UKC

In the time honoured tradition of asking DIY questions on climbing forums here is mine.
im looking to get a full gas central heating system installed to replace an old back boiler system.
the house is a two story 3 bedroom semi with a gas feed already in but needs a condensing boiler and all radiators and pipework renewed.
its going to be a baxi boiler and will involve relocating boiler from living room (behind fire) to kitchen.
had a guy round tonight who came recommended and I cant really be bothered with getting loads of quotes so if his price is reasonable I will just go with it.
However that's leaves the question what is a reasonable price?
any plumbers on here give me a guesstimate , live in central Scotland so no London prices or anything like that.

cheers.

In reply to buzby:

An oil system with 18 radiators and all piping + radiators was priced at £9k for me. Take off the tank, and a gas boiler is half the price, and you probably need half the radiators and pipework I needed. Say £5-6k.

We went with air-source heat pump at £15k in the end, but that's about long-term cost and not being tied to oil.

In reply to Philip:

cheers, I had the figure of around 5k in my head but its not based on anything other than my mate who had one done for 4k but it was several years ago.

In reply to buzby:

Boiler £1k
Pipes rads £3k
Plastering/floorboards £1k
Decorating £500

Making it someone else's problem £priceless

In reply to buzby:

Just fitted new boiler for 16 radiator house. £3600. Not sure if that helps....

In reply to Father Noel Furlong:

wow 3,600 just for the boiler, that's worrying. only 9 radiators so hope mines a bit cheaper than that. Is that British gas prices ?

In reply to buzby:

Hi, all of the above seem to be overly priced, or have too much money ..... You should get sorted for about £2500
I would not pay any more......... Make sure its a good boiler. Baxi should see you 10 years at least mine has...

In reply to buzby:

I had a house with two floors, 6 rooms and 6 radiators done a few years ago for about £3.7k in the North of England.

New condensing combi boiler (gas), all new pipes for the central heating system, boiler relocation from an upstairs room to a downstairs room on the other side of the house, and a total renewal of the gas piping in the house which included a feed to a gas fire as well as the boiler. The existing domestic hot water plumbing was kept and the new boiler connected to that (the old boiler was also a combi). This involved removing upstairs carpets and floorboards to run the main heating circuit under those. The price also included bricking up the hole in the wall from the old flu (badly) and fitting a new flu on the other side of the house (badly, they didn't use a core drill and split a brick which needed replacement). In terms of things done badly they also installed a condensate pipe outside that was both too shallow in gradient and too narrow, and it froze one very cold winters night causing the condensate trap to fill which spluttered water into something in the boiler and took a £40 callout from someone else to fix. The perils of picking a cheaper quote. Or just pot luck...

Out of ignorance I didn't get them to fit a flu guard, which via kids playing football eventually cost me a new flu.

Two cost cutting measures I took - 1) I had the pipes for the downstairs radiators run visibly down the downstairs walls (doesn't bother me cosmetically) and 2) wireless thermostat to avoid having to chase out holes in walls for a new thermostat wire as a result of moving the boiler location. I can't recommend a wireless thermostat enough for various reasons of economy in operation.

HTH.

Edit: If your current boiler is behind the fire, is it a system boiler? - that is, does it heat a tank of hot water? If so now's an ideal chance to talk yourself into going combi and removing your master cylinder, removing all water from your property from above the height of the upstairs radiators (great, no floods in the loft) and moving to a sealed heating system that can only ever leak a relatively small quantity of water.

In reply to jspiller:

Not sure, what planet your on or where you plucked 2500 from,
But it's way out,

There is no way all that can be done for 2500,

A decent heating engineer should be vat registered so that would mean a cost of 2100 plus vat,
The materials alone wouldnt be far off that if not more

In reply to buzby:

I would guess at least £4000 is more like the mark. Worcester Bosch get very good reviews. I had a Baxi in my last house and was not impressed with it. Also, if you can afford it a smart heating control system is worth considering. We recently moved and had installed the Honeywell Evohome system and is very flexible.

