ray whats your views on the current brands and their places in the market by say lower, middle and higher end quality
I think it depends on how you are defining quality. There is the pure interpretation of good design, high quality components and engineering excellence. Then there is the question of ease of diagnosis and repair, price and availability of spare parts, along with both length of warranty and the extent to which the warranty is enforceable without wriggling, and finally other customer service issues.
No manufacturer leads in all fields, and different things are of value to different people.
For example, imagine there were only two boilers on the market. Model A has 90% of the market, and on average breaks down every 10 years. Spares for Model A are expensive and hard to find, and the boiler is awkward to work on. Model B has 10% of the market, but breaks down every year on average. Spares are cheap and readily available, and the frequent problems are dead easy to diagnose and fix.
Under these circumstances, breakdown engineers would attend roughly the same number of model A as model B problems, but would probably describe model A boilers as "dogs". Householders, however, would much prefer the 10 times greater reliability.
Similarly, do you prefer a boiler that will
probably go 10 years on basic servicing, but only has a 2 year warranty, or one that will probably breakdown every 3 years, but will be covered by the warranty. Which is the higher quality?
Other things - such as ease of installation and sharp internal edges - are important to the engineer, but irrelevant to the householder.
Then there is pure power, particularly in combis. I would rather have a 40kw mid-market combi than a 24kw model from a "premium" supplier. That longer warranty or better engineering doesn't do anything to improve the flow-rate!
There are also market share issues. WB, Vaillant Group, BDR Thermea and Ideal have such a stranglehold on the UK market, that all other brands are trivially insignificant. They may have pockets of local popularity, and they will have their vocal supporters, but whose to say if they will be in the UK in 10 years time. Chaffoteaux, ELM Le Blanc, Saunier Duval and Radiant are just some names that had little nibbles at the UK market in the past, but have now retreated back to Europe or been swallowed by bigger fish.
If I had to pick a top tier, my recommends would be:
Vaillant Ecotec Plus range
Worcester CDI Classic range
Jury is still out on the Ideal Vogue, but it may join that list.
Middle tier
Baxi Duotec HE A*, Ideal Logic +, Vaillant Ecotec Pro, Worcester SI. Maybe a glowworm Ultracom 2
Budget:
Ideal Independent**, Main, Glowworm Flexicom. Anything else is false economy in the long run.
I haven't included Atag, Weissman or Intergas - not because I have anything against them - I simply don't know enough to comment, and their market share is trivially small by comparison with the biggies.
*Also the Baxi platinum, potterton gold, potterton titanium and other variants
**or the other cheap variants of the same - including the pro-combi version
