Combi Boilers - Advice, what to buy, what NOT to buy

[Northy]

Pardon the pun, but what's hot and what's not? :lol:

What names/makes are to be avoided etc?

All advice welcome, I think our old boiler is on it's last legs, and we'll need a Combi soon anyway if we do our loft conversion :D

Cheers,

G

[Matisse]

can't go too wrong with a worcester or a vaillant.

both are quality makes and spares are plentiful when they do break down.

[DCM]

I got a Worcester, so has the old dear, been faultless in operation, quiet and efficient!

[markwilliamson2001]

Yeah...the condenser boilers are more efficient, but have had the habit of freezing external pipes which stops the heating working....it is generally easily fixed though, as it is external plastic pipe that just fills with frozen condensed water.

In terms of make, my worcester bosch is still going 4 hard winters down the line.
:thumbsup:

[super__dan]

Yeah...the condenser boilers are more efficient, but have had the habit of freezing external pipes which stops the heating working....it is generally easily fixed though, as it is external plastic pipe that just fills with frozen condensed water.

:thumbsup:

You've beaten me to this by 2 minutes. My Boss in work was having a nightmare over the cold snap becasue of this, his, his mothers and his rental house all lost heating every night for 3 nights when this happened. He's currently collecting the condensing water in buckets and will route the outlet through the house when he has time.

[carpenterdean]

Pretty sure any new combi boilers being fitted have to be condensers now:bored: my mate had same problem re plastic pipe freezing outside, you can just defrost it with hot water from kettle or hair dryer and your good to go.
As for make like everyone else has already said can't go wrong with worcester although they are a little more expensive but you get what you pay for, or another good make is baxi.
Hope this helps.

[traffman]

We have a Vaillant , as recc by our friend and he runs a Plumb centre.

We had the central heating renewed and he has a Vaillant aswell.

Its quiet efficient and very well made , wireless controls for adjusting it aswell.

You can adjust the water temp and the heating temp seperately.

Have a look at them , we have the ECO TEC PLUS 831.

[paul kenealy]

After be oncall the week before xmas, 99% of my calls was frozen condensing water pipes on worcester boilers, with not 1 to a vaillant. i fit vaillant all the time, with 1 1/4'' waste pipe on the condening. glo worm are the same as a vaillant with just a few different parts

[DCM]

My parents suffered the frozen condenser pipe, but their pipe exits the loft into the gutter and is small bore, I have told their installers that a bigger bore pipe is needed, mine is installed with a Lime soak-away with 1 1/4" poly pipe, not a problem.

[WHITTLER555]

Northy, Alex's dad (father in law) has been a heating engineer all his life and he reckons either a Vaillant or Baxi but definitely not a Worcester. All he has done all winter so far is fix Worcesters.

[paul kenealy]

i had 1 1/2'' pipe frozen in the snow. its not the size all the time, its were it may be placed

[traffman]

We have a soak away aswell , i never knew what it was !

Also a fernox in line filter fitted .

All out kit plus nine radiators fitted was 3200.00.

[Northy]

Cheers guys.

The bloody thing stopped working again tonight and I only got it going again by what can best be described as "f**king about with it for ages!" :lol::lol::lol::lol:

So where would be the best place to buy one? Bestest price for a poor (Yorkshire) man? ;)

G

[DCM]

A well recommended local business (one thats busy too), British Gas will just rape your wallet.

[Ant]

We got our Vaillant from the local PTS - was cheaper than any internet place and staff were very helpful. That was 3years ago and, touch wood, no problems.
If you are going to put a bathroom in the loft then you need one with decent water flow. Also, need to be careful for the gas flow/prssure drop - they need quite a bit of pressure - we had to go to 28mm pipe.
Anthony

[Northy]

I'm still a bit confused what to get and from where :blush:

[traffman]

Do you know any one in the trade?

I could give you a number , but being in Scotland , that's about as much help as a perforated parachute.

[university_dave]

I don't know if you are going to be putting a shower or bath in your conversion, but if you are then make sure the flow rate of the combi is sufficient for all your hot water demands - they're not usually considered suitable if you have more than one bathroom/en-suite. If you do go for a combi then consider getting a Zenex GasSaver or Superflow (www.zenexenergy.co.uk (http://www.zenexenergy.co.uk)) as they make condensing combi boilers even more efficient.

