Central Heating Quotes

[Delie]

Hi,

We've just had a couple of quotes for a new central heating system, and I wanted to see if you guys thought the quotes were reasonable or expensive.

We're having 6 radiators fitted (lounge, kitchen, bathroom towel rail, bed1, bed2, & bed3). They will also be fitting 5m external pipe from the meter to the boiler. For bed1 & bed2 only, they will be fitting pipes underneath the floorboards. We'll be getting a 31kw condensing combi boiler.

The quotes we have received have been £4750 (with Vaillant boiler), and £6500 (with Worcester Bosch). The second quote seems expensive, but I wanted to find out how if you guys think these quotes sound reasonable or not?

We've only previously had storage heaters, so i've no idea if these quotes are competitive or not so any help would be hugely appreciated!

Many thanks,

Andrew

 

[Agile]

Sounds quite expensive to me!

But you don't bother to say where you are.

In Coventry they advertise a combi and six rads from £1750 !

It would probably have been far cheaper if you had not waited for the cold winter to have it done.

Full installations should be done during the hot summer when heating engineers are far less busy!

Tony

 

[Delie]

Hi, thank you for getting back to me. We are based in Salisbury

Yeah, I did some investigating online and it seems our quotes are rather pricey. We didn't have the money to do it in summer, unfortunately!

I think we'll probably get a couple of extra quotes to compare, because i'm not sure if we're getting good value or not. Thanks again.

 

[Agile]

But it would be likely to have been far lower during the summer!

Why not wait until next summer?

I would have expected about £3500 or less in this recessionary times.

One of the forum members from the NE would probably come and do it cheap for you if you gave him BBEM!

Tony

 

[Whitespirit66]

Don't just shop for a full install on price. A full ch system will be with you for many years, so you want it done properly by people who will be there when things go wrong.

Ask friends, colleagues, family and neighbours for the names of reliable plumbers. Get 2 or 3 more quotes, but if they are near the others, then you know that's what it costs. The lower quote doesn't seem excessive for a full system in a 3 bed with a quality boiler, even at this time of year.

 

[Agile]

My simple rule of thumb calculation for telephone budgetary quotes comes to £3990.

But I don't intend to be cheap and I know many are far cheaper!

Tony

 

[JSHarris]

I note you're in Salisbury. We used a firm in Salisbury to fit our Vaillant combi. They weren't that cheap at £2600 to remove an old wall mounted boiler, remove the DHW cylinder, power flush the system and fit a new EcoTec 831. They insisted that TRVs be fitted to all the rads (claiming it was a legal requirement for any replacement boiler installation) but I agreed to do this myself while they had the system drained down (much to their irritation, but their price for fitting 8 TRVs was going to add another £380 to the bill).

They didn't fill me with confidence when our system ended up with problems immediately post installation that they simply couldn't resolve, but they had seemed to be the best compromise between price and performance from the four quotes we received, plus they strongly recommended the Vaillant, which we'd already concluded was probably the best boiler for our needs.

I won't name the firm publicly, tempting as it is to do so.

 

[Whitespirit66]

They insisted that TRVs be fitted to all the rads (claiming it was a legal requirement for any replacement boiler installation)

Part L of the building regs recommend TRVs be fitted to existing systems, but not a legal requirement.

 

[JSHarris]

They insisted that TRVs be fitted to all the rads (claiming it was a legal requirement for any replacement boiler installation)

Part L of the building regs recommend TRVs be fitted to existing systems, but not a legal requirement.

Yes, something I found out afterwards, at the same time that I concluded that this installer wasn't exactly honest in telling me a few other things, either.

Mind you, I'm glad I fitted the TRVs, as they do allow a fair bit of control flexibility, especially when it comes to keeping the bedrooms a bit cooler.

 

[Boilerman2]

Whilst it may not be a legal requirement, we were slated recently during a work inspection by one of the works notification bodies for not fitting them
and it caused us much hassle to sort out, - that is probably why your Co were very keen to get them fitted to comply with Building regulations Part L1

 

[Delie]

Thank you for the replies, very much appreciated!

We're hoping to get a nice balance of performance vs price, not necessarily the cheapest quote so long as it offers good value. I've arranged for two more companies to provide us with a quote this week so hopefully we'll be able to get a better idea of how much we should be paying

 

[Alfie25]

Just as an extension of this thread...how detailed should quotes for new boiler/CH installations be?

Am I expecting too much to want a bit of detail - i.e. the brand/model of programmer/stat/rads/TRVs, sizes of rads etc??

 

[ianmcd]

Alfie 25 you will get a better response and more appropriate to your own queries if you start your own thread rather than Hi-Jack this old one

 

[gas112]

Your quotes are to put it mildly taking the pish agile is far nearer the mark ,a full install is sometimes easier than a replacement and reconfigure some rads

 

[jeff the gasman]

£3500 reasonable price for a full install.
Just check boiler spec and as far as I'm concerned that is a good price without short cuts.