In reply to icnoble:

I have a Worcester Bosch condenser boiler. It's excellent. Re. OP: I'd say you'd be lucky to part with less than £5000 for your size of house, since you need all radiators and plumbing replaced too.

In reply to neil9216:

its called not getting ripped off!! ive had 2 baxi's in 2 houses. They have served me well, ones been in 9 years the other 5 years .regular services and the odd part. Friends of mine have bosch and Worcester and also like them... my fitter can hang 9 rads and pipe work in a day, hang boiler and other pipe work 1 day, day 3 final fix ,thermostat, wiring, gas check tidy up snags loose ends..... job done... thank you very much... none of this oh it'll be a week or so .see how it goes crap.would you like his number.....................prices vary all over the country....

In reply to buzby:

Scottish Gas. And they were the best quote I got. Worcester Bosch boiler.

Apparently Combi boilers are not popular at the moment and house sales fall through when there's one fitted.

In reply to jspiller:
Don't forget the op is basically starting from scratch so I doubt whether he could do all the pipe work including new associated pipe work in a day.

In reply to Father Noel Furlong:

I don't believe combi's are unpopular .. surely not, its one of the main things I would ask if buying a house......

In reply to jspiller:

I loved mine when I had it. Hot water on demand, what's not to like? However it's what I've been told. Happy to be proven wrong.

In reply to Father Noel Furlong:

thanks for all the info, he did say he could price for different boilers but recommended the baxi condensing one as it comes with a 7 year guarantee and is reasonably priced .
he also said he would remove all the old copper piping and boiler for me ( yeah I bet you will lol).
he comes well recommended from a few mates who have had work done but never a full new system off him so I was just fishing for a rough idea , thanks again folks.

In reply to buzby:

Baxi come low down the list of boilers by Which magazine.
Nevertheless I had a Baxi installed at my mother's house 2 years ago, but at that point the guarantee was 10 years, not 7. I would have to check up how much it cost me,but it cost a lot more as they redid the pipework(but kept most of the radiators), so pulled the carpets and flooring up. Which is when we discovered wood rot downstairs and had to replace all the downstairs flooring and treat the stairs and the upstairs.At least we got it all done in one go along with totally rewiring.

In reply to buzby:

I paid just over 2k for a baxi duotec 28kw combi+ one new rad and a load of new has pipe from the meter all the way to the boiler at the back of the house. I'm guessing you'll have about 8 rads in your place so about 800 just to buy them so I'd say you were looking at about £3,800-4,000.

So what was your quote from your recommended plumber?

In reply to jspiller:

No on is talking about getting ripped off,
You say your fitter can do all this in 3 days? lets go with that then,,
I would expect to pay between 300 and 500 per day for a decent gas registered tradesman, depending on how many men he has on the job.

So even that at best case would be 900 plus vat = £1080
That leaves 1200 + vat for all materials, and the electrician, possibly a joiner or plasterer depending on how easy the instalation pans out,
Then youll need skip for waste another 100 - 150 depending on size,

I know very well prices vary up and down the country however,
You obviously have a very good reason for claiming that this job can be done for 2500 nothing more do you mind if I ask where you obtained that information.


Neil

In reply to buzby:
I can't see why you would remove and replace all the existing copper radiator pipework unless it's damaged which is unlikely? reusing the copper radiator pipework will provide a great starting point to add new rads, valves and boiler. I would install a magnetic filter on the boiler return also. I am not a fan of plastic.

you will also need a 22 m gas supply to the boiler directly from the gas meter.

price approx £1400 boiler, £200 per rad, pipework mods £800 to 1000

ps make sure u get a good wireless room start, avoid the cheap ones as there not very flexible

In reply to buzby:

I just had a back boiler in a 3 bed semi removed and replaced with new in the loft. It was £3900 with three new thermostatic valves for the bedrooms but nothing else changed. South East though.

