Sime Format 30HE - a good choice?

[BigJobby]

Hi
I'm putting in a new combi (4 bed 1 bath) and have been recommended the Sime Format 30HE.

I've seen a few negative comments about Sime, shutdown/reopened etc..

Can anyone advise if this is a good choice of if I should avoid?

cheers!

 

[Dan Robinson]

Avoid like a slimey stool on the pavement.

Plenty of adivse on new boilers here - mine personal favourite is here

Others seem to have a fascination with Vaillant, Veissman, Worcester Bosch and a few others - no accounting for taste though .

 

[Agile]

I hope you dont mean what you have said and will be getting a proper CORGI to install it for you!

They are fairly OK on a totally clean system but would not be many installers first choice ( or second or third either! ).

There are much better boilers available for the same price, even Ariston!

Tony

 

[Paul Barker]

Yes, I mean for goodness sake the person recommending a cheap boiler is only recommending what the boys over the counter at his murchants give him the best price on and like him to buy cause they get a tuppny halfpenny bonus for selling one. Anyone recommending such a boiler is not doing so because they are of a high intellect and have a good understanding of the mechanics of it all.

You have to look at a lot of issues when deciding on a boiler for a customer. I even got it wrong yesterday. I fitted another cheapish band A boiler, which I thought was a good boiler choice at the price the people of Scarborough can afford. But sadly when starting it up it's one for the service call, which I'll have to put in today as it was 7.30 last night when I found out. They might take two days to come.

If I had fitted a boiler that I am a sercice engineer for I would have just fixed it on the spot. Nothing worse for a customer than a new combi not working on install. But my favoured boiler that I have the parts for costs maybe £100 to £150 more. I shall include this experience though in my recommendation talk next time. Last night this guy was lamost about to say that he wanted me to take out his new boiler and fit the other, but I disuaded him before he expressed it, as it will be alright in the end, nothing wrong with the boiler choice, (I think) just one of those things. But there is a very good point to only fitting what yoiu have a healthy stock of parts for.

To follow on from Tony, though I do have a vested interest in Biasi also, they are a good quality cheap boiler.

I mean it's not like my vested interest is that big, they've sent me to 3 jobs so far! Big deal.

And I am going off Ariston big time after the diabolical design of the way the ignition flame spreads (or doesn't) across the burner aray on the early mgII, 'cause it's got me into a lot of trouble with a customer who has a brain the size of a peanut and a mouth four times the size of the mental cpacity to fill it with intelligent ideas.

 

[HarrogateGas]

I though Sime went bankrupt about 2 years ago and no longer exist?

 

[Paul Barker]

Actually you do have to feel for yesterdays customer. in his last house I fitted a reasonable band B boiler because he had just bought the BMW, it wnet wrong about three times, and to get quicker response than their own engineers could manage at that time I got them to send me the parts and fitted them buck shee.

Of course this time he has no money again because he's bought a new house, but he is never having one of those from last time again, so we went for another reasonable quality budget offering but this time band A as the difference in price is insufficient to satisfy me with the comrpomise any longer. I won't fit a band B now. But low and behold, it's the first one of these I've had aproblem with.

I know it's him, he's jinksed, he knows it too.

Fortunately he's OK and the relationship plumber/client is healthy.

Next time we'll defo up the anti to one of the boiler I carry parts for and get paid to fix. Proabbaly the Biasi if it has to be on a budget.

You got to basically say to yourself, "are they making enough money selling boilers?" No? then they will get it out of spare parts sales. Yes? then we won't be waiting in all day for the repair man quite as often.

 

[BigJobby]

cheers guys.

Don't worry Agile, figure of speech, I wouldn't attempt to do it myself.
The CORGI registered engineer who will be fitting it has recommended the Sime. He supplies and fits, but he is offering a 5 year parts & labour guarantee with it, which I wouldn't have thought they would offer if their experience was that they were unreliable?

 

[Paul Barker]

That's probably OK then. Most boilers are repairable by the person familiar with them and the right parts. There's plenty of prejudice about boilers such as that, but on the other side there is plenty of unfounded tribal opinion about what the "best" boiler is too.

 

[gas4you]

Any manufacturer offering a 5 year warranty has probably re-designed their boilers and is trying to get installers back on their side, thus building a better reputation for themselves.

There are worse out there

If you trust the installer then go with it.

 

[Agile]

I mean it's not like my vested interest in Biasi is that big, they've sent me to 3 jobs so far! Big deal.

What do you expect from one of the most reliable boilers on the market !!!

You should do warranty repairs for Ariston, Sime or Ferolli instead !

Can I ask what was the model of the Band A ? Email if necessary. And the fault?

 

[Agile]

I though Sime went bankrupt about 2 years ago and no longer exist?

The original UK firm was a private firm set up to market and service Sime boilers in the UK.

I am told the owner was over milking the firm and it was seriously in debt and he left it to go bust. BUT he kept on the web site and telephone numbers but unanswered !!! To encourage sales he gave a two years guaranty with the second year covered by his firm except by then it had closed!

Meanwhile, within a few weeks the parent firm set up a British subsidary but all the web and telephone listings still pointed to the old private firm so no body knew they were there. It was about a year until they were able to restablish themselves mostly with the same people.

The latest Sime are pretty similar to the Ariston with their appearance and faults. A basic boiler which is OK but Heatline and Biasi make much better boilers at about the same prices.

Tony

 

[Paul Barker]

Hi Tony,

OK the cheap band A boiler I have been fitting is the Unica buying on Magic boiler scheme.

That manufacturer has foot under table in Scarborough big time and PTS staff get reward points for promoting them. Alpha marketing department take note.

Anyhow all boilers can have initial starting up problems so what follws is not meant to be a slurr on this particular manufacturer. In the event I fixed it myself. There is a 6 option jumper rail on the pcb, there are two jum
pers supplied, but only one is normally needed. This was across the wrong pins, pins 6 instead of 5 I think it was, not got MI's to hand. However that still didn't fix it, but as an afterthought I tried the spare jumber on pins 5 and it was up and running. So a/ jumper in wrong position, b/ faulty jumper. What's the chances of that? Seems like this boiler skipped the bench test.

More anoyingly the integral filling loop took 2hrs to fill the system. I just stuck an external one on. I remember the integral filling loop being a bit slow but this one was downright failing. one of the processes in the manufacture must have been skipped maybe the punch didn't go right through. The problem is we have to fill the system up and get it going for jo public they don't really want a 2 days pause.

It is real nice with this manufacturer how they provide a case that comes off to expose three sides in one, the antipathy of an Ideal. But this particular model the front panel never stays up and it is just that bit fiddly to put all back together, so you always seam to look like a hamfisted nitwit trying to get the case back on.

I don't expect any long term reliability issues.

However I think it's better for me to install what I repair. You never have to leave customer without a boiler that way.