In message , Bob Eager
writes
Quite seriously, the BG estimator is good for one thing. Whatever quote
he initially gives you will probably be roughly double what a good
local person will charge.

The snag with this advice is that we have been to the local known good
non-BG supplier and his preferred scheme took a gas pipe through a
child's bedroom and the flue up through a long and winding road through
the loft (which is full of books and other memorabilia that were being
saved for our retirement and would take months to get back down and to
the tip. To give access would mean a huge amount of work).
BG say they will run the gas externally, and would install the boiler
where we prefer. That just puts the flue through the kitchen wall. They
were only slightly more expensive, but I, personally, have had very
negative experiences with them in the past, and would never, ever have a
maintenance contract with them again. It's all decisions....

SWMBO gets very stressed about gas inside the house anyway, and we did
know someone whose baby was blown through the lounge window of their
bungalow onto the front lawn by a gas explosion..It bounced, I
understand, and is now a happy teenager.

Local man suggests combi, BG man suggests non-combi. I favour the
latter, SWMBO and son thinks the former sounds "more modern".

But I was really looking for guidance about the gas/electric fire aspect
of the change. I have carried on searching and found no real info about
the radiant heat efficiency aspect of simple fires. Current dead Baxi
has ceramic grid thing to radiate, and seems good to me, SWMBO thinks it
looks old fashioned. It's a hard life and a decision must be made pretty
soon as I seem unable to manually control the immersion to anyone's
satisfaction here.

--
Bill