vaillant or viessmann

hi. a gas engineer has quoted me for 3 boilers - baxi main 30, viessmann 30 and vailliant 831 (the latter is slightly more expensive). which is the better boiler or the most reliable? i've ruled out the baxi after reading reviews so just need to choose between the viessmann and the vaillant.

thanks for your time

A work colleague had a Viessmann installed a few months ago and has said that it is an excellent piece of kit.

I'm having one installed next week.

Viessmann is a very large German manufacturer.

There is plenty of stuff on the web about Viessmann poor reliability. It certainly concerned me. I did a lot of reading on the web and even had discussions with Viessmann UK. I have concluded that much of the information refers to older models and that the new ones offer a high level of reliability.

If the Viessmann is installed by an approved Viessmann installer the unit will come with a 5 year parts and labour warranty and a 10 year heat exchanger warranty (which is stainless steel and should never corrode). If this isn't being offered you may want to consider another installer.

I'm sure the experts will shoot me down when I say that it is very important to have the system properly flushed during installation and to have a Magnaclean (or equivalent) installed as part of the system. Be a little concerned if your installer is not including any of this.

I cannot comment about the Vailliant aside from the fact that they come highly rated as a boiler manufacturer as well.

cant comment for Viessmann, ive worked on vaillants for years,good solid boiler,the good thing about vaillaints is they carry on making parts for them after 20+ years,other manufacturers depending on model stop making them 10-15 years

fmfm20j said:

I'm sure the experts will shoot me down when I say that it is very important to have the system properly flushed during installation and to have a Magnaclean (or equivalent) installed as part of the system.

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If the system is properly cleaned then a Magnaclean is not required as there would be nothing for it to do.

If it really bothered you then an over size mesh line filter could be fitted as thats is under £10 and will tray ALL pieces unlike tha Magnaclean which only traps magnetic bits.

Tony

The engineer who can flush a system and get every last bit of crud out is yet to be born. I have started fitting the Spirovent products now as they are far more robust that the plastic magnetic filters...

Tony can but then again he is the best and everyone else is rubbish

Gasman77 said:

Tony can but then again he is the best and everyone else is rubbish

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Either that or Tony was never born.... Assembled in a factory in the far East perhaps?

Those ten quid filters are absolutely pants and aint worth carrot,for any install where you are keeping the original pipework and rads i would add a spirotech combi,this eliminates magnetic and non magnetic debris

A powerflush will clear almost all crud out of system and when i do it i use heat as well as a large version of the magnetic filter, i can so the system is cleaned to the best of my ability ,but hand on heart i can never promise to have removed every single bit of debris from the system



Now for ongoing maintenence and the relative large cost of new boiler install it is worth spending an extra 150 quid ,this filter from spirotech will last alot longer then any modern boiler,once installed there is no reason for it ever to break down or go wrong because there are no moving parts inside or anything that can wear out

The vaillant boiler requires a perfectly clean system because of crappy heat exchanger made by ginnoni,it has clearances of 6mm in places and if there is any crud of any kind it will block it very easily and because of the way it works almost impossible to get out,the manufacturers will always blame the poor installer not the poor design of the heat exchanger,the mark 2 of this ginnoni heat exchanger is alot better and looks more like the veissman with alot more clearances ,so if the french can not innovate at least they can immitiate the germans

This ginnoni Heat exchanger is not exclusive to vaillant but used across the industry and the manufacturers know full well the problems with it,i know personally of about 30 vaillant which have had heat exchangers changed out ,one customer has had two and then eventually because he was going mad they changed out the boiler for him

@ happyplumber

Vaillant may sound French, but is - and always has been - German

Mountain walker, he is talking about the Gianonni heat exchanger even though he spells it wrongly!

It sounds Itallian but in fact its French! ( Probably started by a Frenchman of Italian origin ).

I went to a questionably fitted GlowWorm with a blocked plate HE.

Because it was a fussy customer I offered to fit a Magnaclean as she has upmarket lodgers and did not want any outages.

I returned after three weeks to check and clean the magnet and there was only the lightest covering of dirt on it. In between the dirt there was shiny magnet visible!

Tony

mointainwalker dont try and be cleverer then u actually are,i know who vaillant is and also i know who gianoni are and the intricate working of the boilers as well as the different items manufactured by ginnoni

Ginonni also lease out certain section to vaillant,in their factory so all heat exchanger made for the group is checked by the vaillant group employees

tony i am heating engineer and plumber,im not here to have a spelling competition with people so dont give flying fook about my spelling

Time to stick up for the baxi here,, Fit them, and know alot of good lads that fit them and wouldnt go for nothing else,, Boilers break down no matter what manufacturer.

Agile said:

I returned after three weeks to check and clean the magnet and there was only the lightest covering of dirt on it. In between the dirt there was shiny magnet visible!

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But what about in one, two, three years time? No matter how well inhibited the system is, old radiators are eventually going to start shedding metallic debris into the system. Certainly worth the cost for peace of mind IMO.

electronicsuk said:

Agile said:

I returned after three weeks to check and clean the magnet and there was only the lightest covering of dirt on it. In between the dirt there was shiny magnet visible!

Click to expand...

But what about in one, two, three years time? No matter how well inhibited the system is, old radiators are eventually going to start shedding metallic debris into the system. Certainly worth the cost for peace of mind IMO.

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This the exact reason why we install a spirotech on system when it has been cleaned,just in case any debris or sludge which becomes lose over time can be trapped and removed instead of causing damage to intiricate parts inside the boiler

As the plate had blocked with a few months of installation I thought that there was going to be quite a lot of dirt in the system.

The installer was typical of many of the people who post on here, he had been paid and was not going to return to give any customer satisfaction. So she called me!

One of my reasons for fitting the magnaclean was that it gave her an incentive to call me for an annual service as she is not going to empty the unit.

The reality is that the system was well cleaned and its was just a few remaining flakes which blocked the plate. The nupty G-W or Homeserve warranty visit could not even identify the blocked plate so they first changed the NTC ! Then they told her it needed a power flush!

When I attended I told her that it did not need a power flush. Just the plate cleaning and the magnaclean to catch any further dirt.

Some of my industry colleagues are not very happy that I dont milk the customers to the maximum possible! I only do whats necessary!

Tony