Intergas or Ideal

DursleyDavid · 23 Jun 2019

I've been quoted for an Intergas Eco with 10 year warranty and only 93% efficiency. Or an Ideal Logic S30 with 98% efficiency, but only 5 year warranty. The Intergas is a combi, but I'd have it plumbed as a system. I know there's a lot of Intergas fans here. Which would you go for (IG is £140 more than the Ideal).
Thanks
David

MeldrewsMate · 23 Jun 2019

I very much doubt the seasonal efficiency of any gas boiler is as high as 98%, so don't use that as a differentiator between the two.

I'd go for the one that's made in Britain...that is if you want to still have this kind of choice next time you buy a boiler. A bonus is that you 'buy' part of a job for a snotty kid in Hull, and that the wages he gets will go partway to paying your accountant-children's inflated London wages, and the taxes they all pay will support schools, hospitals, and pensions, etc. In essence every £ that goes out of this country makes us all a bit poorer. The Intergas rep may think it makes him a bit richer, and it does because he is taking a slightly larger slice of that slightly smaller pie. This of course means that someone else (lots of someone elses) get a smaller slice of that smaller pie.

Your choice though.

bernardgreen · 23 Jun 2019

MeldrewsMate said:
I very much doubt the seasonal efficiency of any gas boiler is as high as 98%, so don't use that as a differentiator between the two.

I agree with that opinion.

Some boilers are ( claimed to be ) very efficient in Holland

Danieljamesrobinson · 23 Jun 2019

Intergas are supposed to be very fuel efficient on both CH and HW. Where as they say uk combis are only rated on CH? Please tell me if I've misinterpreted this. I've sat through the Intergas sales talk and was very impressed as a breakdown engineer. Their breakdown stats and amount of engineers reflect that. A design that uses less parts cannot be a bad thing for reliability. This said I fitted an Ideal logic combi 30 to my own house, because simplicity also and parts cost.

muggles · 23 Jun 2019

Intergas every time. There's no way the Ideal is 98% efficient, and the heat exchangers & sumps on them are made of cheese

bernardgreen · 24 Jun 2019

Danieljamesrobinson said:
A design that uses less parts cannot be a bad thing for reliability.

That seems to make sense, provided that none of the few parts are un-reliable.

Quoting this Intergas page

the build quality is as robust as ever, there are still only four moving parts and three plastic components,

But fewer moving parts can mean the designer has had to make compromises in the way the boiler operates. One compromise in the Intergas boiler is the initial slug of very hot water that comes out of the boiler if hot water is drawn when the central heating is running.

I am not saying Intergas are poor quality equipment, but it does seem that there is a lot of "sales" activity for Intergas on this and other forums.[/quote]

muggles · 24 Jun 2019

bernardgreen said:
One compromise in the Intergas boiler is the initial slug of very hot water that comes out of the boiler if hot water is drawn when the central heating is running.

Not true at all - this only happens on boilers that have been set up badly. Installed correctly, it is simply not an issue that occurs.

I really don't get why you're so anti-Intergas. Have they upset you at some point? You seem determined to pick fault every time they're mentioned, and most of what you say is wrong

muggles · 24 Jun 2019

Danieljamesrobinson said:
Intergas are supposed to be very fuel efficient on both CH and HW. Where as they say uk combis are only rated on CH? Please tell me if I've misinterpreted this.

Sort of. Intergas boilers condense in both heating and hot water production, whereas most other boilers can only condense in heating mode. Slightly irrelevant to the OP though, as he's wanting a system boiler

muggles · 24 Jun 2019

@DursleyDavid from the manufacturers' literature... both are rated at 93% efficient, although in the real world I'd expect Intergas to sneak ahead if installed on priority hot water with decent OpenTherm controls

bernardgreen · 24 Jun 2019

muggles said:
Installed correctly, it is simply not an issue that occurs.

So in those homes where it is an issue the installer is at fault.

muggles said:
I really don't get why you're so anti-Intergas. Have they upset you at some point?

