What would be a rough guess for the price to replace my old combi with another one in same position? Just the fitting, as I am looking to get a unit myself after looking around a bit more.
I currently have an 80k btu unit and would want to move up to a more powerful one over 100k btu. I am also considering getting one with instant hot water.
Any advice gratefully accepted.
I am in East Kent.
Steve....
Do you know if the current gas supply pipe is rated for the greater power? If it was marginal upon original installation, it may need a new pipe, which may dramatically affect the price.
A few other questions:
(a) Can you put a new flue straight out through the wall onto your own properties, away from windows, doors and boundaries? If not, describe the location and existing flue arrangements further.
(b) Can you provide drainage at the boiler location?
(c) Can you provide mains water supply at the boiler location?
For this add:
(d) Is there easy access to the existing hot water pipework at the boiler location?
(e) Have you measured the flow rate of your mains water supply? What is it?
Christian.
Christian McArdle Mar 9, 9:20 am show options
Newsgroups: uk.d-i-y From: "Christian McArdle" =AD; - Find messages by this author Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 17:20:28 -0000 Local: Wed, Mar 9 2005 9:20 am Subject: Re: Price of fitting combi boiler Reply | Reply to Author | Forward | Print | Individual Message | Show original | Report Abuse
Do you know if the current gas supply pipe is rated for the greater power?
****No idea!****If it was marginal upon original installation, it may need a new pipe, which may dramatically affect the price.
A few other questions:
(a) Can you put a new flue straight out through the wall onto your own properties, away from windows, doors and boundaries? If not, describe the location and existing flue arrangements further.
****Yes, no problem, already a flue there for current combi****(b) Can you provide drainage at the boiler location?
****Yes*****(c) Can you provide mains water supply at the boiler location?
****Yes, already there for current combi****
For this add:
(d) Is there easy access to the existing hot water pipework at the boiler location?
*****Yes, pipework already there****(e) Have you measured the flow rate of your mains water supply? What is it?=20
****No, but quite a powerful supply******Christian.
£350 in SE London if there are no new pipe runs. Half a day's work, so still money for old rope.
Hmmmn....
Locate cold main stopcock & close it, locate suitable drain point for ch and drain it (ideally having run system hot on old boiler to help flush out), locate FCU for ch and turn off, locate gas meter and emergency control valve and turn off[1]. Of course all these items are (a) present (b) accessible (c) work.
Disconnect pipework & electrics, dismantle boiler & remove it. (Are we leaving it with the customer or disposing of it, and if so how's it getting to where it's going? Oh, and how did the new boiler get to the customer's place: we didn't have to spend time in the pm picking it up, did we?).
Lucky the new boiler can use exactly the same flue hole as the old one or we'd have had to spend time putting in a new hole and making good the old one.
Fit new boiler & flue to wall. Redo pipework. Just as well pipe arrangements were standardised back in the mid 21st century - all that faffing about jiggling flow, return, dhw, main, gas and prd pipework between one boiler and another that our grandfathers had to do, what a palaver eh?! Oh, nearly forgot the condensate drain.
Check the gas pipework. Reconnect electrics. They were correctly done in the first place weren't they? nice heat-resistant cable etc. And a room stat, and programmer (or prog stat). Good, no time wasted putting that right then.
Can we reuse the existing filling loop arrangement? It does have 2 isolation valves and a double check as per current regs? And they all work properly? And what about a scale inhibitor?
OK, good, ready to go: fill ch system (with flushing compound, of course: not cheap stuff but lets not spoil the ship ... and it's mandated for the benchmark anyway). Bleed the system, check for leaks. Check boiler installation manual for anything else we need to do in commissioning. And fire it up. Check operation - DHW working OK, CH OK? Then get it all good & hot, and flush it out and refill again, this time with inhibitor (not cheap either but ...). Bleed again, heat up again. Seems to be generally working, so fill in the benchmark book. Need flow & return temps, DHW temp rise at flow rate, gas pressure, gas rate. Test operation of controls, etc etc as per mfr's instructions etc. Explain operation of controls to customer & hand over. Job done.
Wonder what they do on planets with shorter days than ours?
[1] having checked what other gas appliances are connected, and that they're satisfactorily installed because by restoring gas to them later we'll be taking responsibility for them being in a safe condition to leave with the customer
, locate FCU for ch and turn off, locate gas meter and emergency
[1.2]
ROFL
That's assuming that the old boiler was also a combi. So there won't be any HW cylinders to drain & remove. S plan and Y-plan valves to remove.
[1.1] The drain points (on both flow and return) are of course nicely situated over a gully outside, and in perfect working order and don't have disintegrating washers that have fused in place. If indoors they will of course be of the heavy pattern type with the spindle O-ring in good order, and high enough up to get a tray under to catch the odd drip or two. [1.2] Call Transco to come and change the valve because it will only move when a 12" wrench has been applied to it. You can probably still get the old boiler out meanwhile until Transco have come - up to 4 hours for this category of fault. [2] And that will most likely mean blocking up a 300mm sq. hole from the old natural draught balanced flue. That means finding reasonably matching bricks and making up mortar and doing a fair job. Inside you will have to do something to stop the inner-leaf collapsing but ply and timber work OK. You have all this gear and tackle with you. [3] Bearing in mind that the new boiler wants to get its support from more or less just where the old flue hole used to be. [4] Also note that the instruction for the flushing stuff say that you should leave it to run for at least 2 hours. [5] Also the guarantee registration forms usually need to be at least partly filled out with information from the fitter. [6] Whoa there!. There's all those dust sheets we put down to keep the customers new kitchen/hall carpet nice and new, despite the fact that old boiler, was full of rusty water [7], weighed 75kg and was coated in soot. [7] It was not possible to drain the heat exchanger because the 3/4" taper plug refused to move even when you applied 18" Stillsons to it, but that did help to loosen the boiler from the flue and the wall. [8] You got lucky because the huge cardboard box the new boiler came in was taken by the kids and turned into wendy-house/inter-galactic space-ship, saving you the trouble of chopping it up into manageable squares with a bread knife and feeding it into _your_ dustbin at home.
