Thinking aloud - online boiler survey

[stevetheplumber]

incidently my local spares retailer thinks vailants keep him in work

 

[hammers4spanner]

incidently my local spares retailer thinks vailants keep him in work

Failing worcesters keep most busy down this way

 

[stevetheplumber]

Failing worcesters keep most busy down this way

maybe its a regional thing depending on the amount of sales in a particular area get a good rep in an area say 10 years ago and now all those boilers are coming onto the radar as they get older

 

[stevetheplumber]

maybe ray has some stats regarding national sales and regional variations

 

[AlexGas]

What other factors should we measure?

How pricey the parts are.

 

[Ray Stafford]

I don't have much by way of regional variation, although traditionally London has been very strong for Vaillant (and previously Saunier Duval) and unsurprisingly you find lots of Pottertons in Warwick, Baxis in Preston etc - clustering around the home factory.

Currently, Worcester have about 30% market share, Ideal are probably 2nd on about 20%, Vaillant just a sniff behind them - perhaps 19%, with BDR group maybe 16% and Glowworm at about 6%. No one else has anything worth mentioning - for all the noise we hear about the lesser brands, they are chickenpoo in terms of numbers. For a lesser brand, 3% market share (50,000 units per year) is the holy grail - but none of them currently have that. I doubt any of them have 2%.

But thats current sales. In terms of the installed base of boilers, the numbers would change a bit - with Baxi and its sub-brands increasing, Ideal decreasing, but the big brands still accounting for 85% + of the installed base.

Obviously in areas with large numbers of private rented properties, you tend to see more cheap "landlord special" boilers. Service engineers will see more of these because a) they break down more often and b) landlords have to have annual inspections. Home owners don't, so the 24kw Biasi will be seen every year, but the WB 42CDi in an affluent household may well never get serviced.

 

[Ray Stafford]

Following the positive response on here, I have formally approached the RGE Gas Safe magazine people to see if they are interested in partnering with us on running the survey.

May as well get them doing something useful.

 

[Riley]

Ha ha well done ray

 

[solutions]

I like the idea. But im not sure how usefull the survey results will be. There are so many variables, biases and differing personal preference which sway individual engineers choices I think it would struggle to provide relevant data on reliability efficiency and life time cost. Most repairs I attend are the result of either poor install standards homeowner neglect / poor system knowledge (the occasional side effect of a poor install or result of moving to a home with a system they don't know or understand) or age. How can the survey be an indication of reliability focused on the current models when half of them came out last week and non have been installed and in regular use long enough to show there weaknesses.

 

[Ray Stafford]

I like the idea. But im not sure how usefull the survey results will be. There are so many variables, biases and differing personal preference which sway individual engineers choices I think it would struggle to provide relevant data on reliability efficiency and life time cost. Most repairs I attend are the result of either poor install standards homeowner neglect / poor system knowledge (the occasional side effect of a poor install or result of moving to a home with a system they don't know or understand) or age. How can the survey be an indication of reliability focused on the current models when half of them came out last week and non have been installed and in regular use long enough to show there weaknesses.

You're right Tim, in that by the time we all know whether a product truly stands the test of time, the manufacturer has long since discontinued.

However, what it can do is to provide a more balanced and structured answer to the question "what boiler do you recommend".

Whether its sensible or not, consumers want to ask that question. Although I agree its far from definitive, I believe that the combined wisdom of 1000 installers is likely to give a better picture than the picture painted by the three installers that you call to quote, or the 15 random contributors who might respond to a thread on this forum.

I also think its useful to see how installers respond when asked about different aspects - ease of installation, quality of back-up, etc. I have mentioned many times that installers consider "ease of installation" to be high up THEIR list of priorities, whereas I suspect that householders don't give a flying flip about it. Teasing out WHY people rate particular brands above others may lead to other paths of enquiry.

Finally, like many surveys, value can be obtained from trends over years more than absolute values. Given a sufficiently large sample to rule out blind chance, then seeing manufacturer A improve their feedback compared to manufacturer B decline would tell a story. For example, if it were not for social media, do you think that Ideal could have tripled their market share in the few years since the Icos/Isar shambles?

So whilst I agree its not the whole story, I don't think its without value. It just has to be seen as a part of the information infrastructure of the industry.

 

[smtplumbing]

one thing I will say most of my customers want me to do the choose the boiler I recommend hence why i gave them the 4 boiler choices.

9/10 customers say worcester is the best because of WHICH. but soon as you put facts in front of them its either vaillant or ideal that gets fitted in the end.

I have only one customer in the last few months that was had driven on worcester. I am not boiler bashing at the end of the day customer gets what they want. and
I make a crust.

I also say WHICH is paid a fair amount of money to make worcester the top boiler

 

[solutions]

You're right Tim, in that by the time we all know whether a product truly stands the test of time, the manufacturer has long since discontinued.

However, what it can do is to provide a more balanced and structured answer to the question "what boiler do you recommend".

Whether its sensible or not, consumers want to ask that question. Although I agree its far from definitive, I believe that the combined wisdom of 1000 installers is likely to give a better picture than the picture painted by the three installers that you call to quote, or the 15 random contributors who might respond to a thread on this forum.

I also think its useful to see how installers respond when asked about different aspects - ease of installation, quality of back-up, etc. I have mentioned many times that installers consider "ease of installation" to be high up THEIR list of priorities, whereas I suspect that householders don't give a flying flip about it. Teasing out WHY people rate particular brands above others may lead to other paths of enquiry.

Finally, like many surveys, value can be obtained from trends over years more than absolute values. Given a sufficiently large sample to rule out blind chance, then seeing manufacturer A improve their feedback compared to manufacturer B decline would tell a story. For example, if it were not for social media, do you think that Ideal could have tripled their market share in the few years since the Icos/Isar shambles?

So whilst I agree its not the whole story, I don't think its without value. It just has to be seen as a part of the information infrastructure of the industry.

I do think it is worth undertaking. I shall contribute and I am curious as to which brand or model will come out on top.
However I think if the results are published in any form as a guide for the home owner then it will be necessary to stipulate in which areas one model or brand win out over the other. My personal preference would be to see engineers oppinions on best boiler features regardless of make and model. For instance readily accessible and replaceable expansion vessel (side on installed not flat at the rear behind the boiler) or can the prv be replaced without removing other components to access it. Again these questions may not have a direct bearing on the home owner but to me they illustrate a manufacturers design team paying attention to the lifetime of the boiler and not just how efficient and functional it is on day 1.