That sounds an awful lot clive

how big a boiler are they fitting?

Hi Clive,

Sounds like a real ripoff merchant! Disgraceful behaviour, I hope you told him what he could do with his "quote"!

Regards Martin

After 20 years it was going to go belly up soon anyway, so hardly an unexpected event

The entire system will need to be replaced

I got a valliant a couple of years ago and its been fine, I think it's an average ok boiler, 5-10 yrs

My worcester before that was good 10+ years

They were talking about a german job which is really good when they were doing mine, the current rolls royce

It's worth asking bills plumber son which ones are the easiest to repair nowadays, some are a design nightmare and the boiler engineers hate doing them

The only brazing was around the boiler itself, the rest of the house was that bendy pipe they use nowadays which made the entire job a relative doddle

Started friday, 2 men, entire job finished sunday 6pm, absolutely everything replaced

They even stuck a gas cooker line in while the floorboards were up

Edited By Ady1 on 14/04/2020 09:09:54

So your plumber is charging you 4,500 labour for 2 men for 3 days? £750 man days?

By way of an exercise, I just went on to the "BOXT" web site that's been advertised on telly recently. For a 4-bed detached, one bath + one shower combi replacement, they quote from around £2400 to £4250, depending on the boiler – make/output etc – for next-day installation. I suspect a traditional system with cold water tank would be even cheaper.

Time to shop around, I think.

John

Daft though it may sound, British Gas can be really cheap in the summer; no idea if they are doing this atm.

My daughters was upstairs in a cupboard, no external walls, flue through the roof, no external drain or vent.
Recently moved house, Baby due in 4 weeks… the perfect situation for a rip-off.

British Gas fitted new Boiler, new rad stats to every radiator + 1 new rad, scaffolding to access roof and added a condensate drain under the bedroom floor into the soil stack outside. All for 2400quid, quoted Monday, came Thursday and finished Friday…. (and 12 months interest free credit!!)

Worth a phone call at least.

Clive – that quote is much too high in my opinion. My plumber charges around £30 an hour and does an amazing job.

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Does sound like a lot but without more info it's difficult to give a definitive answer.

Just a few of the questions to ask.

Does that include powerflushing? (Essential for manufacturers guarantee)

Gas supply adequate for new boiler?

Flue in same place or need re-routing?

Position of flue discharge and plume management?

Somewhere for condensate to drain?

TRVs to be fitted to radiators?

A decent boiler (Vaillant, Worcester IMHO) will set you back about £1K plus flue and bits. The installation will have to comply with regs so a simple replacement thermostat will not comply.

Have you considered an air to water heat pump. I think there are grants available and they are a far more efficient and so money saving in running costs method of heating. It may be worth doing since you have to fit a new system anyway. My son has just had a new house built and had no choice but to put in a heat pump system where he lives as that is government policy. I am also looking at replacing my system with a heat pump due to its age and expectation that it is going to fail at some point. Murphy's law, if something can go wrong then it will go wrong. Sod's law, if Murphy's law kicks in it will do it at the worst possible point in time.

Martin C

I would hazard a guess that it is, given he said he's using no gas now