The way they market their product is irritating,

muggles said:
You seem determined to pick fault every time they're mentioned, and most of what you say is wrong

Picking faults or mentioning the "dark" side of the equipment ? Very often I am told I am wrong but seldom is there an explanation of why I am wrong.

muggles said:
Intergas boilers condense in both heating and hot water production, whereas most other boilers can only condense in heating mode

Hot water production ? then yes as the water entering the heat exchanger is well below the dew point temperature
Heating ? possible but only if the water returning to the boiler was below the dewpoint temperature would condensing be possible.

Condensation of some water vapour in the concentric flue system is almost always possible and condensate will be produced. Whether the heat recovered to the incoming air to the combustion chamber is significant relative to the heat produced by burning gas is debatable.

opentrail · 6 Oct 2019

Intergas wins every time. I have lots of friends here in NL that swear by Intergas and Rehma. They are well known work horses. Installers love fitting and servicing them. I'm really satisfied with my HRE 24 combi which has cut the bills significantly compared to the old Valiant HRE it replaced. Almost instant hot water compared to the old boiler. I know a number of people in the UK including my father that has had a bad experience with Ideal. The attitude of the tech support that visited my father in the same year it was installed was next to useless and within 5 years the boiler needed to be replaced. Loud bangs. Pressure releases. etc etc. Needless to say the installer that fitted it has moved on and now fits WB. I here too, a number of installers recommending the Logica, but after that fiasco, no thanks.

D_Hailsham · 6 Oct 2019

DursleyDavid said:
I've been quoted for an Intergas Eco with 10 year warranty and only 93% efficiency. Or an Ideal Logic S30 with 98% efficiency, but only 5 year warranty.

Where did you get the efficieny numbers from? They don't agree with the official efficiencies as given in the Building Energy Performance Assessment Database. This shows the Intergas Eco 30 as having a SAP2009/2012 Annual Efficiency of 88.8%, and the Ideal Logic+ S30 with an efficiency of 89.6%. A difference of 1.2%, which is statistically insignificant as there is a tolerance of ± 3% on the quoted figures.

muggles · 6 Oct 2019

D_Hailsham said:
Where did you get the efficieny numbers from? They don't agree with the official efficiencies as given in the Building Energy Performance Assessment Database. This shows the Intergas Eco 30 as having a SAP2009/2012 Annual Efficiency of 88.8%, and the Ideal Logic+ S30 with an efficiency of 89.6%. A difference of 1.2%, which is statistically insignificant as there is a tolerance of ± 3% on the quoted figures.

It's a 4 month old thread, suspect the OP is gone by now

Nozzle · 6 Oct 2019

Go ATAG

Nozzle

Mr.B · 6 Oct 2019

Muggles, you recently kindly advised, in a different thread, about thermostatic programmer options - and introduced me to the Salus RT520RF to use with an Xclusive.

Having looked further I can see they also do a wired one (without the RF suffix)which is still Opentherm compatible but might possibly be a bit simpler? I like simple

I also see they go to the trouble of listing boilers that are compatible and, reassuringly, show the Intergas boilers listed there. A nice touch.

As you said before, the Salus 5 year warranty stands out from all the others.

So thanks again for adding to the sum of my (limited) knowledge.

I've looked at the Xclusive installation instructions and see that there is an onboard central heating programmer but I'm guessing people prefer to use the likes of the T3 or T4 or T6 or Salus RT 520 in preference to the ones built in to the boiler? I have the basic Honeywell CM 901 at present and like it very much.

One other thing I spotted was the preheat function (in its various settings). I get the principle of pre - warming the internals thus speeding up the production of hot water at the tap/shower - but wonder where the pre-heated water circulates? Is there some sort of small circuit around the HEX that the heated water runs through? I've never seen the topic raised before.

Am I right in thinking that the pre-heat function could easily be ignored on the grounds of wasting energy?

Am enjoying discovering facts about their range of boilers and feel quite optimistic.

Ta.

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Intergas or Ideal

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