Where to blow a fortune on a boiler?

Hi,

I think I’m giving up with my 11 year old Alpha. The heat exchange is gone and I don’t want to spend any more on it.

Where on earth do I start looking for a new boiler/installation?

Cheers,

Mick

Boxt for a good starting quote.

https://www.boxt.co.uk/

Just had a look on boxt, ‘from £1800’ ended up being £2600- £3k.

Have no idea on how that compares with other companies yet.

Are they a good trustworthy setup?

I used them to get a quote then got it near enough matched by a local firm. Mine wasn’t a straight swap. Going from 40 year old Baxi with cold water tank in attic to combi. So a lot of associated pipework. New flue. Magnetic filter. New controls. Mine was just under £3500 for a Worcester boiler.

What I found was that many Worcester registered installers in my area were very busy. Install took 2 guys 2 long days.  One quote which was near identical for what I got was laughably £2k more. Getting towards £1000 per day labour per guy.

Have heard Boxt use local contractors so presumably anyone who generates regular complaints about jobs will not stay on their list.  So if their price was lowest why not?

Find a local Vaillant installer.

Worcester Bosch may be a popular boiler make but also not a great one with their aluminium exchanger and cost cutting construction

the ~£2600 sounds very fair to me.

how”s your house insulation? Might be a good time to bring that up to spec if it is not already.

since you’re set on a boiler I’ll not suggest a heat pump.

Boxt’s biggest selling point for me was the speed when our boiler failed in January. They had a new one installed (next day) before the local firms could even come and quote (let alone the 2 week wait for installation)!

We’ve switched from Vaillant to Ideal on advice from a Gas engineer mate . Vaillant quality has dropped off recently, Ideal offer a 12 year warranty, though you do have to have it serviced annually.

word of mouth, the two plumbers i know have always stuck to vailliant / worcester bosch / ideal .

yearly service and they run well,

he’s given up with cheaper brands, as long term they end up costing more when fixing with expensive replacement parts, the better brands have far cheaper parts.

I’m all for new shiny things but have you had a quote to repair your Alpha boiler? it might not be ideal but it wont cost the earth to replace the H/E, what else is wrong with it that makes you not want to spend any more money on it? IME, new boilers can and do fail, the money you spend is more for the warranty than any reliability over and above the first couple of years. You still get the inconvenience of the boiler not working though. If the H/E has failed, are you in a hard water area? Do you have an in-line filter fitted?

FWIW, I replaced the H/E on a Warmflow boiler tail end of last year, £60 delivered and i fitted it, 4x compression fittings.

It’s the heat exchange which Alpha quoted me £600 to replace. I figure it’s not worth doing on something so old.

Our Vokera gave up 2 weeks ago. Thursday morning cold shower was the last straw. Made a brew and reopened my quote on heatable. Got a Worcester Bosch Green Star 4000 30kw fitted next day for £2445 all in on 2 years interest free.

Really happy overall considering.

Marry an ugly woman 😉

Local plumber replaced our boiler last year with an Ideal (he recommended based on our requirements of not-rubbish and not excessively expensive). It cost us about £3k.

We found him by asking friends for recommendations – had to wait for 3 weeks for installation but happy with that (although it was last January).

I figure it’s not worth doing on something so old.

11 years isn’t very old. Depends what else has gone wrong in the past but if not much then I’d be looking to fix it.

We recently moved in to a new house with 4.5 year old Vaillant boiler. Part went, warranty repair was very efficient. But looking online it’s clearly a part that goes repeatedly (so either a design flaw or manufacturing issue) and the warranty only holds while you get an annual service from a Vaillant registered person. The previous owner paid for the extended 8 year warranty, thankfully. Even the brands most renowned for quality, you’ll pay extra over the years. It’s a reality of the throw-away economics we live in unfortunately.

“Cheap brand” and devices burning explosive gas.  2 terms I’d never want next to each other !

It’s up there with ‘Temo’ and ‘parachute’ ☠️.

Heatable, like Boxt but cheaper. Fitter was great, done in half a day,  2 days after boiler exploded. New WB for a 5 bed house, think it was £2300 all in inc adjusting the flue and all inlet/outlet pipes to boiler. Tidy job too.