Have you replaced your heating system?

[HildegardeCrowe]

I live in an old terrace and put in a new combi boiler a couple of years ago. The boiler’s great but the rads must be upwards of 20 years old (there are 11) and god knows how old the pipe work is. I think I have a leak somewhere in the heating system as the boiler pressure keeps dropping and am considering replacing the heating system (rads and pipe work, not the boiler).

I know it’s going to be a big, messy job and would like to know if anyone’s done this and if so how disruptive was it and roughly how much did it cost. Thanks.

We did on the house we're in, we bought in 2019. Needed a complete re-plumb, new heating system, new boiler.

If you don't want pipework running along your skirting, it's quite disruptive. We had it alongside a rewire (and weren't living here) and there were floorboards up in every room.

It cost (I think) £4.5k including a new boiler but excluding radiators - we spent about £5.5 in the end.

And that was 11 radiators too.

Replaced all rads and boiler 6 months ago. Really wasn’t that bad. £2.5k for boiler and labour and then we bought rads from Victoria Plumb (we chose an expensive traditional style so sourced on our own for cashback and credit card points - think about £3k).

We had just moved in so arranged for rads to be removed one week - painted where they would go - and then had them refitted the previous week. Made the future redecorating much easier. Also we’re replacing carpets so the different widths wasn’t an issue.

Not a huge amount of mess made.

Just had the upstairs radiators replaced. They had to take up floorboards and carpets. Did it in a day. 4 radiators. The pipes they were replacing were microbore and the whole system was sludged up.

It was ok as the carpets are coming up anyway as they had to rip them. Probably about £2k. One of them was a fancy new radiator though.

Thanks! I know I should have looked at this before and now I’m having to face it in the middle of winter! I’m not daunted by the costs you quote but am freaked out at the potential disruption. Still if it needs doing it needs doing.

We have a new underfloor heating system and I noticed the pressure was dropping. It has been identified as a leaking pressure valve in the boiler so a new part is in order. May be worth investigating first of all?

As PP says get your boiler checked, ours kept losing pressure and it needed a new part as there was a very small leak, boiler is only 3 years old.

I went from electric to a wet plumbed system last month with heat pump. It can be quite disruptive even in a 2 bed semi total cost was 12k but nearly 8k of that was heat pump. New unvented tank the works was installed. All upstairs carpets had to be lifted and all pipes were surface run in the corners of the room. Top tip is before the new radiators are put on paint behind them.

Thanks for tips re: checking boiler, have someone coming tomorrow. When you say surface run @Wherehavetheteletubbiesgone, does that mean next to the skirting and were they boxed in?