So new boiler - Vaillant or Bosch?

We had a Vaillant boiler and it was so poor one cannot imagine. Took ages for water to get hot and it made this noise that sounded like an aeroplane flying over the house every time the hot water was used. Avoid!
 
My boiler a Valiant Ecotech Exclusive 838 just this Monday packed up (S.54 error code I think). I rang Valiant and was informed that my boiler was just over 5 yrs old doh!

I bought it in 2008 and the warranty just expired. I was reminded of renewing my warranty after receiving various letters over the past few months which I just disregarded (wish I hadn't now).

I rang around asking various plumber merchants how much parts would be to fix it and boy is it expensive. I Googled what the code referred to and it was either the pump or heat exchangers.

After giving the Gas Council number I was quoted roughly:
Pump: £175 exc VAT
Secondary Heat Exchanger: £140 exc VAT
Primary Heat Exchanger £300 odd ex VAT :eek:

I called in some local plumbers and they gave roughly the same prices too. The cheapest guy quoted £140 for the pump exc fitting as he said that is what the problem was.

I rang Valiant and they gave me some options:

1. A year warranty £117 odd but I can't make a claim within the first 28 days
2. One off charge call out inc parts and labour for £260 (However this excluded the heat exchangers)
3. A years warranty for £288 which included ALL parts, labour and I could make a claim immediately. (I don't think this included servicing/maintenance which I need to chase Valiant up on as I just wanted to get the heating and water working asap)

I opted for option 3 because if there was another problem which wasn't related to the pump then having a local plumber fit it wouldn't have been a savvy decision.

The Valiant service engineer came today (Wednesday) and diagnosed the fault which was indeed the pump. He replaced that and also replaced the weather compensation electrical board as he said when the pump goes they normally go out too. He also fitted 2 valves underneath the boiler which were broken.

All in all the service was efficient from taking out a years policy to arranging an engineer to fix the boiler within 2 days.

I'm going to take bleed the radiators later as air may have gotten into the system.

So my word of advice is extend your warranty and don't throw notice reminders away lol
 
My old man does breakdowns for BG and swears by worcester bosch, he reckons the older valliants were really good but the new ones are the boiler equivalent of alfa romeo
 
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