Well I have watched the guy in question replace combi with combi on 3 separate occasions and 4 hours is about the average. Moved flue hole on one. That was at least another 10 minutes, plus another 10 to make good.. Sure, he has some running around to do in preparation for the job but very few people start getting paid the minute they fall out of bed. He has been doing this for over 30 years so I guess he's just got very good at it. Does boiler replacements freelance for the local water board etc. He did tell me, however, that he has given it all up twice in that time. Once because of a hernia, and again after being blasted with hot water in a block of flats somewhere because something that should have prevented it wasn't functioning. Came back into it because of the CORGI gold rush
ld rush
You missed out the bit about making a hatch to get around under floo
and 91 year old customer falling down it neck high. Yes it really di happen to me. Luckily whe was only bruised and was still friends wit me after the flowers.
It's humping those back boilers and ideal e types that customers tak so much for granted that bugs me.
No way can a square hole be made good in 10 mins. I remove old boile day one, brick up hole using quick drying cement and return next day t get on with the rest of the job. How can you do it any quicker? What a I missing?
As the other guys have said, even if you didn't have pipework to alte how can you properly flush old system commission new boiler, flus again, refill with inhibitor (getting rid of all air and traipsin round every rad twice each time, once to open it for draining an second to open it for bleading, and check the other gas appliances an gas supply in less than 4 hours, another 3 hours for pipewor adaptation 15 mins to drill hole (don't forget to aportion the capita cost of the cored drill and diamond core, which only do a finite set o holes). Don't forget to aportion the cost of the flue ga analyser/electronic manometer required to comission many moder condensing boilers properly.
Yes I'm happy to do it for £350 but it's not money for old rope. It i a good days work but I make more money pro rata from the Brittony I that needs it's pilot jet cleaning
-- Paul Barker
I was quoted around £350 for the same job in Birmingham but a couple o
mates that work for british gas fitted it for me for £200 I thought it was a cheap price but considering they were gone b luchtime with a £100 each in their sky rocket they havn't done too ba have the
-- coolblue
Long as you haven't now got a system full of debris and flux you've go a bargain
-- Paul Barker
And considering that you won't be covered by their CORGI registration because they weren't doing the work through their employers books, have no come-back against them, BG or CORGI if something is wrong, possibly have voided the boiler manufacturer's warranty, have contravened Building Regs by not using a contractor able to self-certify, and have probably also conspired to commit tax evasion ...
Owain
We were talking about a straight combi replacement
The last one I witnessed took an hour at most for the pipework, and that included extending it up the wall by a foot and adjusting for the different make of boiler. I guess a lot of this comes down to experience. His pipe bending seemed to be spot on every time, and all the pipework was pretty elegant.
But you'd quote more to start with?
Plenty of people have to work a week for that, and not unskilled people either.
I used to use a guy that only did boiler faults. Nice clean suit and an attache case. Knew his stuff mind, including the electronics. He'd obviously decided the physical stuff wasn't for him.
" Yes I'm happy to do it for £350[/i][/color]
But you'd quote more to start with?- but it's not money for old rope. It is a good days work-"
No, normally go in at £300 which includes pipework and fittings, bu sometimes do it for £200 depending on circumstances.
"Plenty of people have to work a week for that, and not unskille people either."
Been there done that worn the T shirt. Plenty of people urn less tha me plenty earn more. So what. I shoose to do what I do now at th moment I have the choice to do something else later if I wish, I shal take into account earnings when I make my life choices, as must you. Is your point Gas fitters are overpaid? Rubbish, I'm a qualified nurs and made more money at that.
"I used to use a guy that only did boiler faults. Nice clean suit an an attache case. Knew his stuff mind, including the electronics. He'd obviously decided the physical stuff wasn't for him."
Wish I could be that selective, up here where I work we take al comers. On the occasional day we get a combiswap we do well, but som days we drive around all over town and hardly make up the wages of th guy sitting next to us. Not asking for pitty, just trying to redres the balance. In no way is gas fitting in all parts of the country license to print money
-- Paul Barker
and most possbly breached their contracts of employment with BG.
J
I can confirm this situation exists. Our boiler broke down last month, it was covered by an insurance policy (not BG!) so we duly had the engineer out.
As he was attending to the fault we were having a chat. He said that Mon-Fri he is corgi-registered thru his employer, but outside working hours he isn't and he'd have to seek individual corgi membership in order to do odd jobs.
Makes a farce of the legislation doesn't it? Next they will be passing a law that says you are only qualified to drive to the shops between the hours of 9 and 5.
Andrew
Please note that the email address used for posting usenet messages is configured such that my antispam filter will automatically update itself so that the senders email address is flagged as spam. If you do need to contact me please visit my web site and submit an enquiry -
My local "shopmobility" only insures its invalid buggies until 4pm. Anyone who doesn't return it by closing time isn't covered by insurance
-- big warning notice on door.
Owain
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.