to be worried about buying a house with a back boiler?

[Joelysma]

Seen lovely house but has a back boiler in lounge. It's sooo ugly (and is the focal point of whole room) and would really like to be able to change the front for something abit more modern but worried might not be possible. Also, are they any good, reliable, economical etc? I googled it and things about carbon monoxide came up - arghhh! Never come across one of these before and no-one I know has one. Any experience anyone?

Bought house with one 2 years ago. Hadn't ocurred to me it was a problem, but it turned out they didn't make parts for ours anymore, and the company was no longer, and noone would service it. So we had to install a new one for £££££s.

Check what make it is, and if it is still serviced etc. If so then it shouldn't be a problem. Don't see why you can't modernise the front? Have you got an electric bars fire? Sorry can't be of more help.

I rent, but had a back boiler until just before x-mas, when it was changed. Long as it's serviced it will be fine, a bit less economic than a combi but fine.

do do need an air vent in the room it's in.. usually you'll fine air bricks in that room.. make sure these are not blocked.

But it didn't take much for it to be replaced with awhole new combi system tbh when it couldn't be repaired.

ksld-do you mind if I ask roughly how expensive it all was to replace (this is sort of thing that's making me worry!)

and yes it's currently an electric bars front - v old fashoined style and not great as we have a baby...

No idea what a back boiler is and therefore if there is any extra expense but we got quotes recently to change our boiler to a combi and they ranged from £2k to £3.5k.

If you really like the house then why not factor this into any offer you make for it?

YANBU. We unknowingly bought a house with a back boiler (not quite sure how we managed to miss it, we did view the house 5 times and it was a nightmare. Very uneconomical, could not believe the bill when it came in and the noise, well the noise had to be heard to be believed. Sevice charges for the damn thing extortionate and as they're so damn ancient there are very few plumbers left who know how to deal with them if something goes wrong. We eventually installed a new central heating system and it transformed our lives, amazing the amount of room back boilers take up as well. We now have a very spacious dining room.

So yes, be worried

I bought my house almost 2 years ago and it had a back boiler. We looked into modernising it but there was something like a choice of 3 in existence - all utterly, utterly ugly and huge. I was afraid to even turn the fire on as it was so old.

We decided to have it all ripped out and a nice new combi boiler put in and a lovely new gas fire installed. Cost £5000 for it all. That is a huge amount for my budget but tbh it was worth every penny. My living room is so much nicer now and I now get hot water on demand with no setting of timers. Bliss.

We have a back boiler inherited from the previous owners. We cant get a replacement fire part and as we dont use it we disguise our with a much more attractive fire screen thing. The boiler however is absolutely fine though. Our heating bills aren't excessive (we pay £130p/month for gas and electric).
When we had it serviced the plumber hadnt seen one as old and the paperwork aged it at 35 years old. The plumber reassured us that because they are so simple in comparison to modern boilers there is actually much less to go wrong and tend to be easy to fix.
We decided to keep ours for at least a few years (fingers crossed) as replacing whole lot will be a nightmare. Infact we will prob replace with another back boiler when the time comes.
The only problem with ours is the lack of thermastat control meaning heating is either on or off