so with help from my Son we had a Plumber look at it.

'Kaput', he says, obsolete and no spares available, looks at hot tank and says it is leaking. Also there is a perforation of the flue just an inch or so from the boiler.

It is all switched off now.

This system is a Kingfisher boiler and a Gledhill tank system and quite efficient and is only the second breakdown in 20 years.

Give me a quote:- Oh yes, thank you Sir. Comes the quote £5750, two men over 3 days. New boiler and a pressure tank.

Running on the immersion heater at the moment at about £5.00 daily. but I am usng no gas so that should even out.

That sounds an awful lot clive

how big a boiler are they fitting?

Hi Ian, I would guess about 80000 btu's, it is a 4 bed detached house..

Have priced a boiler , a Baxi at about £450 and the hot tank at £300. some pipe work change as it is wall mounted and the defunct one is floor mounted. The gledhill hot tank has some electronics fitted that give an overrun of pumps when it switched down, that in fact was the first fault I had with it, a dry joint on the board. The hot tank has an integral cold water header which it seems is now leaking.

Having done a couple of installations myself I know what is wanted, no special items as I believe in keeping things simple. The quote gives detail of a living room radio type thermostat, whereas at the moment it is wall fitted in the hall way.

My feeling is that as he is in lockdown he wants to fleece me to make up for his losses, he is a rated Company and of course can make a claim under the covid 19 business.

Clive

Hi Clive,

Sounds like a real ripoff merchant! Disgraceful behaviour, I hope you told him what he could do with his "quote"!

Regards Martin

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After 20 years it was going to go belly up soon anyway, so hardly an unexpected event

The entire system will need to be replaced

I would be wary of a Baxi boiler, I had one fitted four years ago and it has blown a resistor component on the control board twice. The first one replaced under warrantee and the second under boiler insurance. The boards cost £375 + vat. Speaking to the British Gas man who came to repair it he said British Gas refuse to instal Baxi boilers now as they have had too many faults due to blown control boards.

I got a valliant a couple of years ago and its been fine, I think it's an average ok boiler, 5-10 yrs

My worcester before that was good 10+ years

They were talking about a german job which is really good when they were doing mine, the current rolls royce

It's worth asking bills plumber son which ones are the easiest to repair nowadays, some are a design nightmare and the boiler engineers hate doing them

The only brazing was around the boiler itself, the rest of the house was that bendy pipe they use nowadays which made the entire job a relative doddle

Started friday, 2 men, entire job finished sunday 6pm, absolutely everything replaced

They even stuck a gas cooker line in while the floorboards were up

Edited By Ady1 on 14/04/2020 09:09:54

Clive

i had an early myson combi boiler that i fitted in 1990

it had a few problems but it lasted 25 years before needing a new board

inside it was a real rats nest of wiring and plumbing.

I hated working on it as you disturbed one part another 3 needed work then.

So when it came time to replace i was going to buy a vallient boiler as they look well designed and had a good rep for reliability...when i went to the merchants to order one there was a baxi rep setting up a sales display with one of their eco-Tec boilers sectioned to show the innerds and how simple it was ..he said it had been designed by ex vallient engineers.anyway i bought one and so far its been faultless.

and whilst it was like for like sort of it only took about 4 hours for me to fit including every pipe changed location and flue hole moving

So your plumber is charging you 4,500 labour for 2 men for 3 days? £750 man days?

How can it make economic sense to replace a 'simple' cast-iron heat exchanger hot water heater (boiler ??? )

with 'super efficient ' complicated 'combi'. when faced with costs like that ( £6000 ) ?

By way of an exercise, I just went on to the "BOXT" web site that's been advertised on telly recently. For a 4-bed detached, one bath + one shower combi replacement, they quote from around £2400 to £4250, depending on the boiler - make/output etc - for next-day installation. I suspect a traditional system with cold water tank would be even cheaper.

Time to shop around, I think.

John

Hi Clive

For what it's worth, I'd recommend an Intergas boiler. Fitted one (HRE 36/30) towards the end of last year, did all the plumbing side myself and a Gas Registered friend commissioned it. The same boiler can be set up as a straight combi or a system boiler with tank just by setting the parameters. The output can be set in a similar way, so can be matched to the needs of the building easily. The other attractive thing about them is that they have very few moving parts - no diverter valve for one thing - so servicing/repairs are generally simple. Their website can be found here.

As regards the pump overrun, most (if not all) modern boilers take care of that themselves.

Hope this helps,

Rob

Daft though it may sound, British Gas can be really cheap in the summer; no idea if they are doing this atm.

My daughters was upstairs in a cupboard, no external walls, flue through the roof, no external drain or vent.
Recently moved house, Baby due in 4 weeks... the perfect situation for a rip-off.

British Gas fitted new Boiler, new rad stats to every radiator + 1 new rad, scaffolding to access roof and added a condensate drain under the bedroom floor into the soil stack outside. All for 2400quid, quoted Monday, came Thursday and finished Friday.... (and 12 months interest free credit!!)

Worth a phone call at least.

I think we paid a bit over 2K for a Worcester Bosch boiler last year. We didn’t go for the cheapest compact boiler as it was going in the loft anyway. Interestingly several of the quotes included controllers made by other companies. We selected an installer and asked for a new quote using a proper WB wireless controller. It was about £100 more but went with that. After installation the guy told me that as I had the proper WB controller I was able to take full advantage of all the features the boiler offered. Obviously more than a few cheap controllers out there. The controller seems to come in two parts, one part is installed in the boiler itself and the wireless thermostat part of it goes in the house. You can move it where you want but recommended to be in an area with a radiator without a stat. Oh, and one last thing, WB was recommended by a mate who recently used to work for Baxi!

Clive - that quote is much too high in my opinion. My plumber charges around £30 an hour and does an amazing job.

Another happy Worcester user here, we have a big 1930's 4 bedroom semi, the boiler was installed last May, including a power flush, new pump and magnetic thingy for sludge £2750, and the winter heating quarter bill dropped £150 with the modern boiler.

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Does sound like a lot but without more info it's difficult to give a definitive answer.

Just a few of the questions to ask.

Does that include powerflushing? (Essential for manufacturers guarantee)

Gas supply adequate for new boiler?

Flue in same place or need re-routing?

Position of flue discharge and plume management?

Somewhere for condensate to drain?

TRVs to be fitted to radiators?

A decent boiler (Vaillant, Worcester IMHO) will set you back about £1K plus flue and bits. The installation will have to comply with regs so a simple replacement thermostat will not comply.