Boiler installs – why so expensive?

getting a gas boiler install quotes, as our wood stove isnt up to winter heating, and no central heating in the morning either!
so a simple install – copper pipe to outside to gas bottles, connection up to existing central heating system.

yet to get a quote below 3100 quid (1250 for boiler, rest is labour and 300quid for a powerflush)

ouch!

and yet you see B&Q have boiler + 5 rads for 799 !!!!

wtffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff

Just DIY and get someone to check it and give you a Corgi Certificate. They’re pretty easy to install if you can do basic DIY and plumbing….

might be easier with gas to do that footflaps

ive just done that(with the help of a plumber) with an oil boiler ….can i find an oil qualified dude to commission it…. no.

Everyone i spoke to says – they are looking for someone oil qualified as well ….. seems only the big companys round here deal with oil and they are not interested in a piddly wee job.

not all boilers are equal either tony …. 799 for a boiler and rads …. my boiler was near 2 grand at trade.

footflaps – Member
Just DIY and get someone to check it and give you a Corgi Certificate. They’re pretty easy to install if you can do basic DIY and plumbing….

This. We know a CORGI registered guy that’ll did one a Saturday morning in 4 hours for £1400 including the supply of a Bosch (Valliant) boiler….

ive just done that(with the help of a plumber) with an oil boiler ….can i find an oil qualified dude to commission it…. no.

Speak to your local building control department. You should be able to do it via a building notice. You’ll pay a fee and they’ll inspect the work. Bit more of a faff but probably a damn sight cheaper. Basically the advantage of the ‘competent persons scheme’ such as OFTEC is that they can self-certify that you meet regs.

Speak to your local building control department. You should be able to do it via a building notice. You’ll pay a fee and they’ll inspect the work.

Good point. I’m doing that with the electrics for my workshop, building control have a standard £190 fee for inspection / certificate.

B&Q have boiler + 5 rads for 799 !!!!

A boiler that’s got 25 year old internals and radiators that will rust through and leak within 3 years (max)

There are some very, very good reasons those packages are cheap.

A boiler that’s got 25 year old internals and radiators that will rust through and leak within 3 years (max)

My boiler is 25+ years old and still works fine!

It might do, but a 25 year old boiler will gobble gas and be a time bomb waiting to fail….

I bought my baxi gas backboiler 22 years ago second hand! It’s been ultra reliable. Every year the gas guy services it he recommends I get a new economical boiler then grumbles about the old back boilers going on forever. My gas bills are not discernibly more than anyone elses I know.

Closed shop innit so as long as they all agree they wont do it for less than £1 k we have to pay it

As other note not that high a skill level though you would want it checked

@junkyard – your right on the money there….

It might do, but a 25 year old boiler will gobble gas and be a time bomb waiting to fail….

Got any evidence to back up either of those sweeping generalisations?

From what I can tell it’s been a lot more reliable than anyone else’s boiler that I know. In 15 years I’ve replaced the control board and pressure sensor. My Parent’s multi £k brand new boiler has been through 3 control boards in as many years…..

As for efficiency, a new boiler might be 5-10% better efficiency, but no more.

“As for efficiency, a new boiler might be 5-10% better efficiency, but no more.”

depends how efficient your old one was no ?

my old one was 61% efficient(annoyingly the wrong side of the rebate schemes cut off…) – new one should be in the 90s…..

with not having gas or oil, is there any advances in modern electric heating / hot water that would be much cheaper install?

depends how efficient your old one was no ?

Of course. No idea what the efficiency is as I can’t find any figures for it. However, from what I can tell mine doesn’t seem that bad as the exhaust isn’t that hot (for a 16kW Boiler) and my gas bill is only £600 / year for a 1890s Victorian terrace with gaping holes between floor boards…

jaysus, we had a new boiler and had it moved to another wall for £1700 all in.

@monkey_boy – who was it and do they want a trip up to the north of scotland for a day for an extra 500quid!
🙂

Why do you want LPG? Can you use biomass.

does biomass give you ondemand hot water and heating though? and what about leaving the system for a few weeks on hols in deep winter?
that is why wer were looking at lpg boiler

lpg – doesnt that work out at the most costly of all the off the grid fuels ?

here is the chart i worked off
cost per kwh[/url]

not as good as oil, but when you dont have mains gas, its way better than electricity and way more flexible than a wood stove, and, you dont have to light a fire just to have a shower
(and using a boiler gives us mains pressure hot water!)

I’m watching this carefully, I have an old back boiler that I either need to service or replace, it’s not in an ideal place as there is a ‘box’ built for it on the side of the chimney in the lounge, there is plenty of space for a new boiler in the airing cupboard at the top of the stairs, but then the gas feed needs to be re-routed, all my rads are showing a little rust and all the pipe work running to them is surface not chased in.

I’m not great at DIY so don’t want to take on more than I can and I’m also not certain a new boiler would be any better than my existing old school boiler. Plus if I can help it I’d rather not spend a fortune on a new boiler and all the associated work.

You can get modern condensing back boilers now.

@toby1 – thats the same position as me exactly, except we dont even have a gas mains, and a small garden that wont look nice with big lpg or oil tank, hence gas tall bottles.

burying a bunded tank an option ?

thats next years project for me if im allowed to do it.

and a small garden that wont look nice with big lpg or oil tank, hence gas tall bottles.

You can get ‘mini’ bulk tanks that don’t stick out too much (and you can argue 4 x cylinders don’t look pretty!). The siting of them isn’t as stringent as the larger tanks so they can be next to a boundary. The gas prices are cheaper than cylinders.

RT – yes you can get a biomass to do that no problems. holidays also no problem.

