We're planning to have our central heating redone, and the plumber has recommended a Grant oil-fired condensing boiler, to be mounted externally. I'm not familiar with the reliability of currently available boilers, as what we have now is a multi-fuel Rayburn with an oil conversion.
I'd welcome any comments from folk who have experience with the Grant models.
I'd be a bit cautious about the external mounting. When it fails(*) working on it in the pissing rain and howling gale isn't going to be pleasant and it can be surprising how busy oil boiler engineers are when the weather is bad and your external boiler has broken down...
(*) I don't know anything about the reliabilty or other wise of Grant but even the most reliable boiler will break down at the most inconvenient time.
Although that's something to bear in mind it's actually pretty insignificant. If it breaks down does it need to be fixed immediately? I bet you can wait until it stops raining. If you don't do your own maintenence you'll probably have to wait a week or two for someone to turn up anyway.
An external boiler keeps the noise and fumes outside and doesn't waste space inside the house; of course if you've got an outbuilding you can use as a boiler house you'ld get the best of both worlds.
I installed an external oil boiler 18 years ago, it's still working OK and has only failed once when the pump siezed. Managed to survive a few days without central heating until it was fixed.
Don't know about Grants reliability, but they are one of the makes I would consider to replace our boiler. They are generally amongst the most efficient in the SEDBUK database, for what that's worth.
Bill
I am well pleased with mine that I have had for three years. Totally reliable and my engineer says it is much easier to service that the inside one was. I asked him about the rain and he said if it was urgent he has a small awning he puts up. Self installation saved an enormous amount.
Peter Crosland
Many oil boilers share common components such as the burner.
IIRC the Grant boilers that I looked at had Riello burners.
The Riello burner in my Camray50/70 boiler has been fine. - so far!
fails(*)
down...
I think that depends on the weather where you are. Here you might have to dig it out of a 3' snow drift, which would probably drift back in as fast as you tried to dig... And with 3' of snow outside and a gale blowing heating is pretty important.
Simple stuff I do myself, like unfreezing/unblocking the oil line last winter but that was only in a foot of snow... but it was about
-5C outside with a wind chill down to -15/-20C.
We have a "boiler room" so it's not a problem. I did think after I posted that putting a shed around it might be useful but it does depend on your local weather. Up here an awning would blow away or get bent in the wind.
Riello burner here, over ten years old still going strong. Only problems we've had have been fuel supply. Frozen line, followed by blocked fire valve and more recently random trips of the fire valve.
We're on the north coast of Sutherland - gales and horizontal rain are common - but the boiler would be in a sheltered corner, and we rarely get much more than ground frost where we are, even though just a few miles away can have deep snowdrifts. We have a fireplace in the livingroom, and oil-filled portable electric radiators as back-up.
I want to minimise the effect of noise and fumes, and maximise usable indoor space.
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember S Viemeister saying something like:
Grant are fine - they use Riello 40 burners anyway, so are quite reliable, for the most part. The external boiler in a metre cube-like 'Heatpac' configuration is commonplace here and generally doesn't present any problems for servicing or repair. On balance, I'd rather have one outside than in.
Having read that, I have to back up the Riello burners - mine's been in since the early 90's and I too didn't have internal space so went for an external Camray hung on the outside wall. Only two failures in that time - the fan motor failed because I was trying to get it to start when there was no fuel and the bearings went; and the blast tube had to be replace a couple of years ago.
Is it an assumption of do people who have oil boilers also have wood burning stoves and the likes, because they live typically in remote parts with no gas but wood available ?
Rob
I really like Riello burners but they do have faults same as any other burner, just usually not as often as many others. Things to watch out for are failure of the oil pump shaft seal so kerosine leaks along the shaft into the end of the motor, washes out the motor bearing lubricant with ensuing noise then failure. It doesn't happen that often but its the most common failure in my experience. The entire flame ignition and control system is in one grey box with photocell mounted straight onto the pcb. Before retiring I always carried a full set of spares in the van, including a fuel pump, control box, capacitor, two 6202 bearings and photocell. Some units emply a hydraulic ram device which closes the air inlet when not running to reduce heat loss. There are two sizes (long and short) of these for some reason which I never had a clear reason for since the burner was the same size. No oil burner likes repeated starts when no fuel is available. It doesn't take many dry starts to knacker a pump!
A lot of the newer boilers use RDB model burners instead of the old riello units. These are ok but not as convenient to work on as the old grey box Riellos
Other boilers worth considering are Firebird and Trianco as both have outdoor models and use the same burners.
If mains gas were available, I'd be using that - as it is, there's a big oil tank for the heating, a couple of LPG cylinders for the hob, and an old shed where I keep coal, wood, and occasionally peat, for use in the living room fireplace.
Ditto - less the coal and 'occasional peat', and I live near Edinburgh!
Rob
Electric induction hobs don't come cheap but IMHO they are better and safer than a naked flame!
But they won't work during a power outage. I can use a match to light my gas burners, and still make dinner or a pot of tea.
ollocks.
there's a
Agreed. That's why we have a two ring and grill camping hob and a couple of cylinder of gas. One day we will also have big red cylinders outside for the hob, can't stand cooking on electric.
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