Keston 170 replacement suggestions?

[Lespb]

i think I have the only working Keston 170 in the country. Takes four or five attempts to start (been like this for five years) but it works well.

Anyway, I know I must replace it(I'm living on borrowed time). It sits on my kitchen wall and the flues go straight out through said wall.

House is 6000 sq feet, 27 rads, on three floors, one hot water tank etc. Dual zone.

what make or model do you think I should replace it with for easiest replacement. I do love Worcester boilers

Thanks for any advice.

 

[muggles]

50kW running 27 rads? Sounds excessive to me. I'd be inclined to start with a full heat loss calculation of your house to determine what it actually needs. 50kW is into commercial boiler territory, and the cost of a commercial boiler will make you cry into your coffee.

If you do a heat loss calc and discover you can get away with 40kW, go for an Intergas Compact HRE 40 SB

 

[Agile]

Which part of Worcestershire?

You need to calculate the heat loss.

With 27 rads that could be about 30-40 kW but it does need calculating. Then add 2 kW for hot water heating.

Your boiler may well be seriously oversized. But do you really heat the whole house all the time ? Presumably your gas bill will be £3000 to £5000 ?

Common domestic boilers are generally not available above about 40 kW and then you need to go to small commercial models with a much shorter warranty period.

A possibility would be to use TWO smaller domestic boilers giving redundancy and probably still cheaper to buy.

But most people would select an installer and take their advice! They are meant to have the required skills and you are not expected to.

Tony

 

[Lespb]

Thanks for your advice.

35 rads. Sorry I missed a few room (it's a biggish house).

I'm getting advice today, but was quite impressed by the great advice here, so I thought I'd ask what people thought of Worcestershire, sorry Worcester boilers

The 170 was put in when the house was built (14 years ago) and has had many new parts circa six or seven years ago. I'm sure this is why it has lasted so well since. I have run it with two intelligent thermostats (cm67) for all of its life, and the house is never completely heated. My gas bill each year is around £800. Which I think is quite good.

However, I have pv panels(installed 2010), that I use in the summer to heat the water via the immersion, using an Isolar to intelligently use excess electric from the PB. This works extremely well and has paid for itself in a little over a year. I also have the boiler top up the hot water each day at 5pm in the summer, as i know the limitations of heating water via the immersion. I see the daily top up as a way of keeping the boiler firing up over the summer, given that it is a Keston ha ha.

Given the pipework is quite big for the Keston, I was thinking that it was worth obtaining advice on the easiest boiler to replace it with. That said getting a good boiler is important, pipe work aside.

Thanks for all Your help.

I'll let you all know what is recommended.

Les

 

[muggles]

General opinion on here amongst the pro's re: Worcester boilers, save for one or two who like them, is that there are much better boilers on the market, often for less money too.

Is space an issue?

 

[Agile]

With gas bill of just £800 you are using very little gas at all.

You need to calculate the heat loss as the boiler may be seriously oversized.

But do you really even need a boiler that can heat the whole house?

How many live there and do you even have two football teams to stay during the winter?

Tony

 

[Lespb]

All very valid points.

House rarely has more than four people in it.

Access is brilliant to the boiler, on the wall in the utility room. Lots of room around it.

There is no ability to put it on the floor unless I rip the utility room apart.

The guy today suggested Vaillant 37. But is looking into a Worcester 40.

I'll do the heat loss calculation at the weekend for you all.

Thanks for the replies again,

Les

 

[Agile]

You really need to do the heat loss first.

Then consider just how many rooms you need to heat at the same time.

Its very likely that you could make a decision not to provide a boiler powerful enough to heat all the rooms at the same time.

Its often forgotten that if its zoned the boiler only needs to have the power to heat one zone on the basis that you wake up with upstairs zone heated and then get up and heating is transferred to downstairs for the daytime.

Tony

 

[simond]

I like Worcester boilers. I like the 10 yr warranty they give customers, and the fact they don't argue first and come later.

They have 320 service techs on the road. Boilers are reliable. Complete opposite of Keston in fact.

 

[Lespb]

Will do heat loss and report back.

Do you guys have a link that would explain how I do it? So I get it right...

You are all 100% right re zones etc.

Les

 

[muggles]

Go here for heat loss calculator

I prefer a manufacturer that doesn't need 320 service agents running around trying to keep their boilers going and their customers happy.... 320 techs doing, what, three calls a day each? That's 960 repairs a day - 250,000 a year assuming they don't work weekends

 

[Agile]

Go here for heat loss calculator

I prefer a manufacturer that doesn't need 320 service agents running around trying to keep their boilers going and their customers happy.... 320 techs doing, what, three calls a day each? That's 960 repairs a day - 250,000 a year assuming they don't work weekends

The impression I get is that most staff engineers for manufacturers are expected to do more like 6 - 8 visits a day in urban areas!

That's 2000 a day! 500,000 a year!

They rarely work weekends! One of the advantages of that job. As well as a limited range of models and a van with almost all the parts likely to be needed.

 

[ShawsUnreasonableMan]

i think I have the only working Keston 170 in the country. Takes four or five attempts to start (been like this for five years) but it works well.

Anyway, I know I must replace it(I'm living on borrowed time).

Why? Is it still running? (I realise we are 2 years on.) Mine is, installed Winter 1998/9.

I would like an updated answer to this question just as a backstop, so please anyone please feel free to reply to the thread: no doubt similar boilers do indeed get written off rightly or wrongly every day.

On the latter point, why should any simple bit of kit like this be automatically obsolete? The multiple starting will wear (will have worn) it out but should be easily fixed.

 

[Dan Robinson]

What the phuk are you talking about?

 

[muggles]

Why? Is it still running? (I realise we are 2 years on.) Mine is, installed Winter 1998/9.

I would like an updated answer to this question just as a backstop, so please anyone please feel free to reply to the thread: no doubt similar boilers do indeed get written off rightly or wrongly every day.

On the latter point, why should any simple bit of kit like this be automatically obsolete? The multiple starting will wear (will have worn) it out but should be easily fixed.

Easily fixed maybe, but spares prices are silly. Nearly £800 for a fan unit, for example... may as well have a new boiler with a long warranty