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13 years ago
Condensing Boilers: Daily Mail Article
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13 years ago
Some daft responses from readers (eg the one with the draughty front door)
I had a frozen condensate pipe - so I need to think about re-routing it in the better weather. In the meantime it is working with a by-pass. No reason to condemn the boiler type. Know your system - understand the fault codes - take some responsibility.
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13 years ago
I think teh article itself also contains a load of misinformed bollocks.....but then it is the Daily Mail.
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13 years ago
Probaly not, because plenty of people have been taken in.
Simply in terms of longevity and replacement costs, there is a very doubtful saving. Add maintenance and breakdown costs and there's no comparison.
My boiler has cost me £136 in close on 30 years but sadly, it will have to go soon. :-(
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13 years ago
Not at all. There are plenty of happy owners, even those who had to de-ice once or twice.
However, Daily Mail = Bollocks.
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13 years ago
In message , John wrote
Or get back the highly trained GasSafe engineers to install them correctly!
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13 years ago
Not at all. Ours is fine, the condensate pipe was installed with a good fall, a wide bore, and insulation. Despite very low temperatures, no problem.
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13 years ago
How so?
I suppose it depends on your gas usage. If you have a small well insulated house, any savings in gas bills might not be recoverable. But it's difficult to estimate like for like replacement costs when your old boiler fails since condensers are now the norm.
My estimate is at current gas prices my condenser is saving me 300 quid a year over the original RS one. One more year and it will have paid for itself.
As with the old one, I don't believe in paying out for so called maintenance.
Like all these things you have to buy a decently designed and built one. Fitting the cheapest on the market may mean you pay more in the long run.
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13 years ago
In article , Vortex10 writes
sentence is a dig at NuLab.
The Mail is supposed to be one of the most popular on-line news sites, god only knows why. The level of intelligence required to read it is only marginally more than that required to view page 3 of the Sun.
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13 years ago
But the article was not just about the unreliability and possibly the maintenance cost of the condensing boiler for Mr and Mrs Average but its actual running cost when you expect the efficiency to be at its best. I can only say of the folk we know with a condensing boilers, a little under 25% have had problems involving £200 + parts (circuit boards most frequently mentioned item) and labour bills with 2 in 10 buying a new boiler because the cost of the repair does not appear to make sense. Not one has got details to say 'yes our gas bill has dropped by ££ or know what their fuel usage was before and after and all of them generalise by saying "our bills are smaller now", which should be the case and is what the marketing salesmanship have got then to repeat. I admit I do not know the make and models so it could be a factor here?
At the end of the day the question remains, have any of them recovered the initial replacement costs and ongoing parts replacement after taking out their old but working unit for new boiler?? Not one can confirm they have broke-even but all know it is 'saving them money and 'estimate' they are saving £££'.
Many folk also have beefed up their insulation / draft-proofing, turned down the house temperature etc etc so no longer is it a level playing field for them to justify the actual saving that was down to the boiler.
Gio
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13 years ago
I read it, most of it is true. What do you have issues with?
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13 years ago
That's about the same as mine. However with a heating bill of about £300 pa there just isn't any prospect of getting the cost of a new condensing boiler back, ever! And I doubt if many condensing boilers were actually condensing in the weather we have had in the last few weeks or with the forecast weather.
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13 years ago
Vortex10 :
downside of simply letting it flow out of a short fat horizontal pipe behind the boiler?
(You can tell I haven't got a condensing boiler.)
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13 years ago
It panders to bigots. And bigots with even fewer brain cells than the norm.
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13 years ago
Given the plume from the exhaust on mine, it appears to condense in all weathers.
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13 years ago
No I'm happy with mine also. When installing my Atmos condensing boiler I made sure I had an air break in the condensate pipe within the heated envelope of the house. If the small bit of the 40mm condensate drain that is outside the house freezes (despite the lagging) then the obvious drip from the air break will warn me. Simple really, just a bit of thought. Don
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13 years ago
Plumes mean nothing.. I get a plume from my non condensing boiler when its cold. The cold air mixes in and causes the flu gases to condense making a plume.
What's the return temp, that is what determines how much it condenses.
The only certain way to know is to measure the condensate, you get a fixed conversion between the gas burnt and the amount of water generated. You can actually workout how much is condensed in the heat exchanger where it is useful, anywhere else and it isn't.
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13 years ago
Because they believe they are saving money.
My bill this year. including latest increase will be £500, so I guess I could save £125 ???? Over 10 years, that wouldn't pay for a replacement. I find it amazing that some people now believe that anything over 5 years is satisfactory. Boilers have been cleverly positioned in the same sector are washing machines and dishwashers, which don't have the associated installation costs.
The unnecessary complexity makes it almost inevitable unless you are *very* lucky.
Can't argue with that, one the decision has to be made.
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13 years ago
You are always free to point out the errors of fact in that article, noting that whether the opening line was a dig or not at NuLab the facts will stay the same.
TF
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13 years ago
Just because it's in the Mail doesn't mean it's wrong. What you have done is produce a variant of an "ad hominem" argument.
That said, I'm not replacing my boiler unless I have to. And yet... my Mum was sold a new one by BG, and it seems to be behaving fine. It does have an internal condensate drain though!
Andy