Talk to me about combi boilers

[WidowWadman]

Well, I kind of already know I want one, as we always had them, but the house we recently bought only has a conventional one of unknown age which seems very inefficient and space consuming for our needs. How much should we budget for a change? How does one go about finding reasonable plumbers etc?

I live in a different country but I know there are loads of grants and help available in the UK to phase out low efficiency boilers. I'd advise you not to do anything until you're clear on those as you may miss out.
FWIW we have a Chaffoteaux and it's brilliant. It thinks for itself (Oh, nobody's used me for 24 hours, I'll go on standby!) and is very cheap to run. We also have maintenance and 24 hour repair call out for peace of mind.

We've replaced boilers in our flat, and our last one actually, for a new combi. Think it cost between £2-2.5k all-in. For current flat, we went with someone recommended by several neighbours, who was brilliant. Previous flat, we found someone on one of those check-a-tradesman type websites.

Don't go with British Gas, whatever you do! Their quotes were ridiculously high (2 or 3 times higher than anyone else).

we've had a Worcester Bosch put in and all seems excellent. I think we paid about £4K but we had a lot of moving of pipes etc., as well. Very pleased with it 4 years on.

My mum has an ancient, apparently energy inefficient behemoth of a boiler. I have a combi boiler.

Given the choice, I'd have my mum's ancient system any day. The house is well insulated, so the boiler doesn't have to actually work that hard. It rarely breaks, but on the rare occasions it does, she's never short of hot water as the hot tank has a separate immersion heater.

I always have hot water, but the pressure isn't amazing enough for a really powerful shower. Her shower is fabulous (and probably very wasteful).

Oh, and because if the hot water cylinder, she has a lovely toasty airing cupboard for all her towels and bed linen.

Mine's worcester and I like it.

Thanks for the replies. We've got an electric shower so not too worried about that aspect.

We've got a Vaillant – it's very reliable, had it for ten years with no problems, and very cheap to run. I think it was around £1500 then.