Replacement boiler advice please.

[Nick67GT]

Well the combi boiler in our rental property is nearing the end of its time (30 years old) and is showing signs of distress. This, coupled with some of the major components becoming obsolete, means it’s up for replacemen. Before it packs in altogether, I’m starting to get a few quotes in and there’s a range in price from about £2800 to £3650.

It‘s currently a Worcester-Bosch 24CDI and the proposed replacements are Ariston (cheapest) to Valient (most expensive), with W-B somewhere in the middle ~ upper price.

The Ariston is model class 1 24, the W-B a Greenstar 4000 and the Valient is the ecotec pro 24.

Does anyone have any thoughts or experience on running / maintaining any of the above and can offer any feedback (good or bad) or can recommend alternatives?

As always, I’ve got a keen eye on the final bill for replacement and don’t want to spend it on the premium end of the market if it’s not necessary.

It’s not a complicated or large installation, so keeping things simple for tenants and future maintenance would be a bonus

 

[AVI_8]

We were recommended to get an “Ideal” combi back in 2015 which is what we went with, it’s been faultless, prices have gone up a lot since then it would appear!

 

[Mikey D]

Thad an vaillant ecotec pro was about 18 years old no problems with it and that was serviced literally twice in its lifetime , just sold the house and hopefully will give many more years service .

 

[brightspark]

We were recommended to get an “Ideal” combi back in 2015 which is what we went with, it’s been faultless, prices have gone up a lot since then it would appear!

daughter has the ideal combi i have the ideal conventional both are fine thats a well expensive price for a boiler change

 

[Pete.]

Thad an vaillant ecotec pro was about 18 years old no problems with it and that was serviced literally twice in its lifetime , just sold the house and hopefully will give many more years service .

We have one of those too. Fitted in 2002 I think. It's had a few NTC's and a new pump last year but still gives good service.

 

[RWD3M]

Coincidentally, I'm just going through a similar process myself. I have finally caved in to pressure from Mrs RWD and am having my very old, ultra reliable Baxi back boiler replaced with a combi.

I have only yesterday selected the installer (from 7 people invited, 5 surveys and 4 quotes received) at a price of just under 4k. Now, what's worth bearing in mind is that he has not only to install the combi and decommission the back boiler, but the combi is going to be install in the garage at the opposite end of the house so has to contend with all the plumbing issues that will bring about. It also includes fitting new valves to all 12 radiators.

His biggest task of course is to try to explain the controls to me!

For balance, I had one very slightly cheaper quote (only by a couple of hundred, but I took a dislike to him!) and two others that were considerably more (one circa 5k and one over 6k!)

All of the plumber that turned up to quote advised against Baxi (for combi's, I didn't even know they made them!) and Ideal (because they are cheap). They recommended the Vailant as it has a 10 year warranty or the Worcester which can have a 10 year warranty but you do have to pay more for it (it's normally 8) unless your installer is fitting a lot of them. There was also something about ongoing maintenance costs which fall in favour of the Vailant iirc.

BTW, I see your in Glos. my chap is in Swindon so if you'd like I'm happy to share his details.

 

[Bornfree]

Buy the boiler and fit it yourself. It's so very easy.

 

[Seadog]

I'm a fan of Intergas boilers.

Only four moving parts, separate DHW and CH heat exchanger circuits, so no plate-type to get blocked.. They're Dutch, by the way.

 

[Ubique]

One thing to bear in mind is that 'I've had a <whatever> boiler for xx years, it's been great, only applies to the boiler quality back when it was made I was contemplating replacing my Glow-Worm combi boiler (TBH, with another Glow-Worm) as it had been 'troublesome' but easily repaired with genuine spares despite being nearly 20 years old, all the advice I got from people in the know was along the lines of 'keep it going, no-one makes anything as robust as they used to be', so that's what I'll do.

 

[angellonewolf]

ive got a baxi boiler near 8 years old prob at the top of its setting as its running a lot of rads been faltless untill last year had to have a new heat exchanger but ever year been serviced
was told most boilers now are made with very thin metal parts and to make them very efficent and to a price they are near all the same

 

[Seadog]

My Ravenheat is 16 years old. I had to rebuild the diverter last year. Flushed the DHW plate exchanger while i was at it.

 

[Ubique]

The DHW heat exchanger and the original design of the filling loop were the problems with mine, I think the heat exchangers suffer in summer as it's the same liquid going round & round until it gets refreshed once the heating is on, I've taken to putting the heating on for five minutes a month just to flush out the heat exchangers. will it help? who knows, it's the only thing I can think of that would cause them to gradually sludge up.

 

[gaz1]

my issue with plumbers is they want to commision there own boilers and anything old they really arnt interested in them and yes you will get fobbed off about not being able to get parts for them you can still get basic parts as long as they are not silly pcb boards

then your going to be fighting against the gas bill vs repairs from new to old your better off calculating x3 boilers replaced every 10 years compared to a simple thermostat and simple things on an old system does it kinda save money well yes to a degree but on gas it wont

its rented dont fit an expensive one in there unless it hasnt got enough btu rated to cover the property

there is issues with the vailiant so be aware of them

the euro settings is annoying on long runs as the water wont be as hot from the tap side of it its a bot of a bug bear of mine

they also have an expensive control board if it ever goes wrong

good boilers though if you look after them but there is trouble vailiant boilers just like any other boiler including baxi

you can have a look at vokera they are a simple system

for me glow worm got a series bad name as bad as main 7 did i dont think they ever pulled back enough reliabilty on there boilers so its not a boiler id recomend

 

[reb78]

you can have a look at vokera they are a simple system

but they also make appallingly dreadful boilers...

 

[brightspark]

but they also make appallingly dreadful boilers...

cheap sh.ite

 

[optima21]

I'm a fan of Intergas boilers.

Only four moving parts, separate DHW and CH heat exchanger circuits, so no plate-type to get blocked.. They're Dutch, by the way.

I got one at the beginning of the year, to replace my concord WRC that lasted over 40 years, and the plumber recommended and fitted an intergas boiler, mine is a big lump though. compared to the old boiler

 

[Tim.S]

Lots of parts on older boilers are obsolete and if they're not you have to order the part in and they can cost a fortune, most of the pre condensing boiler gas valves are obsolete now, you can get reconditioned parts but most that I used to fit only last a couple of months, also most people don't know how old their boiler is, most tell you it's only a few years old even when it's a pre condensing so it was made before 2005. The other problem for heating engineers is if you repair an old boiler and a couple of weeks later another part goes wrong( as all the parts on the boiler are the same age) we're expected to go back and fix it for nothing as it must be the same problem even if it's a completely different fault, otherwise the customer thinks that we're out to con them, so a lot of engineers don't want to work on them.

 

[Ubique]

It's the same with cars, 'the EML was on 2 months ago, you fixed it but it's on again' it all hinges on the detail in the writeup. I would imagine the same applies to heating systems.

 

[Tim.S]

Intermitant faults are the worst (faults out maybe three times a week and re-sets straight away) you advise the customer that by the time you've run the problem to ground on a 10yr old Italian boiler from B&Q, it's probably cheaper to replace the boiler and you get a 2yr to 10yr guarantee depending on the boiler and how much you want to pay, they always ignore everything you say to them and want it repaired then moan about the cost, generally speaking the cheaper the boiler the more expensive the parts, the more fiddly they are to fix, the more useless the technical support and the smaller the guarantee.

 

[Ubique]

So the same as cars then