New combi boiler needed - can anyone give me any advice?

rossyl

rossyl

rossyl

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Hi All,

I'm really stuck. There seem to be sooo many boilers, and so many differing opinions.

I need a new combi boiler, I'll be buying and the fitter will be fitting. I'll be getting a POWERFlush, cleanser & inhibitor, Magna Clean ...and maybe a lime fighter (or maybe not? - thoughts?).

I have 6 radiators and one bathroom. I currently have an old combi - NON-condensing.

I was wondering what boiler I should buy? Any advice?
For me the longer the part & labour warranty the better, and it seems some cheaper brands (Ideal) are offering 5 years.

I was also wondering whether thermostatic vale on the rads would be worth fitting, as bar maybe one room, all others tend to require the same level of heating - so if i installed thermo valves I'd end up keeping them on MAX everywhere except one room.

If anyone has any recommendations I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks,
R
 
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you will probably fall into an "opportunity to improve" bracket anyway and thus thermo valves will need to be fitted as a matter of course, don't think hats bad though as they are great.

Boiler makes, ive always been a fan of Worcester Bosch. We chose ours more on its litres of hot water it could provide per minute (for the showers mainly) rather than its KW rating. You could do with knowing the sizes of your rads so you can find approx BTU/Watt rating then work out what size boiler you need. Saying you have 6 rads isn't really enough info.

Some councils also do subsidised/grant schemes when replacing old grav boilers with new combi ones, worth finding out.
 
Ariston is what i would recommend...cant remember off the top of my head what model it was but my house has 10 radiators and it does a very good job of heating them up.

It replaced a Vaillant combi that cost me almost £1k about 8 yrs ago...lasted 3 yrs and in those 3 yrs the damn thing kept breaking down to the extent i had a vaillant engineer come round and replace some parts...the diverter valve was the culprit...in the end i just replaced it with the Ariston one i have now and thats been going strong for the past 2 yrs without any issues.
 
Worcester or Valliant are pretty much the best, in terms of reliabilty.

I've got a Biasi - and it's................... not good :(
 
OCdude said:
Worcester or Valliant are pretty much the best, in terms of reliabilty.

I've got a Biasi - and it's................... not good :(
Click to expand...

I agree i have had both and they have never let me down.

The newer condencing type combi boilers are more efficent.

Use this guide to get your needed power output in watts then ad 10%
 
I had an Ariston in late 2007 and it has broken down 4 times.

There's more of a story to this.
I was made redundant in late Sept 2007 from the Indesit Company who made all Indesit, Ariston, Creda & Hotpoint products and being the Quality Audit Technician I 100% knew how bad the products were/are (yeah we know, how many more times are you going to tell us).
I decided to spend some of my redundancy money upgrading our kitchen with Bosch products and then we needed to upgrade our central heating.
Imagine my horror when I opened the door to the combi boiler delivery man who delivered my Ariston combi boiler and I nearly told him to put it back on the van.
My mate was fitting it and he said Ariston boilers went nowhere near the Italians and they were excellent.
He is embarassed with mine although he can take me to loads of customers who have never had a problem.
HOWEVER, 3 years on and owned by the Italians I wouldn't touch them - go Bosch.
 
We did this last year ( house was 3 years old and the gloworm boiler was not good)..spoke to quite a few plumbers..wanted water preassure...and not to have to have a cold water and hot water tank in addition..and a very long warrenty..

Most of the plumbers recomended the 40 HE baxi platinum..so we went with it...so far so good...it had a 5 year warrenty (as long as it is serviced) .One thing that is missing is the "on for the next 1/2 hour option"...so that you can put on..it auto goes off...

We did need to upgrade the copper gas pipe coming from the supply tho...the builders had put a 15 mil reducer onto the gas..so we needed to put new inch pipe in place..


We had a magna clean fitted also..it is amazing how much nasty stuff it pulls out of the water..
 
Worcester,Valliant,Baxi in that order.

That said, biggest issues with boilers breaking down isnt the boilers itself, its more the condition of the rest of the system, if there is a lot of **** flying about, it will kill the boiler!

The cheap italian stuff is ok for the money, Biasi,Ferolli et all are ok, just stuff built to a budget, they just wont put with the **** like the better boilers will.
 
thanks guys...

Strangely Valliant only offer a 2 year warranty. Worcester is the same, with slightly longer warranty on certain parts.

Long labour + parts warranty is very important for me, so I shall continue to look. Maybe try Baxi.
 
we have had an ideal condensing boiler for about 8 years ,,it would be impossible to run without insurance ,breaks down at least once a year had new heat exchanger ,and new everythng else ,very cheap to run when it is running!! we just pay eon £15 a month ,covers everything plus a service so we know its safe
 
Why is the Fitter not buying, normally they can get better discounts then you can...and it means that he (or she) takes responsibility for checking all the parts are there and working.

If on the fitting day, something is not there or working then that is their problem not yours...otherwise you may end up paying for a day...for he/she to turn up and say sorry missing a flu...so call me when you get it..
 
Worcester. You only need a warranty if it breaks down. :)

Mine's been fine for the last eight years. Going to get it checked properly on the next service visit though as it doesn't seem to be putting out enough heat on the CH side.
 
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raycarmody said:
Why is the Fitter not buying, normally they can get better discounts then you can...and it means that he (or she) takes responsibility for checking all the parts are there and working.

If on the fitting day, something is not there or working then that is their problem not yours...otherwise you may end up paying for a day...for he/she to turn up and say sorry missing a flu...so call me when you get it..
Click to expand...

possibly getting a friend to do it mates rates ?

thats what happened with me, sourced the boiler myself and he fitted for some beer money.

In such a situation you dont have to worry about the parts being wrong, he can just come back another day when you do.
 
I recommend one to avoid! Keston! Ours broke on Wednesday and it's only a 3 years old. We told that we were lucky as it was only a minor fault which isn't often the case with Keston Combi boilers apparently.

After reading up on the net they seem to have a pretty bad name as well. Parts are also meant to be very expensive.
 
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