As seen on TV.

[amfisted]

Boxt. I'd never actually heard of them until I saw an advert on TV the other day, and I couldn't believe the prices they were quoting.

I had a quote from BG last year to fit a Worcester 24i Greenstar, boiler location to be moved from the kitchen to an airing cupboard in the bathroom: price came down eventually to £2600. Boxt start their quotes for a Worcester boiler fitted in a property like mine--small 2/3 bed property with one bathroom--at £1795, though I haven't had a detailed quote to take account of the relocation and I probably won't be getting it done for a good while yet anyhow.

I notice that on Trustpilot, Boxt have excellent ratings, but if you look hard enough yes, you can find stuff that isn't so complimentary. But isn't it the case that all companies, even sole traders, sometimes get things wrong?

Are companies like this which will quote online without even seeing the job a flash in the pan, or the way forward for the world of domestic gas appliance installation? If the answer to the second question is yes, then clearly the future doesn't look good for the rest of the gas installation market unless they adopt a similar model. And that is obviously impractical if you don't have access to the economies of scale of companies like Boxt, who I believe have a connection with Worcester Bosch themselves.

Intriguing stuff, with apologies if this has already been raised elsewhere.

 

[Mottie]

Hmmm. Going on the Boxt web site, a Greenstar 24i for my house came out at £2,610 from them so more expensive than BG.

 

[muggles]

The two companies are very closely linked. The fact that they can offer such cheap rates might give some indication as to how overpriced the boilers are in the open market. There's also no guarantee of a quality installation - they don't pay their tradesmen particularly well, and the old adage "pay peanuts, get monkeys" does have some truth in it...

 

[ianmcd]

you forget the little word "from" a four letter word that gets a salesman in your home, and guess what it, then becomes a very big word

 

[amfisted]

Just done the calculation on their website and for fitting a Worcester Greenstar 25i it came up, yes, dearer than BG at £2800 ish.

Do one, Boxt.

 

[ianmcd]

there are far better boilers for that price range supplied and fitted just shop around

 

[D_Hailsham]

Robert Bosch UK Holdings Ltd are the largest (45%) shareholder in Boxt Ltd. They also own 100% of Bosch Thermotechnology Ltd (i.e. Worcester Bosch).

I don't need to say any more!

 

[ericmark]

I am undecided about Worcester Bosch, they have a good name, and you can get fixed price repairs, however we only get the boiler changed once, by time it needs changing again technology has also changed so can't compare old with new, so in real terms we have no idea which boiler is the cheapest to run over 10 years.

All we can do is read the spec, and think about what it does, and try to work out which is likely the best, so when my parents wanted a new hot water tank, they found a grant made it cheaper to fit a new boiler, and a company came in and fitted a Worcester Bosch with all new pipe work and it was clear the new boiler was cheaper to run than the old one, however the control was very poor, and I question the whole idea of a thermostat that uses a mark/space control system to reduce hysteresis (stop over shoot) with a boiler that modulates due to temperature of return water. One would think each time the thermostat turns it off, when it restarts it would start at full output, so defeating the cleaver algorithms built into the boiler?

They also fitted a combi boiler to supply a power shower, which had to be corrected, so not so keen on the firm.

- they don't pay their tradesmen particularly well, and the old adage "pay peanuts, get monkeys" does have some truth in it...

that was it seems the case with parents job, but was not Boxt Ltd.

We all what ever trade tend to do some thing because we have always done it that way, and had no complaints, however who will complain about gas or oil bills if the price has gone down? As to if it could have gone down further we simply don't know, so we are satisfied. Having tried to correct my parents central heating I found it was silly things that were wrong, TRV will work on the return, but the setting of lock shield is far more critical. And thermostat was put in the hall, as they have always put the wall thermostat in the hall, and no TRV fitted to hall radiator as you don't fit a TRV to radiator where the wall thermostat is, actually fitting a TRV in the hall was the single biggest improvement to the system. But to go against what is always done, the installer must use his skills, and not simply do what was done in the 1980's when modulating boilers had not hit the market place.

Be it Boxt Ltd, or British Gas, you are likely to get some one who does it that way because he has always done it that way, fact that BG were pushing Hive well before Hive brought out the linked TRV and before the linked TRV Hive was rubbish, points to a company who are just out to sell things, not make them work efficiently. Heating needs to suit our home, where we live, so what chance does a penguin have, they don't even live in the same hemisphere.

 

[D_Hailsham]

I question the whole idea of a thermostat that uses a mark/space control system to reduce hysteresis (stop over shoot) with a boiler that modulates due to temperature of return water. One would think each time the thermostat turns it off, when it restarts it would start at full output, so defeating the cleaver algorithms built into the boiler?