As an alternative you could try one of these; http://www.baxi.co.uk/ecogen. Micro-CHP is starting to take off, and still qualifies for the Feed In Tariff. If you've got a fairly large and relatively old house then it might save you a fair bit and even give you a bit of extra income (9p/kWh for each kWh it generates from the FIT and another 3p/kWh for 50% of the total kWh it generates from the export tariff).

[Northy]

OK, we have a bathroom, a bedroom with an en-suite and will have a toilet in the loft conversion (not enough room for a shower up there).

Does that make a difference? :confused:

G

[smokes]

The guys at the worcester bosch plant can't weld for toffee. I had a friend who changed his engineering work placement from worcester bosch Quality Control and said they comapny wasn't very good at making boilers.

Anyone thought about a ground source heat pump? Works like an refrigerator in reverse.

[Col]

When we had our extension done we needed an upgraded combi to run all the rads and stuff (there are 14 now...)
The only one that was upto the job at the time was an Alfa CB124X. I might have looked at it once in the 4 years it's been in the cupboard and that was probably cos I was looking for mugs.

p.s no outlet pipe so it can't freeze either

[2FAST4U]

We had an ARISTON combi fitted 4-5 years ago and have had it repaired twice - both times for the same thing (dodgy seals) :thumbdown:, so i'd never have another one fitted.

[jamiec]

" but have had the habit of freezing external pipes which stops the heating working....it is generally easily fixed though, as it is external plastic pipe that just fills with frozen condensed water."

Hate to correct you there matey but if your condense pipe freezes then your condense run has not been installed correctly. Upon reaching a run length of 3 metres or as I do as soon as the condense pipe runs to outside increase the pipework to 1 1/4". This significantly reduces frozen pipe risk.

The pipe freezing use to be more of a problem on older condensing boilers when the condensate point used to continually drip but not so much these days as the more modern boilers use syphonic traps to collect the condense in the boiler and then dump the whole traps worth in one go thus reducing freezing risk. Oh and btw there are many routes and ways for the condensate to be routed not just straight to outside. Oh and yes I also consider Worcester and valliant boilers to be one of the best but don't forget those nice little ideal combi logic + boilers. Very well made, easy to install competitively priced 5 years parts and labour guarantee and they are British ( please correct if wrong)

[jamiec]

When we had our extension done we needed an upgraded combi to run all the rads and stuff (there are 14 now...)
The only one that was upto the job at the time was an Alfa CB124X. I might have looked at it once in the 4 years it's been in the cupboard and that was probably cos I was looking for mugs.

p.s no outlet pipe so it can't freeze either


Well no pipe outlet. It will as you require it for your pressure relief valve. Your condensate will probably be pumped or routed to the nearest internal waste point then or it's not condensing but that's very unlikely as it only 4 years old.

[Col]

Well no pipe outlet. It will as you require it for your pressure relief valve. Your condensate will probably be pumped or routed to the nearest internal waste point then or it's not condensing but that's very unlikely as it only 4 years old.

That's always a possibility. I should have said that there is no waste pipe sticking out of the wall.

[Ant]

We have a Vaillant ecoTEC plus 837 with no concerns.
http://www.vaillant.co.uk/installers/heating-solutions-1/high-efficiency-boilers-2/combination/

We chose this one over the smaller models (which still had suitable central heating capability) because we wanted high hot water flow rate for decent shower.

If you call Vaillant they can assist in calculating the size boiler your property needs. Bosch also have a reputation of being reliable and helpful.

[Northy]

Hi guys,

Thanks for all the advice so far, we're starting to get quotes from different plumbers for fitting a new boiler etc.

One only fits Worcester, another only Wiessman - they both think what they fit are the bollox obviously! :woot:

Obviously Worcesters have been covered, any comments on Wiessmans?

Cheers,

G

[Medders]

We had a Wiessman put into our last house and it wasn't cheap. Total and utter crap. I lost count of the number of times it broke, had to have a curcuit board replaced, then something else on the ignition went, then something else. All fixed under warrenty but thats not the point, you don't expect to spend £3-£4k on a new heating system and then have to wash in cold water while you wait for a new board to arrive.

[danDanEFC]

I must be getting old as this is the thread I have read the most over Christmas.