Pellet boilers are as flexible as nearly any other boiler with the right specification, and admittedly wallet on some occasions.

I would rather have oil than LPG too as cheaper per kw.

Gas suppliers will often install the bulk tank for virtually nothing, although with LPG the siting of tanks or bottles is usually a nightmare.

As always , pays yer money. I wouldnt even contemplate the B&Q specials. Mate is a boiler engineer and he only fits Baxi and Worcester boilers when he quotes. You could get a cheaper boiler, but he wont fit it. Our old boiler was a cast iron job that was a second hand one he fitted a few years earlier, but we are now saving money with gas prices rapidly rising and should repay itself sooner than I thought ( mates rates) Also you must consider a power flush of the system at the same time, as any warranty for silting of the heat exchanger and heating efficiency will be lost.I used to regulary flush out and put new inhibitor in our system, but even he was surprised how much muck we got out the rads when proper flushing.

In answer to the original post.
Have you seen how much childrens shoes cost.
Gas Safe Registration including doing all your domestic gas AND LPG qualifications every 5 years.
Insurances
Van
Diesel especially if you live out in the sticks away from the merchants.
Office
Profit or is that a dirty word
Registering boiler with gassafe
Computer to register boiler with gassafe
Gas testing equipment which also needs servicing every year
Other specialist tools including core drill bits
Wiring boiler to current electrical standards
Controls to building regulations
Have you seen how much bikes cost.

Yes £3k sounds a bit steep but is it really that simple a job?
You currently don’t have any Gas at the boiler location.
Water?
Where are the heating pipes?
Where is the power coming from?
Where do you live?
Plus putting the boiler and gas pipework in yourself will mean any gas engineer who’s worth employing won’t touch it with a barge pole to pass it for you.

burying a bunded tank an option ?

thats next years project for me if im allowed to do it.

Don’t bother they are desperatley trying to ban the installation of underground oil tanks, which you can still buy). If you ever have a problem it’ll be a BIG problem.

Oh and running an electric Amptec boiler here alongside the stove which is linked into the heating system. Electric boiler used for conveniance (early morning and holidays) and the stove should do most of the work the rest of the time. Cheapish to buy and install but not so cheap to run to heat the house.

As @Junkyard says – closed shop

@tomlevel – I see your list but even assuming it’s a 2 day job that’s £100,000 a year with 12 weeks holiday

Nowhere near a closed shop.

If only I could earn a quarter of that with all that holiday I’d be happy.

Does it not cross your mind that there are overheads and down time to take into consideration.

tomlevell contender for most sensible post of the year. Lots of people on here in cloud cuckoo land with regards to how much to pay a skilled tradesman.

As for ‘closed shop’ – do you really believe that? Smells of utter pish to me. 😕

Some people seem to think if you pay someone £200 a day they are earning £200 a day. They’re not.

ok hands up I’m an installer..

straight combi swaps start at 1150 which take a day and i clear about 350 on.

take from that my running costs of 375 a week.. ( yes it costs that much to run and buy a van insurances tools phones ( £64 for bt and 7.50 to talk mobile a month) qualifications ( renewing my ACS this week 865..)accountant, advertising 85pw gas safe hetas memberships postage stationary etc etc)

average boiler change in the last 12 months would be circa 1700, most expensive i ve done is 3875 but the boiler alone cost me 1700 plus 175 for controls 85 for magnatec and 500 quids worth of copper and fittings.. one 28mm brass compression T piece cost 32 quid..and it took 5 days.. and was a 60 mile round trip each day

normally average 5 boilers a month.. boiler sales this year industry wide are 10-12% down I ve lowered prices to the bone to take money and am level on sales quantities but down on sales value by about 15%

central heating is unsurprisingly very seasonal.. starts first week of sept ends last week of april..

this is probably the most expensive time of year to be contemplating this work and i’d delay unless its a distress purchase..

frankly messing about doing full installs and bespoke work is not work for this time of year, the season is short and i have to maximise my potential income which i cant do tied down to anything other than straight forward work as the more complex and involved the work is the more time it takes and the less viable it becomes..

Total – not heard of BES? Delivered to your door!

I have an excellent deal with my local supplier.. everything delivered to site FOC, all SOR, pay by cc every friday at no extra cost, price matches any body who will do same..

But £32 for a 28mm compression tee, unless it wasn’t a standard tee?

As @Junkyard says – closed shop

@tomlevel – I see your list but even assuming it’s a 2 day job that’s £100,000 a year with 12 weeks holiday

LMAO to both

Closed shop – not a chance everyone wants jobs. The one man bands seem very busy which may reflect in their prices especially at a local level. Although in other areas there may be next to no work.

2 day job – You’d be going well to do that along with making sure it’s linked in correctly to the stove system and the sparky does his job properly and the boiler is working correctly and the LPG tanks are on site and the regulator is the correct type then factor in being called back because there is a leak/fault/controls problem.

I dare say the OP could get it cheaper for a correct install but they may need to hound a few more plumbers to site and chase them for their prices. Try a company rather than an individual too.

Check for LPG qualified installers in the area on the gassafe website and look further affield to nearby towns and cities. I’d work up to 50 miles away depending on the area. Fairly pointless travelling to say Newcastle or Leeds for a small domestic job as there will be loads of contractors locally looking for that work anyway.

Thinking about replacing my 20 year old one soon, fair point at it now being peak season though – do install prices go up that much over winter? Also I’ll likely change to a combi so my hot water tank will become redundant, should I expect a bill for the installer to take it a way or as it’s copper should that mean they take it for free/give me money back? Also are the magnetic filter things a must-have these days and if so what’s the best brands?