I'd recommend waiting until spring, my suspicion is that replacing faulty parts and servicing is more lucrative than spending 4 days in one house. We struggled to get a quote at all.

In reply to Father Noel Furlong:

Why? I think they're great. Mains pressure hot water is lovely for a nice powerful shower on demand (though it is true that they don't tend to get on with thermostatic shower valves; you need a manual one).

Only nuisance is no hot water if it breaks, but if you have a newish one it won't do that often.

In reply to buzby:

Had a new condensing system boiler fitted last month as a replacement for an open system boiler. Work included fitting thermostatic radiator valves (10 rads), a new room thermostat, new balanced flue and complete power flush of the system. Boiler fitted was a Worcester Bosch, so not a cheapo and the work was done by a local tradesman who is a registered Worcester Bosch fitter so boiler guarantee is increased from standard 5 years to 8 years.
Total bill £1875

I got several quotes beforehand including one from British Gas for an inferior boiler and less work which was £2800

In reply to Neil Williams:


Dunno, just what I was told.

In reply to buzby:

Instead of spending all that money on heating the house, why not spend some on better insulation then a smaller boiler and rads?

If you dry-lined all the exterior walls and insulated the ceilings with Celotex the house would be so warm that you'd only need the smallest boiler. We did this to our son's bedroom, which is in an extension outside the thermal mass of the house and was always cold. We were amazed at the improvement; the room is cosier, quieter, about 2" smaller and is easily warmed by the heat that his computer knocks out when he's working it hard.

Dry lining also means you can redecorate from fresh and move sockets.

In reply to wintertree:


Or getting a thermal store so the boiler can actually run efficiently and solar hot water can be integrated easily.

jk

In reply to buzby:

£2-2.5K DIY £3-4k professional. Let the plumber choose the boiler or find a plumber that fits the boiler you have chosen. Fancy controls will bump it up a bit but can make life a lot more comfortable and economical. I've always been put off combis due to flow rate but modern ones are said to be OK. Just keep your pipe runs short or you will be waiting ages for the pipe to warm up and wasting a lot of money keeping the pipe warm. Also think about complications like showers and the effect moving from a tank back boiler to a mains pressure combi will have.

if you live in Scotland you're in luck - and according to your post you do!

See: http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/

Grants / interest free loans available.

Schemes available to help see here: http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/domestic/home-energy-scotland

Grants available see here: http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/domestic/grants-and-support

Try this one too: http://gidscotland.est.org.uk/SearchSchemes.aspx

Good luck!

In reply to buzby:

Based on the recommendation of an expert who used to frequent these forums, I checked out Intergas boilers and have just had one fitted. Very happy with it so far and the guy who fitted it raved about them too (you might say that he would, but having got to know him over the four days he spent working on my house I'm confident that he really knows his stuff). They have a much simpler construction than a 'normal' combi as they've been completely redesigned as a combi rather than having the DHW parts stuck on the bottom of a standard heat-only boiler. The upshot of this is that they have no secondary heat exchanger or diverter valve, both common causes of failure and often expensive to fix due to being wedged in behind other parts. I'm very happy with mine.

In reply to jkarran:


I was tempted. Spent the extra money it would have cost (and then some...) fixing the external walls and windows so that air didn't pour through them and putting a weather tight roof on instead.... It would also have had the pain of loosing some space in a very small house.

For the OP though I'm guessing they already have a tank so no change in space requirements? However perhaps an additional £1200 including fitting for one?

In reply to buzby:

We had a boiler replaced which included removing the old hot water tank and three new rads for £2200 in a small terraced house a few years ago. I would have thought between £3k and 5K was about right.

In reply to buzby:

oh well got the quote tonight, £3,200. seems very reasonable.

In reply to buzby:

Very reasonable indeed