Hi, all.

2 questions, if I may...
Major building work here at Chaos Manor.

On the outline spec and quotation, the replacement boiler was priced up for
an unspecified Wocster Bosch model. We come back from 3.5 week holiday,
and a good deal of the work is underway. The boiler swap-out has been done,
but the boiler is an 'Alpha' brand. ( non-combi, wall mounted system
boiler. ) I'm not familiar with the brand. Is it a POS who's PCB will go
Phut one day after the minimal warranty expires, causing much teeth-sucking
and "Oh, the PCB will cost £300, not worth it mate. Best replace the whole
thing."?

1) Is the difference in quality / price worth making a fuss over?

Secondly, I'm taking advantage of the chaos to flood fill the place with
cat6 and ct100. It's all in place pretty much, but I've got to do several
drops down through the walls. I'm obviously running into difficulties with
cross-members ( called 'dwangs' locally ). I'm not very good at
interpreting the 'hollow-knock' method, and the option of pushing a
thin-bladed screwdriver through the plasterboard in a series of test-pokes
is starting to wear thin.

2) Do 'stud detectors' work? Any advice on brands, etc?

--
Ron

Ron Lowe wrote:

Secondly, I'm taking advantage of the chaos to flood fill the place with
cat6 and ct100. It's all in place pretty much, but I've got to do
several drops down through the walls. I'm obviously running into
difficulties with cross-members ( called 'dwangs' locally ). I'm not
very good at interpreting the 'hollow-knock' method, and the option of
pushing a thin-bladed screwdriver through the plasterboard in a series
of test-pokes is starting to wear thin.

2) Do 'stud detectors' work? Any advice on brands, etc?

After having several metal/pipe detectors of the chocolate teapot
variety, I took advice from this ng that Zircon was the brand to go for
and took advantage of a trip to the US to buy one at a good price - I'm
certainly very pleased with it (stud detection has been it's main use).

David

On Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:17:29 +0100, Ron Lowe wrote:

Hi, all.

2 questions, if I may...
Major building work here at Chaos Manor.

On the outline spec and quotation, the replacement boiler was priced up
for an unspecified Wocster Bosch model. We come back from 3.5 week
holiday, and a good deal of the work is underway. The boiler swap-out
has been done, but the boiler is an 'Alpha' brand. ( non-combi, wall
mounted system boiler. ) I'm not familiar with the brand. Is it a POS
who's PCB will go Phut one day after the minimal warranty expires,
causing much teeth-sucking and "Oh, the PCB will cost £300, not worth it
mate. Best replace the whole thing."?

1) Is the difference in quality / price worth making a fuss over?

Secondly, I'm taking advantage of the chaos to flood fill the place with
cat6 and ct100. It's all in place pretty much, but I've got to do
several drops down through the walls. I'm obviously running into
difficulties with cross-members ( called 'dwangs' locally ). I'm not
very good at interpreting the 'hollow-knock' method, and the option of
pushing a thin-bladed screwdriver through the plasterboard in a series
of test-pokes is starting to wear thin.


We have a FAQ that very nearly covers this.
See Boiler Choice below.




--
Ed Sirett - Property maintainer and registered gas fitter.
The FAQ for uk.diy is at http://www.diyfaq.org.uk
Gas fitting FAQ http://www.makewrite.demon.co.uk/GasFitting.html
Sealed CH FAQ http://www.makewrite.demon.co.uk/SealedCH.html
Choosing a Boiler FAQ http://www.makewrite.demon.co.uk/BoilerChoice.html

Ron Lowe wrote:
Hi, all.

2 questions, if I may...
Major building work here at Chaos Manor.

On the outline spec and quotation, the replacement boiler was priced
up for an unspecified Wocster Bosch model. We come back from 3.5
week holiday, and a good deal of the work is underway. The boiler
swap-out has been done, but the boiler is an 'Alpha' brand. (
non-combi, wall mounted system boiler. ) I'm not familiar with the
brand. Is it a POS who's PCB will go Phut one day after the minimal
warranty expires, causing much teeth-sucking and "Oh, the PCB will
cost £300, not worth it mate. Best replace the whole thing."?

1) Is the difference in quality / price worth making a fuss over?

Don't know about a system boiler because we have an Alpha CD32C condensing
combi but I can say that we're very well pleased with ours. WB used to have
an excellent reputation with Alpha well down the pack but the tables have
now turned.

I don't know about other manufacturers now but I believe that when we had
our Alpha fitted (about two and a half years ago now), they were the only
manufacturer to give a 3-year warranty as standard. It's been in daily use
and never given us any problems at all so I'd say that you've nothing to
worry about.

John