Survey came back with very old boiler

[Cocochoc67]

We've had our survey come back and the boiler is very old and it states it will need replacing in the near future. Would you ask for a reduction based in this? I hate to do it - is there any middle road? I'm not confident the boiler would even heat the whole house.

I wouldn’t reduce it for you-sorry. It’s working. It may last 5 more years.

For me it'd depend, would you still go ahead if they say no?
Could you afford to replace it without a reduction? If so, would you prefer no stress, or are you happy to have a bit of hassle to save the money?

If we'd had this with my current house I wouldn't have asked because they had lots of offers and round here houses sell instantly so it isn't worth causing a fuss if it's not a huge deal. With my first house in a less desirable area and when I was really scraping by with money yes I absolutely would have.

It's not a huge deal for us with the money. I just wanted to check I wasn't being a total mug by asking!

How old is very old?
My boiler is at least 21 years old and still works fine and heats the house. It is not very efficient now but is in good working order and gets an annual service

Old boilers tend to last a heck of a lot longer than boilers made today. You might want to find out when it was last serviced though. How much is the house costing?

Sorry, should say by not asking.

Depends upon how much you're planning to reduce your offer by and how much you want the house. We accepted an offer reduced because our boiler was old. The offer was still very near the asking price and the buyer was ready to go, so that's why we accepted.

Nope, I don’t think it’s comparable to asking for a reduction based on damp in the survey, for example. I wouldn’t. Think it’s a bit cheeky as may well be fine.

You could certainly ask, but they might well say no. IF you do find you need a new boiler, have a look through the info below. I think its up to £5000 normally, but up to £10,000 if you are on certain benefits. I've started looking into, but seems only specific suppliers/fitters have signed up to the scheme, so it might be cheaper to find someone else. Worth looking into though.

www.gov.uk/improve-energy-efficiency

You may be able to get a green energy grant to replace/or discount on a new boiler anyway. Personally I'd not worry but make sure you have some funds to replace if it does break down. FWIW ours lasted 15 years after being told it was old and may need replacing.

I wouldn't ask and I wouldn't reduce. Boilers are temporary items.

Why would you need to replace it? My boiler is well over 25 years old and has never on e broken down or failed in any way.

Surveys always come up with these kinds of things. Unless the house is brand new or sold as fully refurbished (clearly not) it would be unreasonable to expect that nothing is nearing the end of its life. The price you've agreed already reflects that imo

Oh and BTW my parents have been told for the last 25 years that their boiler needs replacing

Has the boiler been serviced recently? We've just sold and our buyers solicitor wanted the boiler serviced before exchange- which we did. The boiler will need replacing (would've been on our list to do in the next few years more for energy efficiency). It's working perfectly well so no I wouldn't reduce the price.

I don’t think you can ask. Houses are generally priced taking this sort of thing into account. It’s standard to be mentioned in a survey unless it’s really quite recently installed.

I'd pay more attention to whether the boiler had been serviced than its actual age.

Also agree that an old boiler is not necessarily a dud. I owned a house with a boiler well over twenty years old and the chap who maintained it said not to bother replacing it because although it was not as efficient as a newer boiler it was far simpler with very little to break down so what I saved in fuel I would probably pay out in repairs over the years. It never did have anything go wrong with it.

If you are worried I would ask to have a central heating engineer go round and take a look at the boiler. the surveyor will not be a boiler expert.

Yes, a boiler /heating guy once cast his eye over our ancient boiler and said just keep on with it until it eventually fails and then replace it, don’t fix it. It’s a good make and they were designed to last.

My MiL’s boiler dates from the 60s and my parent’s dates from the 80s. Both in great working order and plumbers say they are much better than current boilers.

I would plan to replace the boiler if/when it fully breaks down, in the meantime, do nothing. I wouldn’t ask for a price reduction as it’s optional/ your choice to replace if you do so now.

If they are still living in property boiler obviously works. Old boilers often fail when a house is empty for a while.

If it still works you would be cheeky to ask for money off.

Our boiler was 22 years old when we bought our house, it worked so we lived with it for a year then replaced for a nice new one

When I was selling my mum's house the survey said the same, the boiler was working perfectly!
The agent told me they'd tentatively mentioned a reduction to him, he said no on our behalf, we'd sold at a fair price allowing for the fact the house was a little dated, we'd have put it back on the market if our buyers had started quibbling over minor things,

New ones are less expensive than they were. They're very efficient but not as durable.
I had a new Gloworm fitted about 2 years ago, cost just over £2000

I think you can only reasonably ask for reductions on things that you would have had no way of knowing when you saw the house - surely it was pretty obvious that the boiler was old? If it didn't work that would be different. Like others, we moved into a house with an old boiler and were advised to keep it as long as we could; we did eventually replace it but two years later and because it had started to be a bit unreliable. But again, it was obvious at a glance that the boiler had been in place for a very long time.

That boiler will probably outlive anything new you fitted now.