Boiler installs – why so expensive?

@tomlevell – great post! thanks! have started to look further afield and see whats what!

EDIT: also its a straight install, remove the existing h/water tank and insert boiler, all pipe work is in there except gas pipe, 2 meters out to the wall. did not include flu install out to the roof, that was separate job.

It certainly sounds straight forward.

Also don’t be shy in chasing people for a price. I know you shouldn’t have to but if another 10 people are you’ll be forgotten about.

bear 32 quid was wrong.. need to check invoices properly.. that was for 3..

love the question about the cylinder. replaced a cylinder last week and the client asked if they could have part exchange against it or could they take it to the scrap yard for the cash..

sure said I.. regretably the wholesaler wasnt willing to take a 45 yr old leaking copper cylinder against the cost of a new one..
and the customer didnt want me to leave it in situ for them to remove.

next week i m doing an oil to gas installation although the tank and remaining oil are worth almost 2k we’re having to pay a guy 350 plus vat to shift em..

so, what about a modern electric combi boiler system?

I’ve been looking around the net to try and find some info about them – given that its just the 2 of us out all day and still have a stove to heat the main rooms at night, could it be cheaper to go this route for morning heating and showers? , taking into consideration the upfront cost of installing gas/oil tanks+boiler etc against the higher electricity prices
(and of course i am assuming very little maintenance of the electric boiler + no flu?)

Total. That’s better. Bes are still cheaper though I think. They also would have stock.

so it seems im on some kind of “Total Heating Total Control” dual rate meter, which means i get off-peak rates on my water all the time, and Scottish Hydro control the turn on of my storage heaters (at least this is my understanding of the scheme)

so looking around, i might ditch the gas combi boiler idea, *IF* i am allowed to install either

an electric hot water system I’ll then get a plumber to just make the STOVE run the central heating. ( good for the evenings and overnight )

OR

an electric combi boiler onto this LOW RATE tariff to do the water & central heating and (perhaps) dual link the central heating with the stove too.

I’ll use the storage heaters for morning heat for an hour or so and get one installed in the 2nd bedroom, as the sole one is good to heat the bathroom and our room at the same time.

Thats the theory of course, i’ll need to speak to scottish hydro and find someone up here who installs knows about these types of electrical systems.

Looking online it seems it might be a very cheap upfront costs way to go -and having the stove for central heating too would work out cheaper.

If your disciplined enough to keep a lid on your electric heating and use the stove as much as possible then it makes sense. Make sure the electric heaters have timers and stats
I can only see LPG and Oil catching up with Electric prices rather than getting cheaper and mains gas continuing a steady rise along with electricity.

We used far more electric last winter as with 2 very young children time to light the fire on a morning is more difficult. This year should be easier and hopefully see this part of the fuel bill drop back to the previous years useage.

well well well

after speaking to Scottish Hydro, seems i can install an electric combi boiler and run it on the offpeak rate 24/7 ! that means water and central heating all at 8.24p per unit.

need to look at how much an electric combi is to install, hopefully a LOT cheaper than gas boiler, pipe, tank etc.

electric combi – about 1500 quid to buy a good sized unit (by the way how bigs your house as all the electric combis i found were too small for my house)

fuel at 8.5p (which i see as doubtful btw someones pulling your leg i expect) oil is about 6/7p a litre.

i reckon that even with a tank and fitting youll break even using oil in 3-5 years. and thats being generous with the oil fitting and cheap with the electric fitting. – itll cost more than you think i expect to get electric combi fitted.

i saw figures yesterday that quoted it ll take 10.5 years to pay off installation costs from oil to gas..

surely that depends how close your nearest gas pipe is ? or do you mean LPG ?

