Boilers
Author
Discussion

w00dy

Original Poster:

920 posts

267 months

Thursday 29th September 2005
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A month ago I moved out of my mum's house and bought my first flat.

Cutting to the chase, I’ve an old (early '80ies?) gas fire that i want rid of. It turns out that the fire is also the central heating boiler. There's nothing wrong with the boiler part as such, but i intend to use the room its in as a bedroom rather than the living room as the previous owner had it. It seems though that having a boiler like this in a bedroom isn't the best idea, so i really need to get shot of it. The current hot water boiler's in decent condition.

I hadn't budgeted for this, and the rough verbal quote for a combi-boiler I’ve been given is disarming close to the value of my mini (which I really don’t want to sell esp. as I’ve now sold the 205). Are there any boiler experts amongst the PH faithful? What sort of options do I/could I have - my mini's fate could depend on it :(

mxdi

13,994 posts

279 months

Thursday 29th September 2005
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Buy a 15tog duvet, its cheaper

Not being funny really, my flat had no central heating, I had a little leccy heater that used to spark everytime I switched it on! I'm still here though.

>> Edited by mxdi on Thursday 29th September 22:10

tvradict

3,829 posts

304 months

Thursday 29th September 2005
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What you have there is a back boiler, I believe they were primarily built by Baxi. We've got a similar problem. The fire front is ugly and we want to change, but can't cos all the fire fronts look the same. Done plenty of costings and got plenty of quotes to do what you want to do. Dont bother removing the boiler, it costs a fortune. To disconnect, cap off and then re-route pipes and install a combi is very expensive.

My advice would be to leave as is, if its not in your budget, dont bother with it. There is an advantage to the boiler being in your bedroom, its nice and warm

denisb

509 posts

285 months

Thursday 29th September 2005
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Just had a bunch of problems with my back boiler and so enquired about changing.

A combi was the cheapest of the not particularly cheap options.

I am lucky that it could be mounted in the bathroom with easy access to an outside wall, mains, hot water and an old gas pipe.

I am getting them to repair the back boiler and putting up with the seventies 'fire'.

Nuggs

4,640 posts

264 months

Thursday 29th September 2005
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When I was looking to buy my flat, I enjoyed visiting those for sale where the owning couple were showing me around...

...I would look at the chap and ask him how often he serviced the boiler...

rsvmilly

11,288 posts

271 months

Friday 30th September 2005
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anonymous said:
[redacted]
A friend's elder brother was asphixiated by his 'British Gas Checked' boiler. It'd been checked within about 6 months. No blame was attributed to BG IIRC.

You could ask your dad to confirm this, but I believe it is against the regulations to have a boiler in a bedroom. Certainly one which isn't balanced-flue, which I think these Baxis aren't.

To the OP, if you are going to retain your existing hot water tank then you don't need a combi.

smac

164 posts

265 months

Friday 30th September 2005
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If you need a combi try Ultimate Heating on 01827 52500. They were doing a good (370 ish) price on a Sabre 24 - which is a vokeira with different writing on - they even come with a vokeira Guarantee.

chrisgr31

14,280 posts

285 months

Friday 30th September 2005
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Personally if you have an old boiler and it works I would not change it.

Just live with it. My experience of boilers, and many people I know is that the new boilers are not as reliable as the old ones. So I'd wait until you have the budget or it breaks!

NiceCupOfTea

25,590 posts

281 months

Friday 30th September 2005
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anonymous said:
[redacted]


That's all very well, but how many times should you get it checked? We have a BG contract, so an engineer comes and inspects ours. But should we trust him? Should we get another guy to come out and have a look? And what if both of them miss something? Should we get a third guy?

Sound idea, but you can't do this with everything (car, gas, electricity, water, etc...)