Johnson & Starley warm air heating replacement help

[swpt]

Dear All,

I have a JWD 25 Johnson & Starley warm air heating system in my 1 bedroom flat and I've just been told that the valve is no longer safe and I basically need a whole new boiler as you can't source the valves any more.

My question is what is the cheapest possible way of getting some decent gas heating again? I've found a few second hand Johnson & Starley economaire warm air boilers available on ebay, all of which claim to be hardly used and fully working.

What sort of job is it to replace the JWD 25 with one of these and what sort of cost would I be looking at?

And how much more would it cost me to buy a new unit and get that fitted? (Hi-Spec J25 seems to cost about £1100 new)

Is there anything else that I haven't thought about?

Money is very tight so I would really like to be able to sort this for a few hundred pounds instead of a few thousand, which is frankly impossible at the moment!

Cheers in advance.

Simon

 

[ianmcd]

see if you can find the make and model of the gas valve that you need , someone on here might have one, if you cant find the info take a photo of it and post it,there is a good chance your WAU might have an asbestos flue in which case could be expensive to have a replacement installed

 

[footprints]

I wouldn't touch a second hand warm air system with somebody elses 10ft bargepole let alone my own!

Too much to go wrong and as I am assuming it is gas fired the main drawback with warm air systems is any fault in the used heat exchanger can mean fumes are pumped around the flat.

Cheapest option to install is electric heating, but the best and guess what dearest is to look at is a proper wet system.

Is your hot water by electric or by a gas circulator housed in the appliace or alongside?

 

[Agile]

But the gas safe installer would carefully inspect and test the replacement unit before fitting it.

CO detectors are very sensible with a WAU.

A lot are taken out and there are often parts or whole units being sold on Ebay.

Tony

 

[dcawkwell]

combi boiler.

 

[Hugh Jaleak]

The manufacturer is still in business, have you tried contacting J&S to check spare parts availability before condemning the whole unit?

http://www.johnsonandstarley.co.uk/default.asp

 

[Agile]

Do you know exactly why your gas valve has been designated as "unsafe" ?

 

[gas112]

only one valve i can think of on wau that are obsolete but they are around 40 year old.

As has been asked already ,photo will help as you maybe getting wool pulled over your eyes

 

[bellairaphon]

First I would check the engineers badge to see if he his qualified to work on warm air. More than likely it will be an honeywell gasvalve which are readily available.

Nath

 

[misterdubya]

Some of these old gas valves are 'servicable'. Does the valve look like the one in the picture?

Untitled

• misterdubya
• 6 Dec 2011
• 1

 

[swpt]

only one valve i can think of on wau that are obsolete but they are around 40 year old.

As has been asked already ,photo will help as you maybe getting wool pulled over your eyes

It's a Honeywell V8257A I think.

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• swpt
• 13 Dec 2013
• 1

Think the plumber is genuine as he told me a year ago it was on it's last legs and he's done other decent work for me.

Have also been in touch with Johnson and Starley who confirm the valve is now unavailable

 

[swpt]

Is your hot water by electric or by a gas circulator housed in the appliace or alongside?

Water is electric immersion and shower is electric so it's just the heating I need to sort.

 

[gas112]

yep thats the obsolete one and has been since mid 80`s . All parts of the valve used to be avialable individually but not for many many years now

We (british gas) used to change them for a grey push button honeywell gas valve and use a pilot tube kit (aviable off shelf still) to make a new supply.
Some manufacturers now frown on appliances being altered like this but JS never did but then again its been around 20 years since i done my last one so there thoughts may have changed

 

[footprints]

In the long run although more expensive to begin with, dcawkwell's suggestion of a combi will be the most economic option, so you use gas for both HW + Heating. Better resale values and in a one bed flat storage is at a premium so getting rid of the cylinder will free up space.

 

[swpt]

yep thats the obsolete one and has been since mid 80`s . All parts of the valve used to be avialable individually but not for many many years now

We (british gas) used to change them for a grey push button honeywell gas valve and use a pilot tube kit (aviable off shelf still) to make a new supply.
Some manufacturers now frown on appliances being altered like this but JS never did but then again its been around 20 years since i done my last one so there thoughts may have changed

Hi gas112,

Do you know what the grey Honeywell valve model was and what pilot tube kit would be required?

Realise in the long run a combi would make more sense but I'd need to take out a loan to fund it and I'd really prefer not to have to do that.