In article ,
Vista writes:
Andrew Gabriel wrote:
In article ,
Vista writes:
Hi all.
My parent's house (4 beds) needs a new gas boiler. Quotes for this and
to "modernise" the heating system range from just over 3K-4K - seems a
lot of money.
I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on the way to proceed. Is
this a reasonable price? How do I watch for rip-offs etc? What *needs*
doing from a legal point of view?
My ideas are 1) scrap the gas completely and go all electric (is this
possible with a water-based radiator system? Is it feasible on the cost
front? Perhaps going with economy 7 for hot water (currently have a
lagged tank in the airing cupboard).

Start by giving much more detail of the current system.

Boiler make/model/size/age, condition of pipework, radiators
(do they look fine, or like they're all just about to rust
through?), do they have thermostatic radiator valves, is there
a room stat somewhere?

Also number of rooms, number of baths/showers and usage pattern,
normal number of house occupents. Does the existing system cope
(or did it when it was working properly)?
Why does it need a new boiler now?
Who did you get quotes from, and what do they include?

Boiler make - will look today, at least 20 years old.
Occupants: 2
Showers: 2 a day (one each), baths once a week (each person)
Radiators - mainly good condition 9one small leak on inlet (nothing serious)
pipework: OK
rooms: 4 beds, kitchen, dinning, living, hall, 2 bathrooms, storeroom.
existing system: working OK, but very old and very expensive to run

What is the existing expense, given you are considering several
£k to fix it?
Repeated boiler breakdowns and callouts?
Boiler servicing?
Fuel?

In the latter case, what's the state of the insulation in the house?
Loft?
cavity wall?
Drafty doors/windows?
Fixing any of these might be a lot cheaper and more effective; you
might gain as much as a 50% reduction in fuel. Replacing a 20 year
old boiler is only likely to get around a 20% reduction, or
possibly more if the existing controls (thermostat, etc) are wasteful
and need replacing too. (You could replace controls by themselves.)

Quotes (don't actually have them but will report back)

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]