Is this combi boiler quote for elderly mum reasonable?

[pishkashante]

Hi, my mum’s combi boiler (about 13 years old) has broken down and British Gas have provided her with a quote for a new one. It’s about £4k and I wanted to get your views on whether this is reasonable as we haven’t done this before.

Combi Boiler : £1,300
Installation: £1850
Tailored extras: £800

Total: £4k.

I have attached a pic of the details.

Mum is in a 3 bed semi, with 8 radiators (which will not be changed) and the plumbing was all renewed 10 years ago. The boiler will be installed in the same place.

Thanks in advance.

We’ve just had to change our boiler (in the last 3 weeks). We had a boiler cover deal with SSE so got a £400 discount on the new one. 3 bed detached with 8 radiators. We were quoted around £3600 including discount) for a Worcester boiler (Worcester are a premium model) including some of the extras your mum’s been quoted for. We opted for an “Ideal Logic” which ended up costing us £2667 including discount and 10 year warranty. We’re in Aberdeen where the water’s soft so don’t need the filters that you need in hard water areas and didn’t need any work done on the flue (but would have with the Worcester. We also got the Hive which your mum may not need.
You could ask if the Worcester is the only model available, or look at Corgi Home Heat (they did ours) online to see what kind of price they’d do a new one for.
Someone will be able to beat £4K.
Good luck

I'm mid 70's but don't qualify for any help for a boiler. I had a quote from BG last year but left it in part due to the hot summer.When I put the boiler on mid Oct it was noisy and in it's 20th year. BG gave me a quote and I wanted the Bosch. The discounts given in Feb were added, the cost of the boiler was spread over 4 years. The engineer was on time, the local refuse service arrived at midday to remove all the rubbish. BG came out and rebalanced the radiators. It's costing 80% of the previous usage in gas, I no longer need to put an electric fire on if it's cold. It heats up quickly and the hive is useful. It cost £3,000. I think you can buy the boiler and accessories for £2,000 to £2,200.

We’ve just had a glo worm installed, £2.5k with 10 yr warranty, local gent.

We had a Baxi fitted last March. Really happy with it. Fitted by a local Baxi approved installer. Different to your mum, as it was swapping the traditional type to a system boiler (combi wouldn't be powerful enough in our house), and included installing a couple of bigger radiators.
Paid £3,500.
British Gas tried to sell us an underpowered Combi for nearly £5000.

Have a look here for Baxi approved installers in your mums area. www.baxi.co.uk/find-an-installer/installers#installer1_q=hounslow&installer1_r=5&installer1_s=0

I'd also advise getting a BOXT quote. They replaced our combi last year and it was £2850

I've looked at my quote which is £900 less
My discounts were £350, the installation costs were cheaper but am in the SWest.

Does she even have WiFi then? Pointless having a hive if she doesn't.

Just had my conventional boiler replaced and BG were most expensive by about £400, however they were able to fit the next day so we went with them.

My partner is a gas engineer and would say, yes that is a reasonable quote.

That’s very expensive. A lot of the extras are unnecessary. BOXT will definitely be cheaper. We have a 3 bed semi and were quoted around £2k to replace our boiler through Boxt.

My boiler replacement was £2400 so it seems quite high.

I'd shop around.

We used the British Gas Local Heroes scheme. Local tradespeople do the work, but it is backed by BG warranty etc.

we had BG out to do a quote and the guy was terrible, he didn’t even bother sending us the quote and was moaning that everyone used the Local Heroes scheme
so it wasn’t worth his while being there. He didn’t recommend it to us but we looked it up and it met our needs. No complaints, haven’t needed to use the support element but we’ve been impressed.

This. Get an alternative quote. They were fantastic for us. We paid not much than that for a much larger, more complicated system.

And if you're paying £4k you'd want a 10 year warranty.

Boxt are an absolutely appalling company. God knows why people rave about them. Check companies house out. They are millions in debt and farm all the work out to sub contractors who just bang the boilers in and don’t flush the systems correctly.

Worcester Bosch have an accredited installer scheme; Boxt are not one. If you go into Worcesters website it will give you the details. The quote from BG is ridiculously high.

Last time I had a boiler put in I got a quote from BG and they quoted double what every else did. I’d shop around.

This is true. My Mum went with BG and was happy with it.

She had Hive installed so I can control her heating too. She doesn't have a smart phone but can call me to pop the heating on if she is out.

She finds controlling the heating from her iPad or the hive unit easy.

I paid about £3k, three years ago so it doesn't sound unreasonable to me. Also it's really really hard to get plumbers and gas engineers at the moment, so they're going to charge a premium right now I should imagine, supply and demand.

Second Worcester Bosch. Got a couple of quotes from accredited engineers via their website and had one of them instal it. He also does the yearly service. BG are renowned for being expensive.

We've just paid £3.5k in London. Not a great winter for us either as ours broke too

I've no idea about the prices in the quote, but just wanted to say that I had that boiler in a flat with a similar number of radiators and it was fabulous. Instant hot water, heated the radiators in no time at all, simple to use. Can't ask for more than that from a boiler!

Shop around for sure.

We had a new boiler fitted 3 years ago. Bought the boiler (combi for a 5 bed house) online ourselves and paid an independent gas engineer to fit it. It cost about £1.5k all in.

i meant to add earlier; materials price for boiler and flue is about right. A mini expansion vessel is a shock arrestor so that’s hugely over priced. Installation cost at £1113 is ridiculous. A combi swap takes a day or a day a half at most.

My partner fits replacement violets for about £2,300 in the North West.

I'd get someone else out to quote. Is there a reason it needs replacing rather than repairing?

Just over a year ago after recommendations on Mumsnet I went with BOXT, total including Nest Learning Thermostat which is great, £2,350; British Gas quote was for nearly £4000.

Bosch part owns BOXT.

I'm in London.