Martin Evans wrote:

1. it is against the law to not fit condensing boilers now.
From other postings this would seem true.

Mostly true... from the sounds of your setup it is not worth worrying
about the possible get out clauses.

2. They would remove the room thermostat as it was bad to have it in a
room where radiators have TRVs.
Other posts to this group seem to suggest having a room thermo is OK
but not to have TRVs in the same room.

Personally I would change the room stat to a programmable one and remove
the TRV. You still need some form of interlock to shut off the boiler
when the whole house is warm.

3. When I said I wasn't sure if we had a bypass and if we went all
TRVs I thought we'd need one he said all their condensing boilers come
with a built in bypass.

Could well be true for theirs...

4. Regarding placement on the boiler he said manufacturer specs said
their must be at least 600mm space in front of the boiler although it
was OK in a cupboard so long as with the doors open their was 600mm in
front. As a result he suggested installing it around the corner from
where it is now.

Just so you can get the case off basically. Can you not do that in the
current location?

5. Our gas meter was not earthed and so they would have to earth it
all. I'm not this is true since I remember a large earthing strap
behind the gas meter where the pipes come into the house - I cannot
investigate this now.

The service bonding ought to be done on the consumer side of the meter
rather than the supply as used to be the case.

6. condensate from new boiler was not a problem since the boiler will
be sited next to a soil pipe.

7. our system was wrong be cause there is not at least 1.5m between
the top of the boiler and where the pipes go into the cylinder. This
would cause our boiler to switch on and off alot when only heating hot
water.

This sounds like he is confusing a bit of old gravity fed sales
patter... for a fully pumped setup it will make no difference.

It might be worth investigating a new fast recovery cylinder however. If
you current one is old, remember the things don't last forever. A fast
recovery one will also be able to swallow more of the boilers output.
THe modulating function of the boiler however ought to prevent cycling
anyway.

8. conversion from gravity fed to fully pumped was a time consuming
process. Some sort of air valve would have to be installed - I'm not
sure exactly about this. The system would have to be fully pumped
which mean installation ot 2 new valves and pump.

9. It was around 3 days work.

Sounds plausable - depending on what pipework needs doing. Took me about
4 days, but that included stripping out all the old tanks as well.

10. the quote left has a "the effects of pluming have been explained"
but they never were.

Like Christain said...

11. He criticised the current electrical installation a lot. Wrong
cable used throughout - should all be flex - and told me a horror
story about a house fire near us caused by wrong electrical
installation where the insurers were not fully paying out after
identifying sub standard electrical fitment of halogen lighting.

You can ignore that I would guess.

12. When I asked how he would calculate what size of boiler we'd need
he said he didn't need to as it would be a modulating condensing
boiler which constantly monitors the exit and return water temperature
and adjusts automatically. I did not think this was a satisfactory
answer since clearly if he fitted a 1KW boiler it would not sufficient
(absurd example I know).

Since you are not looking at a combi where the output power will
directly dictate your hot water flow rate, it is less of an issue. As
long as you have "enough" the modulation will make a decent job of
matching the actual output to the demand. It is sometimes more useful to
ask what the lowest power output of the boiler is. Ones that can
modulate right down to 4 or 5kW being better than ones that only go down
to say 12.

Needless to say I was less than impressed but then came the:

Total quote was for £3498 including VAT (and £100 trade in discount)
with some significant numbers being (not including VAT):

For BG that sounds cheap... 5.5 would be closer to their normal!

British/Scottish Gas 330 HE Condensing Boilrer (inc labour and
installation) £1559

Probably fair for the boiler on its own...

specialist building work (3) £174

But you would expect this to be included in the above...

can't imagine what this was other than repositioning flue
connect boiler electrics and test £64

and this

glow-worm Xi std horizontal flue (800mm) £154
glow-worm Xi flue extension (500mm) £28
glow-worm Xi 90 flue elbow £31

probably don't need those - especially if you keep it in the current
location.

radiator valves (15mm angled W/H & L/S) £26
Now he has left I don't understand this as we never spoke about
adding radiators or valves.

He may be talking about replacing the old lockshied valves with new
ones. Some of the older ones can weep when converted to pressurised
operation.

controls pack (2*22mm 2Port) Prog. (UP1) £307

Sounds a bit much...

convert to fully pumped 22mm (5mtr head) £312

hmmmm...

powerlush - £195

perhaps

install ME bonding £112

excessive...

exectrical and mechanical supp bonding £79

excessive...

there was other stuff like waster disposal, pipe insulation, fit pipe
insulation etc.

I was somewhat surprised by the size of the quote and the cost of the
boiler - seemed pricey to me.

Any useful comments?

I would have thought something closer to 2k would be more like it....


--
Cheers,

John.

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