I have a 20 years old Glow-worm Spacesaver wall boiler which works fine, providing pumped CH and gravity DHW. B/Gas 3 star engineers keep telling me the they can "no longer guarantee to be able to source spares"...ie a sales ploy to sell a new boiler. Our local council are supplying discounted high efficiency boilers as a greening initiative, but I reckon the bill will be £2k with fitting and maybe mods to the exisiting system. Any of you experts got any impartial advice ? My gut instinct is to try and source spares for my existing boiler to keep it going as long as possible. What do you think.?
It really depends on how much you are spending on gas. You can probably reckon on your existing boiler being 65-70% efficient at best, against 90% for a new condensing boiler so if you do the swap your bills will probably drop by about 25%. Do the arithmetic and you'll see what the likely payback period is.
Your best way of saving money is probably to ditch the BG *** and find a local guy who will sort out any problems if needed.
Absolutely right. I just fell into the trap and had a Worcester HE40 installed. Subsequently I found I could get spares for the old Gloworm and as for 25% savings with a condensing boiler dream on. OT I installed the randall wireless Tank/Room stat system and its excellent.
It depends on what you started with and the weather.
I replaced a 65% SEDBUK efficient piece of GlowWorm crap with a 90% efficient condensing boiler and the savings average 25-28% for periods of time of equivalent outside temperature.
This was done by making weekly gas meter readings and continuously logged outside temperature readings and the results are quite consistent.
Only direct experience I've heard of and can trust is that of my brother. He had a 20 year old FS RS 80,000 BTU boiler replaced with a condenser, and reckons on a 20% saving in gas usage.
However, had he had to pay for repairs - he's got a service contract, as he had before - the costs would have wiped out any savings and then some. Then there's the question of how long it will last before BG says it's no longer serviceable - as they did with the last one. Doubt it will be 20 years
You have an outdated boiler and system. I reckon it is getting 55% efficiency. If you can get a good deal on new high efficient boiler then go for it. The bills will noticeably drop. Also DHW recovery, using a quick recovery cylinder will be zippo. It may work out more in total running costs to keep the old boiler as you may be nickel and diming it.
I like the Buderus condensing range, the system boilers are ver reasonable cost, and the combis are excellent. Slight problem with siz (BIG) and they are more noisy than most but beautifully engineered and dream to service/repair. They've been at the condensing game over 2 years on the continent where it took off a lot sooner.
For a good condensing system boiler pay £700 or so, for a combi little over a grand. Should be a days labour, maybe a day and a half i certain circumstances. If someone in your area is trying to get £1,00 out of you for a days work give me a call I'll travel anywhere in th country for a days work at half that pay. I charge £300 for a comb swap in my area but I'd need more to travel a long way
I thought they were British from Ipswich. They are mainly know for oilers, not gas. Not a big player in the UK. I know they have been bought out by Bosch and the Ipswich plant is moving production to Worcester's factory. I asume they wanted the oil boiler range, not the gas range.
I like the ease in which even the heat exchangers can be changed. They virtually clip in and out, so no ditching the boiler if the heat echanger fails.
I like the ease in which even the heat exchangers can be changed. They
virtually clip in and out, so no ditching the boiler if the hea echanger fails.
Yes me too. Also the pcb is in a plastic module, you just undo one bi screw and the whole thing pulls off. No taking pictures of all the edg connectors with your digital camera necessary.
The 28kw combi has a small amount of storage; the practical DH performance is the best I have come across from a 28kw combi. Of cours it's only a shaddow of the 40kw Worcester condensing combi, but it's close second, though maybe ahead in the repair situation.
One gripe, I had to buy sensetive equipment (Kane 400) just to comissio this boiler properly. That bugged me, but that's the future, we'll b required to set up gas and air ratios by quite a few more manufacturer in the days ahead
You really need to compare with average temperature data as a minimum to get a meaningful comparison. If the weather is colder than at the equivalent time with the previous boiler then the gas use would be higher anyway. It's no use just comparing quarterly bills.
"Paul Barker" wrote | If someone in your area is trying to get £1,000 | out of you for a days work give me a call I'll travel | anywhere in the country
Unst? ;-)
| for a days work at half that pay. I charge £300 for | a combi swap in my area but I'd need more to travel | a long way.
And would you want your ferry fare and sandwiches additional? :-)
Its useful feedback as input to my planning. Monitoring my return temps don't think I will get much condensing so I'm assuming 15% efficiciency gain. My gas is less than £200/year, not all of it heating, saving £30/year say. The Vokera/Vaillant/Worcester condensing models are £300 more expensive discount. Even factoring in zero DIY installation costs that's
10ish years payback assuming equivalent maintenance costs which may or may not be true. Sorry condensing just doesn't payback for a lot of small system replacement. My advice is get a replacement non condenser while you can.
What's the prices these days? And who is a big stocker? Parts should become easy as they are merging into Bosch. I fear they may drop these gas boilers in favour of the Worcester range. If they do, vested interest triumphs over superior design and make yet again.
There are lots of small makers turning out boilers these days, even Johnson & Starley have a boiler range now.
For DIY I try to avoid recommending these types of boilers simply because of the commisioning equipment and knowledge required.
"Most homes do nothave £200 a year gas bills for full heating and DHW. The average home does benefit from a condensing boiler if changing boilers."
If you look around condensers are now not much more than regular. B&Q are now sell codnesners for around £400 or so. And when most are codensers, maybe they will be more expensive. Regular can be fitted, but a special form explaining why not has to be made out. The guide is pretty strict.
Average payback on an average house with average bills is/was around 3 years. That calculation will change come April.
It's hard to do a meaningful comparison using a conventional boiler for this because the whole principle of control is different.
In the conventional boiler environment, the room thermostat will cause the boiler to fire up and the temperature to rise to the design 82 flow, 70 return or thereabouts. One control loop is the boiler cycling on and off to maintain approximately those temperatures.
With the condensing boiler, the boiler modulates and is striving to maintain the operating temperatures as low as possible consistent with providing adequate heat for the radiators.
Also, the condensing boiler doesn't have to be operating in condensing range to obtain an efficiency increase relative to most conventional boilers.
Obviously this depends on the size of property and the heat loss through the fabric and air changes.
The saving will also depend on the type of old boiler being replaced.
For example, a really old cast iron one may have an efficiency of 50% or possibly even less if in a poor state of repair.
A low water content type of 20 years or so might have 65%.
A conventional boiler purchased today will have 78-80% or so.
This would assume no increase in energy cost over the lifetime of the boiler. We've had typical price rises of 15% in the last year. You are comparing good quality products. This is fine, but the lifetime would be expected to be more than 10 years, probably 20.
That would be a bit short sighted as I see it.....
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