Someone coming in to do the assessment before doing a quote seems like a lot of scope for being impartial. I'd rather pay someone to do a professional assessment knowing they have no personal incentive to suggest one thing over another. Not saying everyone is dishonest, but there's enough to make me sceptical of this.
Recommendation of Vaillant boiler and Heatrae Sadia Megaflo?
- Thread starter noobiediyer
- Start date
Someone coming in to do the assessment before doing a quote seems like a lot of scope for being impartial. I'd rather pay someone to do a professional assessment knowing they have no personal incentive to suggest one thing over another. Not saying everyone is dishonest, but there's enough to make me sceptical of this.
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Caveat emptor!
So, it's important that you get, say 3, tenders to survey and then go with whom you feel you can have a good working relationship with. After all, how did you choose your builder?
You'll unlikely find a decent engineer who'll just do a paid survey. If you go that route, you'll be looking at paying an M&E consultant from a firm, which will cost you dearly and the advice will come from paper and not years of hands-on experience, fitting systems to all sorts of houses and for all sorts of clients.
So, it's important that you get, say 3, tenders to survey and then go with whom you feel you can have a good working relationship with. After all, how did you choose your builder?
You'll unlikely find a decent engineer who'll just do a paid survey. If you go that route, you'll be looking at paying an M&E consultant from a firm, which will cost you dearly and the advice will come from paper and not years of hands-on experience, fitting systems to all sorts of houses and for all sorts of clients.
Its not about being dishonest... That's a very negative outlook. In the main, us heating engineers will suggest systems that we know work and are happy to take responsibility for.
We have tried and tested various products over many years and have been influenced by what things fail and how often in order to move towards better reliability and performance for our customers, thus maintaining our reputation as this is what brings in new business.
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Disagree. What is your experience?
OK. So am I. But I only work for a select few builders' because they ask me rather than tell me...
With a lot of builders it's not like that...
Many like to pretend to their clients that they are in complete control and have a plumber on the books, when in truth, they call in whoever is available at the short notice they like to give.
With a lot of builders it's not like that...
Many like to pretend to their clients that they are in complete control and have a plumber on the books, when in truth, they call in whoever is available at the short notice they like to give.
I spoke to a heating engineer (who is Vaillant Mastertech certified, he said this was slightly more certified than the normal Vaillant certification), and he said that a higher power boilers (at least with the Vaillant ones) the power can be dialled down to run as efficient as the lower powered ones when dialled down to match their output. So other than extra initial outlay, there wouldn't be a downside.
I'm getting him in to do the full assessment. Thanks for all the help though, very much appreciated.
Well, he's wrong on that. Minimum output is as important as maximum output (maybe even more important) and they're different across the range. For example, the 37kW only goes down to 6.4kW, the 30kW goes to 5.8, the 24kW goes to 5.2, the 18kW goes to 3.8, and the 12kW goes to 3.0. A lower minimum output means reduced cycling, resulting in less wear and tear and lower running costs. Gas boilers typically ignite at around 70% of their max output, stabilise, then modulate down. If that stabilisation phase causes the flow temperature to overshoot the setpoint, the boiler will shut down, wait for the flow temp to drop, then re-ignite, overshoot again, and the cycle repeats until the anti-cycling program kicks in and stops the boiler firing up for 5-10 minutes. A lower minimum output means the burner can stay on for longer, reducing cycling, reducing wear & tear, and increasing efficiency.
Yes, he did say something about the minimum power. So sounds like that misaligned information was my fault by not relaying it properly. In all honesty, I didn't fully understand 100% he said and I don't recall everything he said either. I wasn't talking about putting in a 37kW when only a 12kW was needed. If for example my house only needed 17kW at its peak, then it sounds sensible to put in a 24kW boiler to have a bit of extra head room for possible future needs.
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