Gledhill Gulfstream 2000 Condemned - Alternatives??

[gdickin2]

I had the Gledhill service engineer round to look at our Gulfstream 2000 as it was losing pressure daily. He had a good look around, with comments like, "that's US, oh and that's US and that's US too"!!
Upshot is he has declared the boiler unusable and dangerous and has disconnected the gas supply.
Gledhill have been in touch this morning saying they no longer have parts for this model boiler and so can not repair it - which begs the question why they took it on to a maintenance contract which was renewed in Nov.2008. Other Gulfstream users beware!

So I now need to find a new boiler to replace the Gulfstream.
Does anybody have any recommendations for:
1) A replacement boiler that can cope with a 4 bed detached (15 rads) with 1 bathroom with shower and 1 ensuite with shower?
2) Suppliers/installers with a good reputation in the Preston, Lancs area?

Any idea how much I am likely to be spending for budget purposes?

Many thanks.

 

[Agile]

I think that you need to be aware of the real situation.

Firstly your system is quite old and its not surprising that some parts are no longer available.

Next the boiler and cylinder parts of the company have ceased trading.

The repair and spares are still going at the moment but as the supply has failed they are not giving any warrantee repairs.

I agree that providing insurance cover when spares are no longer available is verging on the fraudulent IF they advised you of that before you last renewed your cover.

I suggest you ask for a refund of the last payment.

As you have not said whats wrong I cannot comment but its quite possible that it might be repairable. You could also get a second opinion.

Tony

 

[gdickin2]

Sorry, I was aware of the full situation, including that Gledhill Water Storage went into liquidation in 2008, stopped manufacturing heating systems and relaunched Gledhill Response as a service org. to maintain their old products - incidentally whilst not honouring any previous service agreements with Gledhill Water Storage.

Depsite the history, the purpose of my post was to get advice on a suitable replacement unit and recommendations of somebody to install it?

 

[gas4you]

Contact 'The Baker' on here. He covers your area.

 

[nickso]

Next the boiler and cylinder parts of the company have ceased trading.

the cylinders side is still trading.

 

[Agile]

You have to be careful with the exact words being used. I thought that water storage was in cylinders?

H&V news had this to say in October 2008:-

Gledhill Building Products on the up, despite Gledhill Water Storage's downfall

Gledhill Water Storage, the company that sold water storage units directly to major UK house builders, has gone into administration, but the chief executive says Gledhill Building Products is still going strong.

Gledhill Building Products supplies products and services directly to plumbers and builders' merchants, a fact that the firm says is helping it better weather the credit crunch storm.

Chief executive Mark Foster said: "The rise in popularity of renewable systems, particularly solar powered, has driven the performance of Gledhill Building Products recently. The past 3 months in particular have been our most successful to date."

Gledhill Building Products is one of the biggest cylinder suppliers in the UK, with 15 manufacturing depots supplying copper and stainless cylinders to plumbers and builders' merchants.

The commercial and domestic water storage manufacturer, Gledhill Water Storage, went into administration in October, after feeling the knock on effect of its major housebuilder customers being hit by the credit crunch.

"Gledhill Building Products hasn't been affected like Gledhill water storage has, because, unlike Gledhill Water Storage, it doesn't deal predominantly with new build" said a spokesman for Gledhill.

Mark Foster added: "Unfortunately the downturn in the new build housing market left us with a much reduced order book for water storage products. Despite our very best efforts, we were unable to rescue the business and it was forced into administration."

Gledhill employed around 275 people across the two businesses. The senior management team restructured the business and its anticipated 90 job losses were cut to 30 redundancies, following the firm's decision to absorb some staff into the Gledhill Building Products business.

 

[simond]

Gledhill Water Storage was responsible for the packaged solutions business such as Boilermate, Systemate, Pulsacoil etc.

These units, favoured by new build, are all affected.

The Gledhill Building products company make cylinders amongst other things from a number of works in the UK (quite good ones, too) and were technically a separate company, so this business is unaffected.

Gledhill Building Products, have I believe, started manufacturing a few of the old GWS products, such as the units designed to partner with Ecodan heatpumps.

To answer the OPs question, an ACV Heatmaster is a combined boiler/thermal store/hot water generator, look at the Heatmaster 35TC.

 

[Agile]

Simon, do you know who made their boilers which have now been terminated?

I had a call this week from a builder who had installed 29 of their boilers a few months ago and now finds he has no warrantee cover and already one of the heat exchangers has split !

Tony

 

[gdickin2]

Oh dear, I seem to have sparked off a debate around the demise of Gledhill Water Storage when all I wanted was advice on a replacement boiler!
Had a look at the Heatmaster and think it might be overkill for our needs now.
Any other options? looked at Valliant ecoTec 937, Worcester Highflow 440CDi and 42CDi and Ethos 54C.

 

[simond]

If you want a big combi - which is different from the operational principle of a Gulfstream, then any of the units you have listed are big combis.