Which Condensing boiler and do I need one

I had a leak on boiler, put new pipe and fittings, on and its caused another 2 -3 leaks, the original has stopped, I have had a plumber look and he said I could be chasing round the boiler putting new pipes, seals etc and they are just going to start leaking at the old ones that havnt been done, the boiler is a Baxi and I have a fair bit of spares for it, do I go round change all O rings fibre washers etc, and piping or get a new boiler, its around 10 years old.
If I go for a boiler which would you recommend its a large 3 bedroomed semi. I am probably stuck between worcestershire or valiant at min.

If it’s a 10yr old boiler in a large house like that, a modern condensing boiler will pay for itself very quickly.

HTH, APF

2k for boiler install?
Boiler 10% more efficient?
Gas bill of 600pa?
Saving 60 a year, long time claiming back 2k.

Im with bear on that one

Ours was 35% more efficient on paper and provides better hot water capibility than the old one

Our old one was drastically undersized it appears ! 22kw . Current ones 28-32 and coping much much better

Seem to be using half the oil we used to !

Just (last week) had a Worscester 24ri condensing boiler installed to replace a 10yr old leaking & problematic Baxi.
Boiler = £750 with a 5 yr warranty (if installed by end Dec) & £600 for installation.
No more boiler problems 🙂 (hopefully …)

We had our hideous old wreck replaced with a Potterton condensing boiler. Been pretty good. If you crunch out the sums and take into account gas price rises, it’s getting through half the gas of the old one.

I misread the thread title as ‘which condescending boiler’ and thought it was about internet dating.

As you were.

Don’t forget green deal potential.
You may be able to get back some of the expenditure if your old boiler is non condensing. Gas boiler i think would be roughly £270 back. worth looking at

Graham correct me if im wrong but in scotland at least you had to have a really antiquated sytem to qualify …..less than 59% efficient ….even my condemned wreck was 61% by the book

Also i got more than 270 back i. Scrap value for what i took out 😉

Ours paid for itself in a couple of years although the old one was extremely poorly. All it was good for was heating up the boiler cupboard.

The new one is fricking ace, very efficient. Of course, because British Gas installed it, it breaks every winter when the pipe freezes but as long as you use someone else who knows what they’re doing you’ll be fine.

not sure what the Scottish version is but the basic deal in England is to replace non condensing <85% as a rough guide as define by the SAP 2005 ZEDBUK database, with a condensing boiler. You can also get cash back for upgrading control unit

We just replaced a vintage 1988 Sime Halstead that gave up on us… One of the controller boards failed. Replaced it with a condensing Worcester Greenstar 29cdi Classic. It was mentioned when the previous failure was diagnosed that it was undersized for our house and number of radiators. Took that with a pinch of salt…

However, the difference with the new one is amazing! The radiators are nearly too hot too touch if you have the boiler set at mid range and the hot water now has pressure and comes out really hot, very quickly…

Had to turn it all right down now as it is far more effective at heating the house…

Got a Worcester combi boiler fitted 9 years ago can’t fault it – just make sure you get the waste condense pipes run internally / trace heated / well insulated to prevent condense freezing & backing up into the boiler during cold snaps 🙁

You’d need a drafts McMansion to be exceeding 22kW’s…

However modern condensing boilers are actually more efficient at lower loads (30% I think?) due to increased condensing I presume.

What’s more likely is a new boiler will have much better controls (think you now have to put in a 7 day timer) and a room stat to hold off the boiler when it’s not need is definitely going to save fuel.

If you have a combi boiler then yeah a ~30kw unit makes sense though as instanteous hot water load could easily be as much as 50!
Worcester Bosch have a good rep but PCB’s can fail on any boiler. And they ain’t cheap to fix!

“However, the difference with the new one is amazing! The radiators are nearly too hot too touch if you have the boiler set at mid range and the hot water now has pressure and comes out really hot, very quickly…

Had to turn it all right down now as it is far more effective at heating the house…
“

Yup thats our experiance too … was a boulter economy 70 that had had its burner changed for non standard one and was pumping as much oil fumes into my garage as it was heat into the house…..

Swaped it out for a grant vortex pro 26-32kw combi in the back garden and the radiators are scalding hot within minutes of it coming on and it can reach temperature quickly instead of struggling to actually get any heat into the house as it spent most of the morning heating a tank of water that we wouldnt use 😀 – we always had a 7 day programmer – it too is worth its weight in gold !

i suggest you also look at insulating your house while your at it – that can make an even bigger difference.

*hijack alert*

I want to go from my cheap nasty system (as installed on a 2006 house) to a condensing combi. I want to put the combi in the loft to get some extra space – can I run the gas supply up the redundant boiler outlet pipe as far as the airing cupboard to save having to pull up all of the upstairs floors? (subject to suitable pressure testing / flushing)

*hijack alert*

Make sure whatever you get done is done by a fully qualified gas safe engineer & in answer to your question – I doubt it very much, sizing issues, ventilation issues etc etc

Our external Grant oil boiler technically very good, 51/2 years down the line now having to replace it as it has split its jacket. Not a happy bunny

Oliverd1981…You need to make sure the gas pipe is correctly sized for the input rating of the boiler (inlet working pressure) Modern high output combi’s can draw a fair amount of gas & in some cases will not work correctly if theres not enough pressure.
You also need to board the loft for access to the boiler, provide lighting, a ladder & by rights a safety rail around the loft hatch. A lot of companies including mine will not work on a boiler in the loft unless the above criteria is met.

Mmm dont like the sound of that graham . Wht happend to it ?

had it serviced every year. Noticed drop in pressure, thought it was down to a faulty air valve, changed that kept loosing pressure, turn out that the jacket had split just outside of the warranty. Jacket replacement cost £1100 plus fitting.

jebus

out of cuiriousity were you running an inhibitor in the system ?

my uncle whos a heating engineer in manc was up recently and in a drunken state got all work on me and was explaining the virtues of double dosing on the inhibitor as you can never have enough inhibitor in your system !