2 bed small terraced house

its defo 8.24p i confirmed it twice.
for us gas/oil would also require the cost of a tank, a roof flu install, and if gas (which is prefered) is rental of the gas tanks too.
the quote i mentioned previously is 3200 WITHOUT any of that too…..

didnt realise an electric combi would cost so much to install.

why do you want a combi? Can’t you use a thermal store and heat it up off peak for both water and heating?

as another aside its only £675 to have gas installed to a property that is less than 41 metres from the kerb.. and thats with surfaces re instated

aye if it runs in your street.

how ever if its in a street that isnt the street the properties on but less than 41m from your house its prohibitively expensive.

@bear, water heating is offpeak 24/7 so no need to heat a tank that i might not use.

i cannot find out where a gas line might come into the property without buying some sort of map!

BES compression brass T is part number 9026 at £4.01 each plus £4.95 carriage.
One of my engineers is going to have gas piped to his house as oil is a pain and expensive.Also he has had his tank drained a couple of times, which gets very expensive.

ressurectify :

no chance of gas or oil, just too expensive when its all factored in.

looking at existing STOVE to heat THERMAL STORE, with electric immersion backup. THMERAL STORE will run central heating too = hot water + heating + hot water pressure

OR
Pressured hot water tank + small electric boiler = hot water + heating + hot water pressure, downside is cannot use the STOVE with it (apart from heating the room its in obviously!)

Depending on your lifestyle and where you live some sort of automatic heating is useful so the house can be warmish when you get back from a weekend away and protect from freezing in the middle of winter if you go away.
If you want mains pressure hot water which is far better than tank fed hot water then there are various options.
Dunsley minimizer. This can also link an electric boiler in if required.
You can pressurise a stove heating but needs some other features including a (can’t think what it’s called) cold water dump valve to stop it overheating in an emergency. This could be linked into a thermal store or even an unvented cylinder. It’s not the “normal” way of doing it though.
Use of a Ladomat loading pump is also a good idea.

You need to find an installer locally who does this stuff as it get’s quite complicated and expensive.

tomlevel – thats one of our primary concerns is keeping the system running while away in winter, without having to drain the system. so the solution must run a central heating on a timer, as this cannot be from the stove , there must be some electrical influence somewhere.

Use the correct thermal store and dump both heat sources into it. No need for neutraliser.

We had one of those huge old solid reliable boilers. Got up one morning to find that it had cracked and fallen in to 2 pieces. So yes they do break. Just glad it wasn’t winter

We paid a fortune for our boiled installed, possible £3500. I’m not complaining. I think it took 2 guys 3 days and envolved pressurising the system, floor boards up and and all sorts. I think a huge chunk of the time was flushing the system. It just took forever but my view if it was worth doing it was worth doing well. But the we have never had a leak or any other problems

My mum has had 2 pipe breakages. Both times a nightmare of wet floors and new carpets. Plumming is an integral part of an expensive asset

But i suppose I was lucky that could afford it, it would be much tighter now…

This is interesting view on why so expensive.

Good read that article.

we were all set to sign on the dotted line for thermal store option, when out of the blue the EnergySavingTrust came around and told us the best thing would be PELLET STOVE with fancy timers/controllers to give us central heating when we want it and hot water (still via a tank and will *NOT* give us hot water pressure – so possibly need an electric shower install)

a quick google shows pellet stoves are BIG, small ones are still quite tall (and not especially nice for a main room replacement of our nice old stove) but there is a GRANT available (950quid cashback + interest free loans)

sooooooooooo who has a PELLET STOVE?????????

Stoner has one….

Pellet stoves are great if not big and expensive and if you want to access the grant you’ll need the right installer with the paperwork. (not just the knowledge/training to install them correctly)
Consider
Space for boiler
Storage of pellets
Supply of pellets to boiler manual/automatic
Delivery of pellets
Security of supply of pellets
Servicing costs
Spares costs
Pellet price

A pellet boiler can be linked to a mains pressure cylinder so you can get the pressure you want out of a shower/bth. Probably easier to install with a tank fed HEATING system then trying to pressuise that though.

If you really wanted a green solution then a log boiler is far better in that respect as you don’t have to manufacture the logs.
Pellets are much easier on the continent too as you can buy bags in supermarkets if your stuck.

sooooooooooo who has a PELLET STOVE?????????

