Boiler scrappage scheme "is financial madness for homeowners"

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I didn't think about the DIY aspect until well after I posted the above message but even then it is not a cast iron certainty. You example above has a gas bill of £1500 a year. There surely can't be many domestic situations were the gas bill is that high at around twice the average figure.

Reply to
Roger Chapman
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90% _if you have up to date radiators_. The ones sized for your old system with a return temperature designed to prevent condensation in the old boiler won't do the trick. Add on a new set of rads to your calculations...

Andy

Reply to
Andy Champ

I never took any specific gas reading as and when I did alterations to my house. But looking back over my old gas statements it seems that cavity wall insulation was my biggest energy saving installation.

Adam

Reply to
ARWadsworth

I don't think you can get the £400 scappage subsidy if you DIY it.

My current gas bill is about £1150 p.a. excluding standing charge. My boiler is rated at 68%. If I were to replace it with a boiler which was 90% efficient, I would - in theory - only use 68/90 as much gas. So the saving would be 22/90 x 1150 = approx £280 p.a. If it costs £2,000 to replace the boiler, the payback period would be just over 7 years.

This ignores servicing costs - which I imagine would be higher than my virtually zero current costs - and it also ignores the fact that not *all* of the current boiler's inefficiency is wasted. The boiler sits in the kitchen and makes a significant contribution to heating the kitchen. If that stopped, I'd have to provide that heat by some other means.

All in all, I suspect that most people's pay-back period is going to be of the order of 10 years - making it a very dubious proposition for many people.

Reply to
Roger Mills

I find the £2000 price tag to replace a boiler a little unbelievable. It might cost that to replace an old boiler with a condensing boiler and fetch the controls up to part L requirement. It does not cost £2000 to replace an existing condensing boiler with all the correct Part L controls already in place for a new condensing boiler.

It would be a bonus in winter when you are only heating the water:-)

But not if the 2 grand replacement costs are incorrect. It cost no where near that for my brother to replace his 20 year old boiler in November.

Adam

Reply to
ARWadsworth

ARWadsworth wibbled on Sunday 31 January 2010 20:01

I was quoted 2500 for boiler + install with everything presented within 3m of the boiler, bar the gas. I even double checked and another confirmed the quote was in the ball park expected. needless to say, they didn't get the job...

Reply to
Tim Watts

A G rated boiler will almost certainly pre-date insulation improvements (if not, then make some). Then the radiators, if previously correctly sized will be oversized, and will be capable of using the temperatures which will gain the efficiency improvement of a condensing boiler, if not in the coldest weather but most of the time. Even in the coldest weather there will still be considerable improvememt over the old boiler.

Reply to
<me9

The heat exchanger on my mum's Keston Celsius failed just within the five year warranty and Keston would not honour it as the last annual service had been missed - this was more oversight than anything else, a costly one.

Reply to
Tony Bryer

That's the figure that is commonly quoted, but I haven't verified it. In the context of the scrappage scheme, no-one is going to swap an existing condensing boiler for a new one - the old one would need to be non-condensing in order to qualify - but I agree that the Part L controls may already be in place, as in my case.

So, what's your best estimate of what it would cost me - in parts and labour - to swap my 18-year-old Baxi Solo for a new condensing boiler of at least 20kW net output - including installing a condensate drain and (probably) converting my vented system to unvented?

I assume you mean "summer"?! Agreed, but it isn't running for very long then. My gas consumption in the summer months is miniscule - so the saving with a more efficient boiler will be very small.

Reply to
Roger Mills

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[Roger Mills]

So did he DIY it? £2k is a very modest sum compared to what has been previously quoted on this ng, particularly with respect to BG.

Assuming you opt for a boiler that will cost £2000 to buy and install and last 10 years you need to save considerably more than £2000 over the

10 year period in order to break even. The extra is because even if you use your savings to finance the purchase you are losing the interest you would have earned as well as the principal sum.

So if you could have earned 5% on you savings you will need to save £3000 over the 10 year period in order to break even. If OTOH you have to buy on credit at say 20% you would need savings of the order of £5000 in order to break even.

Reply to
Roger Chapman

Exactly.

Adam

Reply to
ARWadsworth

Mine isn't far short of that. 4 bedroom Victorian semi in London - similar to many many thousands here. Well insulated roof and double glazed to the rear. Front has original sash windows. I'm intending modifying them to double glazing one day. But the solid outside walls are more of a problem.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

The BCO was involved so he was not able to DIY it. In the end he bought his own boiler and flue for £800 and eventually found a guy to swap it for £300 plus parts used. It took the guy 3 hours. Everything was there. All he had to do was remove the old boiler, mount the new one and connect up flow,return and the gas. The condensate was simply connected to the sink waste below the boiler. The installation cost was £325.

If the boiler did need replacing in 6 years and WB have not altered the layout of the pipework to the boiler then how long will it take to change the boiler?

Indeed. It is not the £2000 for the intial swap over of a boiler that I am doubting. It is the replacement of the new boiler in 10 years that I am questioning.

Anyone buying on credit at 20% is going to suffer.

Adam

Reply to
ARWadsworth

pretty difficult installing a ground source heat pump in a third floor flat

tim

Reply to
tim....

Where can you get 5% these days, without too much exposure to the markets? Most normal savings accounts are around 2.5% if you are lucky.

I agree though that you do have to save more than the nominal capital cost, if only due to increased maintenance costs. A bog simple boiler has little to go wrong, a combi and/or condensing type is rather more complex, more things to go wrong/fail.

Loss of interest is an aspect but if you didn't spend the 2k on a new boiler, maybe you'd spend it on a holiday or home cinema setup, no "return" at all there.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

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Reply to
tim....

Quite a few strings attached, you need a Flexaccount and internet nabking, you can't add any more funds or withdraw any without penalty. So your cash it tied up for 5 years. The nett interest is only 4% on deposits over =A350k... 2k comes in at 3.8% nett. I don't see any reference to this having a variable interest rate so one assumes that it is fixed. I suspect that 3.8% nett will look a bit poor in 5 years time, even though it is attractive at present.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

Or indeed with a garden my size. It would mean going down a long way - and there's no access for diggers, etc.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Bore holes. Though I think the normal practice is to drill down into the bed rock "a distance" apart, shove down some expolsive, shatter the rock between the holes, then pump water between them. I guess that several say 30m deep bore holes could have a up/down pipe fitted to get the required length of buried pipe.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

Yes, I meant summer:-) Thanks for that. I was not on the ball last night. I am not going to guess the cost of swapping your boiler though.

And Roger, you may be a good example of someone who would never get any financial benefit from the scrappage scheme (even if your boiler qualifies for it). However many people will think "great £400 for nothing" and then apply withot thinking. Not everyone can work things out beforehand, especially when money is involved.

I wonder how many people who used the car scrappage scheme thought "great £2000 for free". Now they have got to have the new car serviced at a garage to keep the warranty.

I actually DIYed my boiler installation and decided that if it failed and I could not fix it then I would just buy a new one. No problems in the last 5 years though. At least one other poster has done the same at their house.

Cheers

Adam

Reply to
ARWadsworth

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