Ball park cost for new boiler?

[redspottedmug]

Our boiler needs replacing. Whilst I await the British Gas quote can anyone say how much they paid recently please 🙏

Anything else I should know about replacing it? It's a standard 20+ years old boiler which does central heating and a hot water tank.

a) British Gas are a rip-off who charge a premium for being a longstanding household name.

b) We just used Boxt, and I would really recommend them. Their website will give you an instant fixed-price quote, unless you've got some sort of complicated thing going on. The price does depend on the boiler (obviously) and also things like pipework and flue.

Who services your boiler? (Unless it’s British Gas) ask your engineer to come and give you a quote. If it is British Gas, get on your local social media channels and ask who other people use to service their boiler - then give them a ring and get a quote. My dh is a gas installer and I’ve lost count of how many times he’s rectified shit installations by British Gas. I really wouldn’t go there.

Avoid BG. A ball park for a new combi condensing gas boiler is around 2-3k. You might be able to ditch the hot water heater and have the whole system ie heating & water running off the combi boiler.

Actually if you look on Trustpilot BG have pretty good ratings for boiler services/installations. It's their business as an energy supplier that comes in for more critisism.

As for them doing "shit installations", I had two independents quote for my replacement and both of them came up with something dodgy. One said my main gas feed pipe was not big enough for the installation and wanted an extra 2k to replace it, which was downright silly and after some pretty sharp discussion he agreed. The other wanted to just drop the condensate straight into the soakaway, which wasn't the worst thing in the world, but wasn't the best either.

I would always recommend getting a quote from BG or BoxT simply because they are much more on the ball with regulatory issues and will identify all the stuff that needs to be done and itemise it properly on a quote and actually do the paperwork and compliance registration at the end of it. You can use the BG/BoxT quote as a template to actually make sure the independent identifies all the things that need doing.

I'm pretty sure that there are some great independents out there, but I think the idea that BG is shit and all independents are great I just don't agree with. In my experience anyway.

And make sure your gas engineer is Gas Safe regd for UK installs, you can check their number on the register.

We just had our new one... we had to pay extra £600 as it needed to be above the conservatory so needed scaffolding. Just a warning if its an awkward position

We paid £2k last year for an Ideal combi, local fitter and 7 year warranty. Wouldn't touch British Gas.

I'm selling my house, and I've agreed to a new boiler to get the sale through. Based in NW and quoted for £2K.

Ours was £2k.

Thanks so much everyone.

I'd never heard of BoxT so will take a look. We've used BG in our previous house but got a staff discount. I don't have an issue with BG but obviously price and quality are considerations.

As far as I know it should be straightforward, it's on the outside wall of the utility room (1980's house).

Any relative merits of changing to a combi boiler? We don't need to free up the tank space and I like having a warm airing cupboard.
We have a bathroom and en-suite and although it's 4 bedroom the DC are usually away at uni so we don't use masses of hot water.

Combis are good if you don't need a lot of hot water all at once, so for example two showers running simultaneously is not great for a combi.

You can also keep the hot water temp and heating circuit temp separate on a combi, which means you can have a lower flow temp on the heating circuit (in a tank system normally you have to keep your single heating/hot water circuit at a higher temp to kill off the legionella, or at least thats the theory). This improves efficiency of a combi.

Tanks (system boilers) IMO are better than combis, especially unvented ones at delivering hot water on demand. But combis likely to reduce your bills more and are generally simpler systems. Plus they will take your old tank away and you will get some extra space you can use instead of having the tank.

You take your chances - I decided to keep my system as is (unvented system) rather than change to a combi as I like high pressure showers.

How do I tell if ours is vented/unvented?

Water pressure isn't all that (shower is just a mixer I think - there's no electrics) so would that rule out a combi?

£2.6K with BOXT. Systems boiler.
Equivalent BG was another £800

London here -quote to remove old boiler, water tank, hot tank, provide thermostats on 7 rads, new controller and put combi in £3,700

It sounds like yours is vented. And anyway, from what you've said I don't think you would benefit from switching to a combi.

• You like your airing cupboard (which you would lose with a combi)

• You've already got the pipework for a non combi ("system") boiler, and it would cost to change this round

• There will occasionally be times when both bathrooms will be in use and a combi would struggle to supply enough hot water.

I had one fitted recently ( six months ago).
£2,600 inclusive of vat