Another New High Efficiency Boiler Installation

Jon Mitchell makes the final electrical connections to a new Vaillant 'Ecotec' 837 condensing combination boiler we fitted this week. It's a boiler we were very impressed with and a fine piece of German engineering. The boiler it replaced was also a Vaillant but a standard efficiency model which was about 15 years old. The customer wanted to stay with the Vaillant brand but wanted to upgrade to a modern high efficiency model. The pipework on the original appliance was rather poorly installed so we tidied it up at the same time and also upgraded the system controls. The customer will now benefit from cheaper gas bills and an improved hot water flow rate at his taps of 15.2 litres / minute. The installation was in a garage and the boiler is flued vertically through the flat roof. The rain stayed off just long enough on Tuesday for us to get the new flashing in placed and all sealed weather tight. We are also going to be looking after all future servicing and maintenance of this boiler.

Boiler Breakdowns

Can we fix it? The answer is yes. Whilst we are mainly installers, boiler breakdowns, servicing and repairs make up a large part of our business too. We pride ourselves on being able to fix any make of boiler unlike many of our competitors. Only this week we fixed a boiler in a commercial premises that two other installers had failed on. One said a new PCB was required costing over £200 just for the part, whilst the other recommended a complete new boiler! It actually turned out to be a small relatively inexpensive component that simply needed replacing.  We keep up to date with all of the new products and technology which is constantly coming out to ensure we are fully conversant in this fast changing sector.
Boiler parts are becoming more and more expensive. Indeed if you bought all the individual parts to build a boiler yourself it would cost you more than buying a complete boiler.
We only use the manufacturer’s genuine parts rather than some of the cheaper universal or copy parts which are becoming more common.
It’s good to see that some of our parts suppliers will now only sell parts to Gas Safe Registered installers. This should go some way to ending some of the botched and dangerous DIY repairs we regularly see on boilers. We are always happy to discuss and advise on any matters relating to boiler repairs and maintenance.

Out With The Old, In With The New

This week’s boiler swap was replacing an old standard efficiency combination boiler, which was about twenty years old, with a poor SEDBUK rating of only ‘G’. This particular appliance was probably around only 62% efficient. The system controls were also not up to standard. We also noted that the gas supply to this boiler was undersized. This will have affected the hot water performance. To make matters worse it had been fitted with the flue terminating too close to an openable window.
We flushed out and chemically cleaned the whole system and removed the old boiler. The former balanced flue hole was bricked up with matching face bricks. The new boiler fitted {pictured above} was an Ideal ‘Espirit’ 35KW model. This is a SEDBUK band ‘A’ rated appliance which is over 90% efficient. It has a hot water flow rate of 14.4 litres / minute which matched the customer’s requirements. The system controls and gas supply were also upgraded.
This customer will now enjoy greater comfort, more hot water and lower fuel bills. The new flue terminates in the correct position too.