Gas Registered Heating Engineers New Boiler

Whatever you do regarding a new boiler, avoid British Gas like the plague Viv.

 

Your boiler 'power' has more to do with your hot water than the heating usually. Is your boiler a combination boiler or a system boiler? Haha. Does your boiler serve a hot water storage cylinder? If it does, then its prob a system boiler. If not and you get instant(ish) hot water from the tap and the boiler kicks in, then its likely a combo boiler. If its a combo boiler, I'd target 30ish kW as this will get a reasonable flow rate of hot water from the bath tap.

A system boiler can have lower kW as it feeds a coil in the cylinder which heats up the water. Time is not of the essence. For a combo you need instant power to heat up water from 10 to 60 deg C.

Your heating energy is small by comparison to hot water loads usually. So by satisfying the hot water you also more than satisfy the heating. Unless, of course, you live in a detached property with poor insulation and single glazing with leaky draughty rooms. If its relatively ok, reasonably insulated, then the heating will take care of itself (usually).

I like a bath, so I fitted a 40kW into our flat. Our heating is about 2-3kW. But I can run a bath without waiting for a week.

Employ a Gas Safe certified technician. I just bought the boiler myself, plumbed it in and then got the Gas Safe guy to check the gas connection. I did this over a summer. Screwfix do deals, my boiler was 50% of the quoted cost via BG. Look at your existing boiler, what is its make model and serial. I can likely tell you what its kW is (eventually). Then just find a more modern version of it. Or its equivalent.

Edit: sods law says it will be an old cast iron atmospheric behemoth and she lives in a dark damp castle surrounded by cats.

 

Good/rare forward boiler planning...

 

I've also heard their after 'care' is shocking.

 

On a more positive note regarding the make of boiler to choose if you have a combo- boiler Worcester Bosch are well regarded and we had one installed a year ago and we are very pleased with it Viv.

 

I replaced our boiler last year and during my initial investigations most of the installers much preferred Vaillant boilers. Evidently they are easier to work on & repair as well as being super reliable. We got a 10 year guarantee with ours - as long as it is serviced every year.

Needless to say this all does come at a price - 6 grand all in e.g. fitting, purging rads etc etc.. ho, hum.

 

my receptionists boiler blew 2 weeks ago. i cant tell you what output it is. but it's a detatched house on the isle of Luing so probably more expensive than down your way. it's her only source of heating and hot water. it's costing her pennies short of 5k to replace. there are grants available. shame (not) that we are on holiday at the mo so cant ask her for more info.

 

Expansion vessel right. They're typical failures. Trouble is they're usually right at the back and you disassemble everything to get to it. Then they're strangely really expensive too. So easier to just replace, esp if boiler is circa >15yrs old. But there's also a few pressure relief valves etc which are cheaper and as likely a culprit as the vessel. But you take the whole thing to bits and the whole thing is costing more and more...

Its a 24kW HE. Its a condensing combi. Ideal still do modern versions. Ideal Logic. They do a 24kW version which is likely a direct swap. They also do 30 and 35kW. Point to note when looking at hot water flow rates, is that the bastards use 35degC which makes you think its more reasonable than it is.

The tails are the things. The pipes coming out under the boiler. Keeping them the same avoids unnecessary plumbing. Everything becomes plug n play in a sense. Especially the gas pipe. Don't fuck with that. But a minor bit of plumbing shouldn't scare you away from a different cheaper boiler. They're more or less all the same under the cover.

 

From when mine was installed, a decent gas engineer should be able to install a replacement boiler in a day easily if it is in roughly the same position. If not electically qualified, he may need an electrician to connect wiring, thermostats etc. Making short pipe modifications for different models is simple for these guys.
Price depends how much profit they want to make from the job I guess.

 

Re.Worcester Bosch look at www.worcester-bosch.co.uk

 

This is prob the direct replacement (But I'd choose 35kW, bloke thing...more powa) . This gives you an idea of the cost.

 

Doh, i should said. oil fired btw. not much in the way of gas infrastructure up here.

 

In my neck of the woods (down south), many of the local independents won’t touch Worcester Bosch. Most prefer Vaillant. Not sure if it’s the quality of the product or how it is to deal with the company. I recently fitted a Viessmann, fantastic quality, 12 year guarantee, does a really good job of heating and hot water but an absolute nightmare as the controls and thermostat are only managed through their internet servers. Modern technology gone too far IMO. Andy