The life of a combi boiler?

Hi Guys,

This is my first post so hi to you all.

I have recently moved into a new property, the boiler in this propery is 25 years old but i want it moving out of the kitchen into the loft or an airing cupboard.

What i was thinking of doing was replacing the boiler for a Combi Boiler, but i have been told that a Combi Boiler only has a lifespan of about 5 years...? Is this true and is Combi the way to go?

Thanks all

Shrubb

Is it a one-bedroom flat, and do you live alone? If so a combi might suit you.

If you want to run a bath, and don't like reading the newspaper while it fills, or have several people in the house who might turn on more than one hot tap at a time, maybe not.

I will admit I am an old stager, and like to have my own hot water in the house in a cylinder that I can use even when there's a water stoppage, or when my boiler's broken dowm so I can heat it with the immersion.

By chance, we had a main burst in my small town early in the morning two weeks ago. My neighbour with a combi had to wash, shave and make tea using the water remaining in his kettle from the night before. I was up at 6 and have a 50-gallon tank so no worries. I would have invited him in if I'd known.

Of course, that sort of thing doesn't happen often; but boilers do break down sometimes; electricity goes off; pipes burst.

5 years - load of bulls**t.

i havent been in the game long enough to have seen 1st hand how long they last, but if it was 5years no one would ask for a combi and no one would fit them.

probably 10-15 years if its a decent make.

10-15 yrs thats what i thought, we had a gas man from onstream come today to change the gas metre and he said that combo boilers are rubbish and only last on average 5 yrs.....although the boiler we have is 25 yrs old he said stick with it coz it will last another 20

one of the long-termers on here will verify there lifespan through 1st hand experiance with them.
Combis have been around for 20 odd years, and as long as you get it installed properly and get it serviced every 12months it will last longer than 5years.

There have been a few notorious combis which have become huge trouble or beyond economical repair in 5 years. Things seem to have settled a bit, but I certainly wouldn't advise choosing any radical new design! Plenty of 15 year old ones still out there though.

We usually suggest a modern HE combi will economically last between 10-12 years. 15 years would be on the lucky side, but not impossible. Remember, they don't make Vaillant VCWs any more.

If you don't get the system properly cleansed you might be lucky to see 2 good years out of it, whatever make you buy.........cleanliness is everything with a modern combi.

The life of a combi will depend firstly on a clean system and secondly on the competency of the maintenance engineer.

Last week I saw a perfectly good three year old combi which had been removed because its plate heat exchanger was blocked. Some cowboy fitted a new boiler and when that failed after a few weeks they had the system power flushed for another £400.

Virtually all the combis on sale now should be able to give 10-12 years PROVIDING any repairs are done by a competent engineer.

Tony Glazier

I am still servicing an ELM LeBlanc which must be twenty odd years old

nice old thing, never given a mins trouble

vaillant mag sine 18 combi boilers are still going and they are 20 year old plus. not too sure if vaillant are making boilers this good today but the better makes last longer usually.

Yep. Sine T3 CF 25 yrs old, they think, and still going.

yea i`d say at least 10 years from a half decent combi, providing its fitted properly, system is clean & a decent inhibitor fitted.
they dont last as long as the old type of boiler because theres so much more inside them to go wrong, pump, diverter valve, fan, pres. switch etc etc ...
you havn`t got to buy the most expensive, but dont buy cheap crap either! you know the old saying, pay peanuts ......

I'm staggered by the acceptance of 10, 12 or 15 yrs as a life span of a 'modern' combi.
Why should this be?
If any salesman admitted this to me....I'd laugh in his face...I mean...they ain't cheap are they?
Any comments welcome
Garethgas

They are quite cheap - same price as a non-combi, and I believe those vaillants were £800 all those years ago.
I wonder if a manufacturer will ever make a combi fit the same backplate as their previous model. Guaranteed sale you'd think. Everybody would DIY!

In my view if a boiler is relatively easy to change parts on and those parts are available there is no end to their lifespan.

At one end of the spectrum the Buderus takes a maximum of 15 minutes to change any single part, and it was said to me by the rep 2 years ago that no part cost more than £120. That figure may have risen.

I can get the primary heat exchanger off in an easy 5 minutes, I can't think of a parts change on a boiler worse than that. Since it's so easy to remove a new one may not even be required, as it could be flushed and cleaned to perfection once removed.

Many boilers today are similar theoretically in that the various models in the range use the same heat exchanger and gas valve/blower assembly hydrolic block etc for the different powered versions, just a different setting and different dhw heat exchanger. Therefore parts stocking for the chosen make to specialise in is relatively inexpensive.

No other manufacturer has addressed the needs of the service engineer so perfectly, but there are many other boilers which I would be happy to keep going in 20 years time.

There are still a few designs that I would very quickly back down from suggesting they get the manufacturers service team. The most likely case is that such a boiler would be refused by others and probably the manufcaturer too when it is over 10 years old.

In short the easier it is to work on the longer it will remain on your wall.

I took a 20 year old elm leblank off a wall on Monday, it had done good service but is in no way worth a repair today. They now have a Buderus 600 28c purring away quietly on low throttle with it's variable head pump and modulating burner both directly controlled by room temperature using the dedicated radio stat programmer (modulink) which only cost £55.

If it isn't still on that wall in 20 years it will be because hydrocarbons have become so expensive and scarce that the horrendoulsy expensive and non viable (at todays prices) groundsource heatpump has replaced it, or hydrogen cells or whatever else they might have invented by then.