At the risk of encouraging another epic from ericmark-space, I don't think the part I have underlined is necessarily true. It certainly wasn't on the Remeha Avanta at my previous house; and doesn't appear to be the case with my current WB combi, which is over 10 years old. It may have been generally true when modulating boilers first appeared, but the designers seem to be learning the lesson and restarting the boiler at the same output as when turned off. Obviouslly this would not be suitable if the boiler had been off for a long time. The drop in water temperature while off is a possible indicator.

 

[ianmcd]

At the risk of encouraging another epic from ericmark-space, I don't think the part I have underlined is necessarily true. It certainly wasn't on the Remeha Avanta at my previous house; and doesn't appear to be the case with my current WB combi, which is over 10 years old. It may have been generally true when modulating boilers first appeared, but the designers seem to be learning the lesson and restarting the boiler at the same output as when turned off. Obviouslly this would not be suitable if the boiler had been off for a long time. The drop in water temperature while off is a possible indicator.

Dont worry about it, the part you underlined is wrong, modern fully modulating boilers do not automatically come on at full rate after a room thermostat has reached temperature, most monitor the flow and return temp and heat loss and calculate what the boiler needs to do to maintain temp

 

[Mottie]

Dont worry about it, the part you underlined is wrong, modern fully modulating boilers do not automatically come on at full rate after a room thermostat has reached temperature, most monitor the flow and return temp and heat loss and calculate what the boiler needs to do to maintain temp

I have a question Ian - perhaps you could help me understand. On my 2 year old Vaillant Ecotec plus 418 boiler, reading the installation manual, you can adjust the heating partial load. I’ve had a little play with it and you can set it anywhere up to the maximum output of 18Kw. There is also an 'auto' setting on there too, which it is on at the moment. According to the manual it says this “The heating partial load of the product is set to Auto at the factory. The product independently determines the optimum heating output depending on the current heat demand of the system. You can retroactively change the setting in the Diagnostics menu under D.000."

My question is, what is the difference between setting it on 'Auto' or '18Kw'? Also, if it modulates, what would be the point of setting it lower than 18Kw or Auto?

 

[ianmcd]

I have a question Ian - perhaps you could help me understand. On my 2 year old Vaillant Ecotec plus 418 boiler, reading the installation manual, you can adjust the heating partial load. I’ve had a little play with it and you can set it anywhere up to the maximum output of 18Kw. There is also an 'auto' setting on there too, which it is on at the moment. According to the manual it says this “The heating partial load of the product is set to Auto at the factory. The product independently determines the optimum heating output depending on the current heat demand of the system. You can retroactively change the setting in the Diagnostics menu under D.000."

My question is, what is the difference between setting it on 'Auto' or '18Kw'? Also, if it modulates, what would be the point of setting it lower than 18Kw or Auto?

I am no expert with your boiler but I do know that it has problems when set up wrong, it really struggles if it can not disperse the heat load efficiently, so say you set it to 18KW and you only had a 10KW heat dump the boiler suffers, I have tagged @831bunny, for you , he works for vaillant and will be able to advise you the best way for your boiler to be set up, there are other vaillant lads on here and if they see this they will know more than me, also @ScottishGasMan might be able to help

 

[ericmark]

At the risk of encouraging another epic from ericmark-space, I don't think the part I have underlined is necessarily true. It certainly wasn't on the Remeha Avanta at my previous house; and doesn't appear to be the case with my current WB combi, which is over 10 years old. It may have been generally true when modulating boilers first appeared, but the designers seem to be learning the lesson and restarting the boiler at the same output as when turned off. Obviouslly this would not be suitable if the boiler had been off for a long time. The drop in water temperature while off is a possible indicator.

That is good, what I see as the problem is we don't know. I tried with mothers house to find a simple method to monitor what the boiler was doing, but can't find a simple clamp on flow meter like the clamp on ammeter as used with electric.

 

[D_Hailsham]

Dont worry about it, the part you underlined is wrong, modern fully modulating boilers do not automatically come on at full rate after a room thermostat has reached temperature, most monitor the flow and return temp and heat loss and calculate what the boiler needs to do to maintain temp

Sorry if you are confused but that is what I was trying to say.

 

[Gasguru]

Given Vaillants software history (they've screwed up many times) you want to override any auto setting...what appears to work well in their test labs may not work well in a UK home.
It is normally always beneficial to range rate a boilers output regardless of the manufacturers recommendation or default settings.