Halstead Boilers

[John Evans]

Has anyone had experience of Halstead Boilers and how reliable they are?

How do they compare to Worcester Bosch and Vallient?

Thanks

John Evans

[Corporal Jones]

Had a Wickes (made by Halstead) for 16 years, replaced the thermocouple twice and the gas valve coil once apart from that it has been OK, don't know how efficient it is though.

[Doctor Drivel]

They are not as good as W-B or Vaillant. Geta quality boiler. Atmos, Viessmann, etc.

[newshound]

My Wickes Halstead has lasted much better than the previous Vaillant. That failed gas and water valves in less than 10 years before dying terminally. The Halstead has needed a gas valve (cheap from eBay) and one of Geoff's control boards in the same period.

[somebody]

In message , John Evans writes

Can't give you comparisons, but I've had a Halstead in here for five+ years now without problem.

On installation it looked like there was a fault with the boiler, Halstead sent an engineer but it turned out the installer hadn't bled the thing! Halstead didn't charge though "all part of the service" the engineer said.

I know it's only been five years so very limited experience, but right now, I'd buy another.

Hth Someone

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Big snag with that is it's unlikely to be the current design. My Potterton boiler lasted near 30 years with virtually no problems. But no bearing on their present day products.

[EricP]

Yes. I had a Halstead boiler that was replaced two years ago after 26 years use, with only a water temp sensor replaced, but this has no validity for junk sold today. Similarly our old Hover washer lasted sixteen years, it's Hover replacement lasted three. :((

The wonders of progress :((

[Doctor Drivel]

That is still two components too many. Components that should do 15 years min.

[geoff]

In message , newshound writes

Halstead seem to be middling boilers

reasonable quality, expensive replacement parts and reasonably popular

ignore drivel the clueless

[gazz]

we've got a halstead in our rented bungalow, no idea how old it is, it's an obsolete model now, but arent they all after a year nowadays.

the fan for the flue is noisey, bearing collapsing on the motor i guess so the blades are contacting the casing, the flue amplifies this and you can hear it at the end of our street,

a corgi bloke came out to look at it, he said he hates halsteads, cheap crap, would recomend a bosch anyday, but that's just one bloke,

we only use it for hot water at the moment as we have split 10mm pipe to a rad (again waiting for the damn managment company to come and fix) this is our first experiance of a combi boiler ever, always had storage hot water systems so used to the hot water comming through in seconds at full temp,

with the combi the hot tap is freezing cold for a good 10 to 15 seconds, then slowly begins to warm up, it takes well over 2 minutes to get steaming hot water from the taps, even the kitchen tap which is about 8 feet away from the boiler is like that, and the hot pipe goes to the kitchen tap first.

but like i say, that's prolly normal and we'll get used to it,

[Doctor Drivel]

Maxie, you are a one!!! Are you saying scrap like Halstead are beter than Atmos, Viessmann, etc. My oh my Maxie. Appalling indeed!!! Appalling Maxie. Yes, appalling.

[dennis]

Its not normal for some combi boilers. The one at my dads appears to preheat some water so it arrives hot as soon as you run the cold from the tap. If you just turn the tap on and run a few seconds of hot the boiler stays on for a bit to reheat the stuff in its store. I still wouldn't want to use a combi to supply my hot water, the delivery rate is appallingly slow. I am used to being able to fill a bath in two minutes not twenty.

[Doctor Drivel]

There are plenty of high flow combis available that fill baths very quickly.

>

[Dave Plowman (News)]

A storage type so more expensive. And obviously takes up more space.

Indeed.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Only compared to another combi. 'High flow combis' are the figment of an ad man's fantasy if measured against a decent storage system.

[Doctor Drivel]

Pe-heating combis take up no more space. Please eff off as you don't know anything about heating as you are a plantpot.

[Doctor Drivel]

Please eff off as you are a total plantpot.

[gazz]

well we dont have a bath here, so can't say how long it'd take, but when the water to the hot tap is steaming hot, it is exactly the same flow rate as the cold tap,

the shower is set in the middle position for the temperature (equal hot and cold), and turning it on full the spray head shoots upwards on it's mounting, so we feel there's plenty of pressure, there's a hell of a lot more pressure than at my parents house which has a standard vented tank heating system.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

It's not pressure that matters for the fast filling of a bath but flow rate. A decent storage system should manage 40 lpm at 60c to which you add cold at the same time making perhaps 70 lpm at the actual temp. required. No practical domestic combi can match that. Despite what dribble constantly claims.

[Doctor Drivel]

He is having a shower! Boy are you dumb. Please eff off.