Change boiler or keep old one - the dilemma.

[peter lanky]

A friend keeps telling me I should get a new central heating boiler as even including the cost of the new installation, I will save money in the long run. However, I have never had much luck with tradesmen (small things like turning up!) so am not confident about looking into this without a lot of background information to add to my armoury.

My house is 15 years old in Wigan, Lancashire and the boiler has never broken down, nor had any work done on it. I have 12 radiators and a conventional tank (I don't want a combi) in a 4 bed detached house, with the boiler in the garage. My boiler is a Baxi WM60/4RS. I believe the system is fully pumped. The radiators are fitted with thermostats. In winter, I use the heating sparingly, about 5 hours a day, with the odd boost at weekend when it's cold.

I am aware that there is a lot more legislation, but don't know what it entails. If anyone can answer any of the questions, I would appreciate it, and even better if someone can recommend an installer to seek a quote.

Should I carry on as I am or look for a new boiler?
Will I save money, and how many years will it take me to do this?
What is the max and min price I should expect to pay?
Which brands/models should I be looking to have installed?

 

[REDSAW]

welcome to this forum

firstly it sounds like your intending to spend the money for the sake of it based on your friends expert opinion.

what you need to do is post the details of your existing boiler so the chaps can tell you if its serviceable first, it makes ecconomical sense.

 

[Flanners]

Keep old boiler until totally breaks down then buy a Vaillant 415/418 and a quick recovery cylinder. (optional). Or convert to a sealed system and fit a vaillant ecotec plus 625 with a uni store cylinder.

MUST GET POWERFLUSHED! Check vaillants web site for engineers.

And no i dont work for vaillant.

 

[Kip]

Don't try fixing what isn't broke, the boilers fine, the systems ok? All you will save is a bit of money a month but will cost alot to get the new boiler.

 

[stevetheplumber]

A friend keeps telling me I should get a new central heating boiler as even including the cost of the new installation, I will save money in the long run. However, I have never had much luck with tradesmen (small things like turning up!) so am not confident about looking into this without a lot of background information to add to my armoury.

My house is 15 years old in Wigan, Lancashire and the boiler has never broken down, nor had any work done on it. I have 12 radiators and a conventional tank (I don't want a combi) in a 4 bed detached house, with the boiler in the garage. My boiler is a Baxi WM60/4RS. I believe the system is fully pumped. The radiators are fitted with thermostats. In winter, I use the heating sparingly, about 5 hours a day, with the odd boost at weekend when it's cold.

I am aware that there is a lot more legislation, but don't know what it entails. If anyone can answer any of the questions, I would appreciate it, and even better if someone can recommend an installer to seek a quote.

Should I carry on as I am or look for a new boiler?
Will I save money, and how many years will it take me to do this?
What is the max and min price I should expect to pay?
Which brands/models should I be looking to have installed?

if it aint broke dont fix it im very unconvinced as to the savings made with high efficency boilers when they go wrong the go wrong big time
what you have is simple and working as some one else said stick with it till it goes bang big time
use the surplus cash you obviously have and go on a nice holiday somewhere warm for a month

 

[Puddle]

If you want to spend a bit of money and get it back,do not think about replacing boiler until you have to,think about fitting thermostatic valves on radiators,programable room thermostat ,to allow differant temperatures through the day,if you want to go the extra mile zone off up stairs if not to difficult,to allow isolation from system when not in use in the day or run at lower temperature,get boiler serviced and gas pressures checked,to make sure running efficently

 

[migoplumber]

fitting a weather compensator is always a good idea as well, follow puddles advice, wait for your old boiler to die or need an expensive repair before replacing it.
always get your gas appliances serviced yearly.

 

[aaaaaa]

I agree with the majority sentiment. Don't listen to (mainly large organisations) fitters saying parts are difficult to obtain. baxi parts are available for many years after last production of model.

I always point out to my clients that the sooner you change your Baxi, the sooner you'll change the new one!

 

[radswilldo]

Firstly you say you have had no work done on the boiler, does that also mean no safety check or service?. If so I implore you to have a safety check, plus have a service, without servicing the boiler becomes less efficient, think of a car, without servicing it loses horsepower, etc and becomes more inefficient. If you decide to keep your current boiler(as long as its safe, which can only be confirmed by a gas safe engineer) I would, like puddle, advise you to get a programmable room stat with hot water control. There are two on the market that I know of, one made by vailant for Vaillants and one made by Honeywell. Danfoss, i think made one but stopped producing it.
I have haven't looked up your boiler SAP rating but guess it would be less than 79% efficient where as modern A rated are in excess of 90%, bare this in mind as energy prices are predicted to rise between 40-60% over the next five years. A modern regular/system boiler, depending on usage, has an economical working life of 12-15 years (combi's 9-12, ring a manufacture for conformation, ignore the sales pitch).
When i install boilers/update systems, I always keep the safety check and service contracts, so after the first year i show the customer their new kilowatt gas consumption compared to their previous consumption, so as to completely proove their saving.
One more point i will add is this; I rent a property that has a vailant ecotec 824 and use to have a mechanical roomstat. Realised that engineer never capped the central heating output to match my system, which I did, also replaced mechanical roomstat with digistat. Reduced consumption from 11700 kwh a year to 9200kwh, if it wasn't for the coldest winter for a decade on the south coast ( 2 x 2 weeks of -2, it went below -14 at gatwick !) I could of got it down to 8600kwh.

 

[peter lanky]

Thanks for all the replies. It seems the answer is quite clear that I should keep my current boiler.

For those who couldn't help having a little dig about me having too much money, if this was the case, I would have gone ahead and changed my boiler without seeking expert advice, and then tried to justify it on a forum. The solution may be obvious to those in the trade, but to us consumers, we don't really have a clue.

For info, I use a Horstmann Channel Plus H27XL time controller (located in the kitchen) which I fitted myself to replace the original mechanical timer, and the thermostat (located in the hall and set at 19°C) is Landis & Gyr, but no model number visible. I average about 14,500kwh per annum. I cannot give any more information about the boiler (redsaw34) as apart from the model number, I don't know what to tell you.

Radswilldo, The reason I have never had it serviced is that since I have lived here, I have found it impossible to get a tradesman of any discipline to actually turn up to do any job. This may sound strange to those of you in the trade do turn up for jobs, but it becomes very frustrating when having spoken to ten or so people picked randomly from the phone book (not having had any personal recommendations, and finding the Internet doesn't actually find me an individual), none of them arrive at the time agreed. If anyone who covers Wigan reads this, I would be happy to hear from them.

How does a digistat work? Also, is it simply a case of replacing either/both my original thermostat or timer with one of these, or is there extra wiring to consider?