I'm hoping someone can give me a definitive answer about condensing boilers. My Mother has been told by a couple of plumbers that it is a legal requirement to have a condensing boiler is she changes her current one.
I seem to remember from this ng that if you live in a flat (which she does) then the requirement is waived.
Can anyone confirm either way please? She's being told that as she is on the top floor she is going to need scaffolding erecting to get this job done.
Sounds like someone is on the make to me but you are the experts!
The exemption formula is worked out on a points basis, with 1000 points being required to allow replacement with a non-condensing boiler. A mid-terrace house starts with a points score of 640, and a flat with 710. Moving the boiler to a different room with an outside wall (usually the kitchen) incurs another 350 points. If the property has cast-iron drainage pipes - which would be damaged by the acidic discharge from a condensing boiler - then it would be necessary to install a soakaway at ground level to accept the condensate, and this adds 100 points. Should the new boiler position require a flue longer than 2 metres, this adds another 200 points. So in many cases the 1000 points total is easily achieved, and a replacement conventional back boiler would be perfectly acceptable.
It is a requirement to replace a standard boiler with either a condensing or combi one.
From memory.
Contact the local building control department and have a chat with them, as I believe that there are some exemptions from fitting condensing/combi boilers where it would be impractical to do so - and a like-for-like replacement can be undertaken (a fairly rare occurance).
Scaffolding would depend on the height of the building (especially if a block of multi-storey flats) and obstructions. But the cost of this could be exorbitant in relation to the cost of the bolier replacement, and could be grounds for an exemption - and a like-for-like replacement of the existing.
Could be, but not always, as it's now unlawful under the HSE regs to do most work over 2.5 metres off a ladder - and if there are problems with sloping ground, outhouses, conservatories, balconies etc that would make ladder work dangerous anyway, then scaffolding would be the only safe option.
As a matter of interest, a few weeks ago, a local plumber fitted a boiler in the attic of a neighbours two storey house and drilled the hole for the flue (a few feet down from the ridge on the pine end), along with holes for the gas feed and vent pipe all from a ladder with no problems,
The legal requirement is that the boiler has a minimum seasonally adjusted efficiency (unless exemption can be met on the points based system). The level of efficiency required basically can only be achieved by a condensing boiler. So while actually being condensing is not specified as a requirement, the limits are set so that is the only viable option.
The point about it being "or a combi" or otherwise however is a complete red herring. The boiler can be a heating only, system, or combi - it does not matter. All types are available as condensing boilers.
Full details can be found in the Domestic heating compliance guide:
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> Can anyone confirm either way please? She's being told that as she is
Alas the cost does not directly allow exemption.
Some boiler flues etc can be drilled from inside - and some do not need any outside work to make good.
Thanks everyone, very useful. I don't think it's fitting the flue that's a problem, possibly fitting the condensate drain? I would guess that they are thinking of putting the drain through the wall, down the roof and into the guttering (plastic) perhaps?
In this case John, I will bow to your knowledge, as plumbing and boilers aren't within my field of experience [1] (hence the reason I rarely comment on such work) and I was commenting generally rather than specifically on the fact that there are exemptions, and the possible access difficulties on multi-storey flats to carry out some of the work - and thanks for supplying the link (which has now been downloaded and saved for reference at a later time)
[1] Open coal fires were all the rage in my time - and a damn site cheaper and less complicated to install and maintain. LOL
I had a new boiler fitted in a first floor airing cupboard. No easy route for the condensate pipe to get outside, so I had a condensate pump fitted which pumped up into the loft space and the out through the facia board into the (plastic) gutter.
Worked fine until all the snow earlier this year, when the gutters filled with snow up to and over the outlet of the condensate pipe and the whole lot froze up! Fortunately the pump had an overfill cutout that turned the boiler off. Since rerouted the condensate outlet across the loft and into a soil pipe.
As John Rumm and others have pointed out the regulations strongly favour condensing boilers with exemptions permitted on a points basis.
Where is your mother's existing boiler? If it's on an outside wall with a massive tin-box flue through the wall many floors up then a major difficulty involved with replacing it with any new boiler - condensing or otherwise - will be what to do with the existing flue. One sometimes sees old flues left in place in these situations (presumably/hopefully blocked up from the inside) and a new boiler flue situated elsewhere.
Fitting a condensing boiler is not a lot harder than fitting a conventional-flue one: there is the condensate drain to connect up but push come to shove a condensate pump at under £100 will sort that. (And/or an acidity-neutralising gadget - I think Sentinel do one - should cover the installer's backside if the waste has to go directly into a metal waste pipe e.g. cast-iron soil stack.)
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