Boiler replacement: which one and where from?

Jonny69

Jonny69

Jonny69

Man of Honour
Man of Honour
Joined
3 May 2004
Posts
17,705
Location
Kapitalist Republik of Surrey
I'm planning to replace my boiler in the next few weeks - but I need to spec a boiler! I thought I might just run by my thoughts on here to check I've got the right ideas (and I need a bit of help finding somewhere to get it from).

It's a 3 bed semi, average size, cavity walls, loft is insulated but cavity wall is not, central heating, half double-glazed and planning to get the rest glazed asap. Current system is an old gas boiler with central heating a huge water cylinder. I'm planning to ditch the water cylinder in favour of a combi boiler and bridge the existing plumbing to get a nice short run to the bathroom and kitchen. I'll have to run some fresh pipes up because the existing boiler only has one output and the water and heating is dealt with in the cylinder.

I'm thinking the Worcester-Bosch Greenstar 28CDi is probably what I want. I actually wouldn't be able to name any other boiler manufacturers, but I think they are a premium brand, so is it worth spending the extra on them?

I'll be fitting it and modifying the plumbing myself, then I'll get someone in to connect it up - so I need to find somewhere that sells boilers. Google returns places like onlineboilers.co.uk, discountedheating.co.uk and boilers2go. Do these places actually offer any discount or should I look elsewhere?
 
Last edited:
worcester are supposed to be the dogs danglies (obviously they do make cheaper ones as well)

I was quite surprised to see the council paid for Worcester boilers in all the houses on my Mum's estate when they refurbed the plumbing/heating/kitchens/bathrooms/electrics in the entire estate
 
Nightglow said:
Valiant, excellent boilers, I highly recommend the ecoTEC plus combi 824.
Click to expand...

+1 When we changed from std boiler to combi I asked around and the general consensus was Valiant were pretty good. I asked the plumber who fitted ours what he had himself and he said Valiant, so that sort of made my mind up. Think we've had this one 6-7 years with no problems, which is a surprise as we have very hard water and scale can be a problem.
 
Last edited:
Are Baxi held in any kind of regard ?
Moving to a new build in a couple of weeks with a baxi combi boiler system fitted.
 
The new vaillant ecotec plus range of boilers come with a 7 year warranty if the installer is registered with them.

Gas supply is also likely to be undersized for the new boiler.
 
Avoid Baxi like the plague.

In my last three places, spanning 20 years, I had Valiant boilers, never had any of them repair.

Gas supply will need to be 22mm pipe.
 
What kind of cost would I be looking at to have one of these Valiant boilers installed in a 4 bedroom house? I see the boiler itself is around £900.
 
Just thinking out loud really, moving next month and the boiler is 7 years old (it may be fine) but I like the idea of a combi boiler. I'm not sure what else would need to be done or more importantly why I'd need to go for a complete full central heating install with the radiators etc.
 
d_brennen said:
Avoid Ideal like the plague
Click to expand...

Adam said:
What kind of cost would I be looking at to have one of these Valiant boilers installed in a 4 bedroom house? I see the boiler itself is around £900.
Click to expand...
There's usually a bit of plumbing to do to switch to a combi boiler. You take the hot water cylinder out and add a second hot water feed from the boiler, as the hot water and heating are on separate feeds. You can also drive the boiler straight from mains water pressure, so you can take out the cold water tank as well. It's this stuff that adds to the cost. My friend recently had his done with a higher-end Worcester-Bosch and the total cost was £2500.
 
Worcester/Valiant generally regarded as good boilers.

Chatting with the chap who serviced our boiler the other week we were talking about boilers put in on new builds as ours was an Ideal which isn't great, but he was saying some of the newer Ideal models aren't as bad (but still not as good as other makes).
 
We went with a Worcester Bosch 28CDi came to arouns £2400 including fitting and rads/wireless thermo and Proper TRV's

Went with WB as there was a local accredited installer recommended
 
Ev0 said:
Worcester/Valiant generally regarded as good boilers.

Chatting with the chap who serviced our boiler the other week we were talking about boilers put in on new builds as ours was an Ideal which isn't great, but he was saying some of the newer Ideal models aren't as bad (but still not as good as other makes).
Click to expand...

I had an Ideal, nothing but grief. A plumber friend of mine did indeed say the newer models (mine must have been 8-10 years old now) were a bit better, it's more the cost of the parts which will fail, over and over

TBH I don't even know what one I have now, it does it's business quietly, the Ideal was booming and clunking all the time, regardless of servicing/new parts
 
Excellent, will look at Valiant boilers as well.

Our current one is an ancient Ideal. It's a right old iron radiator with a fire at the bottom and a pilot light, but on the flipside there's nothing to go wrong. I take it it's usually electrics that go wrong on the new ones?
 
Last year mine had not one but two control board thingys and some kind of valve, on three separate occasions. I'd just brought the wife and new baby home from hospital and no hot water :rolleyes: then came home from a week away at the inlaws and no hot water :rolleyes::( then just as it was nice and Baltic outside, no central heating :mad::mad: Nearly took a hatchet to the damn thing. Both the attending boiler guy and my mate said pretty much the same thing; par for the course with that model
 
We have a WB Greenstar 30CDI. Have had it for about 3 years and in that time it's been very good. It did blow up when we had a surge from a nearby lightning strike, but WB sent some service blokes out within a day or so who fitted a new main PCB and valve completely FOC. They did think it odd and alluded to it being caused by a surge rather than it being a manufacturing fault, but I played dumb and it was fixed there and then (about £700 worth of parts and labour).

Our install cost about 3.5k and involved an awful lot of plumbing.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom