HELP! British Gas wants me to change my boiler. Should I?
I’m getting a lot of calls, texts, emails etc these days asking me for advice about whether to change an old but working boiler. Here is good example. An email from someone also called Mike, received 18th July 2022.
Mike,
Just found your website and am hoping you could find the time and would be kind enough to give me some advice…
A couple of days ago British Gas did the annual service on my 30 year old! Potterton Profile 60e boiler. A ‘phone call from them today… saying they want to give a free survey ( boiler inefficient/ difficulty getting spares etc.)
Obviously wanting me to buy a new one! So far I haven’t had a problem, but as I said, it is 30 years old.
Grateful for your thoughts
Mike B
And here is my reply:
Hi Mike,
Very common for BG to peddle this line. Most parts are freely available for the Profile but not all, so they partially correct. Should yours develop a fault there is a chance it cannot be repaired using genuine Baxi-branded parts, but usually an equivalent part can be found if the engineer is interested enough to be bothered. I disagree about it being inefficient though. Fuel efficiency is (IIRC) about 75% while a new boiler will be approx 90%. Not enough difference to warrant spending the £3k or so it will cost to replace. Hope that helps. May I quote your email (anonymously) in a future blog post on this exact subject, please? Kind regards,Mike
And just this morning I had a long phone conversation with someone with much the same question, who was being advised to remove their Potterton Netaheat and fit a combi boiler of some sort. My chat with them covered the following questions and (hopefully) cleared up a couple of misunderstandings:
1) A combi boiler is not the same thing as a condensing boiler.
Not necessarily, anyway. A condensing boiler condenses the water vapour in the flue gas leading to increased thermal efficiency. And increase of 11% over an otherwise identical boiler which is not condensing. While a combi boiler is one which does not need a separate hot water cylinder – it lights when you turn a tap ON, and heats the hot water ‘instantaneously’ as it passes through the boiler before arriving at the hot tap.
So now you know what each is, you can probably see that a condensing boiler might well be a combi too, or it might not. If you wish, you can have a condensing boiler of the type known as a “non-combi”, a “heat-only” or “regular” boiler. These are all the same thing and will heat up a hot water cylinder in just the same way as your current boiler, only more efficiently (as it is a condensing boiler!)
2) But aren’t combi boilers mandatory now? This is what I’ve heard…
Are you sure you didn’t hear that condensing boilers are mandatory? I ask because condensing boilers are mandatory if you are fitting a new one, but not combi boilers. (See 1. above for the difference.) You don’t have to have a combi if you don’t want one. Also, there is no obligation on you to take out an old, working, perfectly good non-condensing boiler (or even a broken-down one) and fit a new condensing boiler. This law only applies when you have already made the decision to fit a new boiler. Only newly fitted boilers MUST be of the condensing type.
3) Why wouldn’t I want a combi, if they get rid of that big hot water tank?
The main reason is if you like to use a bath rather than take a shower. A combi runs a shower brilliantly but they are pathetic at filling baths. They take AGES as the hot water flow rate from a combi is generally much slower than the hot tank it probably replaced. The very biggest, highest performance and most expensive combis approach the hot water performance of a hot tank, but most combis fall very short. If waiting 10-15 minutes for a bath to fill up would bother you, don’t get a combi.
Other things you should know about are as follows. The combi needs electricity to give you hot water – if the power fails, so does your hot water. There is no emergency back-up immersion heater as you no longer have the hot tank – hopefully this one was obvious! And the same applies if the combi boiler itself packs up – you’ll have no alternative method of getting hot water so you’ll be down to boiling kettles (from the cold tap). That’s about it, really. If none of these things trouble you then you’ll be fine with a combi.
4) Ok so what about the efficiency thing again? Isn’t my old Netaheat Profile 20% efficient or thereabouts? Won’t I save pile on my gas bills if I get a brand new 90% high efficiency boiler?
No! Mainly because whatever the salesman or sales brochure says or implies, the fuel efficiency of your current old boiler will be nothing like as poor as 20%. Your Netaheat Profile will have a fuel efficiency in the order of 75% and a new condensing boiler will have an efficiency of around 90%, or perhaps a bit higher. So using these figures your new gas consumption will be your old gas consumption x 0.75 / 0.90, or 83% of the old consumption. This new boiler, if you order it, will give you a reduction in gas consumption of 17% approximately. Bear in mind with the recent tripling of gas prices, even though your gas bills 17% of a very big bill is still a worthwhile saving and could well make it worth paying the cost of the new boiler anyway.
5) What about parts for my 25 year old boiler? I’m told they are hard to get.
This is partially true. For your Netaheat Profile, if it breaks down most parts are still available but not all, so mending a Profile in particular can be a bit of a lottery. With other models from the same era, the Potterton Suprima for example, and the Ideal Classic, I find all the commonly failing parts are freely available so there are no problems fixing either of those two models. One thing is certain though, with a 25-year old boiler that day parts become impossible to get is 25 years closer than with a new one. Are you ok taking the gamble?