My boiler has packed in terminally and the plumber has suggested going for either a mid range glow worm ultimate 3 or a Worcester bosch greenstar 30i for a considerable amount more. Each have a lengthy warranty and reviews on line seem to favour the Worcester one but that seems to be based on brand name rather than any specific performance benefits. Does anyone have any experience with either of these? Thanks

We have a Greenstar 30CDi, which isn’t the same but I think is the precursor to the 30i?

Had it 5 years or so and it’s been great. No problems keeping house warm and plenty of hot water even when full of guests.

Prior to this, my answer to anything boiler related was Vaillant, but the WB has been good too.

We had a valiant in our rental flat previously and it was forever breaking down. The one that has just broken is a Worcester and it has lasted a good long while with little other than regular servicing but it’s just the significant extra cost that is putting me off getting another one.

I replaced the boiler in my rental recently and went with a Viessmann, after doing a bit of research, and chatting to my boiler man. I’ve used WB previously and that was fine too.

We’ve had a Greenstar 30iCombi for 3 years (replacing a 28cdi that did about 17 yrs). Chose it because the internal layout was supposedly designed to be repaired – things like fan and pressure vessel etc easy to get at / replace.

Internal condensate syphon is clever (stores condensate and then releases in a single big warm wee so it doesn’t freeze in the drain pipe). Can also spec with a permanent filling loop that meets water regs (just pull a little lever if it needs topping up).

Servicing has just been clean the filter and check flue gases.

My pal who installs central heating used to advise worcester but now uses valant so thats what I had fitted. He says they are now the best

Thanks for all the responses. No one any experience with glow worm boilers yet?

Worcester Bosch warranty requires yearly servicing by a WB approved engineer to keep it valid. That’s fair enough but factor in the annual service cost price

Glow worm are made by valiant I thought?

My parents’ Glowworm has been utter crap. Nothing but trouble. My friendly gas servicing person has expressed several times that if he were a little immoral, he’d for nothing but Glowworm as it would guarantee him an income…

He fitted a Worcester to ours about 6 years ago, and it’s been faultless.

just moved from WB to a Viessmann, I was sold on the the stainless stainless steel heat exchanger 🙂

Stop saying Valiant! It’s bloody Vaillant!

Go with the WB one. Parts are usually easier to come by as it gets older and they are more reliable. Mine is 29 years old.

M

Intergas are supposed to be good – simpler and less to go wrong than other types of boiler apparently. I’ve no direct experience though (20 year-old Vaillant here, but it’s really not performing well any more, despite annual services…).

Thanks for the input. Another big bill has made the decision for me so I’m going to take a chance on the cheaper glowworm as it’s such a considerable saving. To be fair the old WB one had plenty of issues over the past 10 years anyway. Fingers crossed it doesn’t cause too many problems but it we’ll see.

I’ve read good things about Intergas re less moving parts equals more reliable and easier to to fix. Does anyone have real world experience?
Also, what are people paying to have a new boiler fitted? Might help to reference number of bedrooms.

How many moving parts are there in a boiler anyway? There is a gas valve and a pump, but not much else – so two or three moving parts, maybe a few more if you include relay’s? I guess combi boilers are more complex and as a result less reliable overall, but these days decent combi boilers are super reliable now. I suspect most peoples problems with boiler reliability is more to do with the broader system and the installation itself rather than the boiler. Yes gas valves can pack in as can circuit boards, but they are relatively easy and cheap to replace and will usually last a good 10 years or so at least before they give up the ghost, but other breakdowns are probably due to incorrect spec’ing of a boiler in the first place, incorrect installation, dirty systems chucking loads of crud at the thing etc.

The in-laws got a cheap boiler installed a while back which started to have issues pretty soon after installation…maybe 18 months to 2 years. Turned out it was due to crud build up in the boiler due to the cheap fittings causing galvanic corrosion with the copper pipework it was connected to. More expensive boilers will use different materials for the fittings to prevent the galvanic corrosion. You’ve got to ask yourself why are cheap boilers cheap. Not everything is down to marketing and milking brand value. There are sometimes genuine engineering reasons why one branded product is more expensive than another.

Having said that I had a Glow Worm boiler in my current house when I moved it. It broke down a couple of times due to a dodgy gas valve after about 15 years of service (about £200 to replace) and a circuit board issue (again circa £200 to replace). It was working fine when I replaced it and it was only replaced as I wanted it re-located when we had an extension built, and it is now not allowed to re-locate older and less efficient boilers, so it was condemned. I then got a Vailant installed which has been fine…have had a couple of issues, but not the fault of the boiler, was a fault of issues with the broader installation (dodgy pump, dodgy zone valve and the timer being taken out by a leaking drain pipe fitting). The boiler itself has not missed a beat.

I guess there might be some logic in getting a cheaper boiler and maybe investing in some form of breakdown plan once the warranty expires. But whatever you do install a magnetic filter if you don’t have one already. Relatively cheap, easy to self service and will protect your boiler.