My Condensate pip froze twice over Christmas, it was -17 two nights. We just cut the pipe down so it drips out and cant freeze in the pipe. This is until we get a proper fix.

I will now be looking at a larger pipe as well as lagging it.

Ps Sorry no help to you Northy

[Medders]

The engineer who is currently fitting the system in our new house says its actually better to go for a smaller diameter pipe because these can be lagged very tightly. Suppose everyone will have their own ideas, but lagging would seem a sensible way top go.

Suffice to say we've not gone for a Vissesman this time!

[barry]

We had a terrible time with our Ideal Isar boiler. It didn't work from the off, with the plumber stating we must've got a 'bad one'. So we had to wait for a new PCB to arrive before it would work.

It went again a year later - the Ideal engineer who came got it back up and running in no time. However, when it went out of warranty and broke down (roughly every 18 months) it was a case of arranging for a plumber to come and inspect the boiler and then another 4-5 days for the part (always the PCB) to arrive. We were without heating and hot water on each occasion.

It was a terrible boiler, and a quick google shows we weren't the only ones. It died for good last year (was repairable, but the insurance company had had enough of paying for repairs) so we now have a Worcester Bosch. The company who installed say they don't install any other make and have only been out to repair one once in 14 yrs. Could be bs but we're happy with it so far.

It also came with a remote control to control the thermostat and timer etc, so it also appeals to my inner geek!

Barry

[Northy]

Hi boiler experts :D

We've been recommended (well plumber thinks its a little overkill, but i'd rather that than underkill!) the following:

Vaillant Ecotec Plus 837 NG Cond Combi
Vaillant Eco std horiz flue duct 303933
Vaillant VRT360F wireless prog room stat

What do you think to that, and have you any ideas where I could get them for a good price? :D

[ianhaye]

baxi boilers are pretty good with good flow rates etc, may not be a option for but seem to being putting in a few heatrae sadia amptecs in :-)

[Oscar]

any ideas where I could get them for a good price? :D

Might know a man who can if you have cash pound notes ;)

[Chaz]

Just to throw another boiler into the mix

http://www.idealheating.com/products/logic-combi-plus_homeowner.php#techspec

5 years guarantee :o

Don't take my word on it as i don't do domestic heating/plumbing. . .i'm more into the commercial and industrial side of things ;) . But you can't go wrong with a Vaillant or the Worcester Borsch brands.

[daz]

Dont get a Ferrioli boiler, mines been in 6 months and last night has packed in again. What boils my slash is the phone number on the info pack you get with the boiler for customer services, says its open 24hrs yet when you phone them its a monday to friday number. And the tw*t who fitted it will only answer his phone on weekdays.

Had a old glo-worm water tanked boiler before and that apparatly never broke down once and it was fitted in the seventys. Wish i kept it in now.

[bodgit]

Hi boiler experts :D

We've been recommended (well plumber thinks its a little overkill, but i'd rather that than underkill!) the following:

Vaillant Ecotec Plus 837 NG Cond Combi
Vaillant Eco std horiz flue duct 303933
Vaillant VRT360F wireless prog room stat

What do you think to that, and have you any ideas where I could get them for a good price? :D

Depending on what you,ve been quoted

http://www.discountedheating.co.uk/inSearch/simpleSearch.do?searchWord=Vaillant+Ecotec+Plus+83 7+NG+Cond+Combi&criteria=p&exactWord=

[AndyG]

I've got the Ideal Logic +.

It's the business, and plumbers drool over it.

[andys]

G - I know nothing about boilers, but when we did our house the plumber - a family friend - put us in a Vallient boiler, which he told us was the tits, and would run a much bigger house, it was a bit overkill - but he said it would outlast us, so we went for it.

It's still faultless after nearly 2 decades, and the only thing that went wrong was the timer (a separate box on the wall) died, cost £70 to get our plumber to fit a new one.

We have it serviced every year, without exception and it's never missed a beat.

[traffman]

christ get a Valliant man !

[chalky]

got a ferroli modena,had a fan and a water temp sensor in 8 years oh yes and the circuit board burnt a couple of tracks off and blew a component on the board one winter but i just soldered a piece of wire accross and its being perfect ever since:D

[AndyG]

the suspense of this thread is killing me. How will the story end?

[ianhaye]

with lots of kettles and a few slaves :-) lol