My neighbour. Only observations are that you need somewhere to store the bulk and go for auto-feed.

Disagree with you there Tom – go for pressurised heating system, no problems.
Pellets readily available, try to use a Verdo pellet though.
Storage of pellets depends on size of boiler, either blown or hand fed. Outside storage options are now available off the shelf.
You may be able to qualify under commercial RHI scheme generating better returns.
If you use a log boiler you will need more space for plant as you will need more accululators.
You can install pellet boilers with the need for no accumulator with the right system design (have done it successfully)

Can put you in touch with a few people to talk through pellet / log options (mail me timATj-twren.eclipse.co.uk) but be warned they are not cheap to buy or install.

Yes sorry I’ve not done much on pellet other than the odd job that either doesn’t happen or they rapidly move onto a cheaper option.

And yes storage is a problem with any of the Biomass options as is cost.
If I had the space and the money! I’d probably link a pellet and a log boiler together onto accumulators. Pellet for ease and log for when your home and have the time.

I’d just be cautious that any Pellet supply within the UK is such a tiny market that if a supplier goes bust the supply could dry up in area for a while. Probably wouldn’t be an issue but not likely to happen in say the Oil market for a good while yet.

Tom. Yup someone makes a pellet / log stove combination. Think it fires up the pellets to light the logs, then if store needs topping up and no more logs pellets kick in. You could d it with separate appliances and some controls but very expensive.

Don’t think pellet supply will be an issue, too many appliances out there now.
CPL sold their oil side to concentrate on pellets! calor I believe have invested heavily in pellets too

well, ive seen some nice 1m high by 56x56cm pellet stoves that do heating and water, for 2500 inc vat with delivery- would that be just a slot in install replacing current wood stove that has the 4 pipes for heating/water? theres a 950quid rebate from the government for it too.
any idea how much an install would cost on top of that pellet stove price??

To those thinking about replacing their old super-inefficient boiler…

Ours is 21 years old. BG keep threatening that when it goes wrong they may not be able to fix it. Their engineer said the only real thing that can go wrong that isn’t available is the heat exchanger rusting through.

A new boiler will save us a estimated £100 per year (a detached/larger property would see bigger savings). Assuming a replacement cost of £2500 – £3000, that means the payback is 25-30 years! No chance a modern boiler will last that long!

Economically it makes no sense, environmentally it probably does make sense.

Road – what make are they. They will also need to be MCS approved to get any grants etc.

STOVES with back boilers

as per link BEAR

initial over the phone estimate has it as 2000 for the stove/w back boiler and 800 – 1000 install.
then 950 cashback from the government

hmmmm looking promising.

That sounds resonable.
What about builders work/redecorating etc.
Chimney lined if required?
Electrical work?

Also
Assuming it’s manual fill how many pellets can it hold and how long will they last?
Pellet storage?
Have you looked into cost of pellets and delivery. Where are they coming from?

Ours is 21 years old. BG keep threatening that when it goes wrong they may not be able to fix it. Their engineer said the only real thing that can go wrong that isn’t available is the heat exchanger rusting through.

A new boiler will save us a estimated £100 per year (a detached/larger property would see bigger savings). Assuming a replacement cost of £2500 – £3000, that means the payback is 25-30 years! No chance a modern boiler will last that long!

That’s our situation, 25 year old Potterton Nettaheat boiler. The HE did spring a small leak last year, rusted through round drain tap, but it’s not sealed itself again, so I might get a few more years out of it. No idea how efficient it actually is though…..

Tony – be wary of a price quoted over the phone, these things tend to be expensive to install. Ask to see some of their other installations to check on their workmanship.

Sounds cheap considering all the potential work involved. If you need to scaffold to put a liner in that is half of the install cost gone, doesn’t seem right to me.

existing wood burner has lined flue, already have all pipe work from existing stove into c/heating and hot water tank, potentially just need electric hook up for the pellet stove, fitting to existing flue
at least i hope so,
find out tonight!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!