flue runs down wards??

[onlyfitidealboilers]

why dont you two have a fight?!!!!

 

[jimhet]

As namsag says, the perception that BF boilers are as rare as rocking horse droppings is misplaced, the main reason gasbanni or anybody else doesn't have much to do with them is probably because unlike the later generation of boilers with fanned flues and PCBs etc, the BF type boiler very rarely goes wrong

 

[vulcancontinental]

Very, very, very rarely and if it were possible to accurately audit the energy used by engineers driving to change fans and PCBs over the life of a boiler and the energy used in first making and then disposing/recycling the blessed things plus the environmental cost in pollution I'd be surprised whether there was any net saving in money or energy in adopting the new technology.

Keeps people busy however.

 

[Agile]

In three years a typical boiler would burn about £2000 of gas.

In the one repair visit in those three years an engineer might use £3 of fuel to visit and repair.

The fan is difficult to quantify but obviously the fuel used is less that the final cost so perhaps a £100 fan might have £15 of fuel used?

So the boiler's £2000 of gas would have been about £3000 if it had been an old cast iron inefficient boiler.

Tony

 

[namsag]

onlyfitidealboilers

We are probably both too busy fixing ideals to arrange a fight

 

[vulcancontinental]

In three years a typical boiler would burn about £2000 of gas.

In the one repair visit in those three years an engineer might use £3 of fuel to visit and repair.

The fan is difficult to quantify but obviously the fuel used is less that the final cost so perhaps a £100 fan might have £15 of fuel used?

So the boiler's £2000 of gas would have been about £3000 if it had been an old cast iron inefficient boiler.

Tony

This is interesting. Not sure I agree with your reasoning on this and will think about it.

You seem to have some mileage on you with installs so if you think back to say a Baxi WM BF model you installed 15-20 years ago and a WM FF boiler, preferably condensing or combination boiler installed at the same time and try to recall how many visits/parts etc. other than annual service.

At a Baxi training day some time ago the instructor saw me looking glum when he was speaking about the Baxi service backup, parts and engineer, on their new super-duper reliable boilers (Platinums or maybe Duo-Tecs I think).

I asked what sort of parts and engineer backup they used to provide on the Bermuda's and F/S Bostons etc - he said none, they didn't go wrong.

To be continued;- by me at any rate.

 

[gas112]

Vulcan continental BF now there was a boiler odd thermocouple every ten years the odd solenoid operator and six way selector switch and you could just leave them from year to year .

 

[vulcancontinental]

Vulcan continental BF now there was a boiler odd thermocouple every ten years the odd solenoid operator and six way selector switch and you could just leave them from year to year .

They were the Rolls Royce of boilers. I still have come across about a half dozen in the past three years, all still silent, all working. Then Ideal bought the company.

Came across a Crane Cavalier a few months ago, 45 plus years old I reckon and still going strong, no leaks from gaskets but just showing. The door alone would make an Apollo, double skinned and insulated.

Not that I propose the client should continue with it but it did it's job.

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• vulcancontinental
• 13 Jul 2010
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• vulcancontinental
• 13 Jul 2010
• 5

 

[vulcancontinental]

Agile wrote:

In three years a typical boiler would burn about £2000 of gas.

In the one repair visit in those three years an engineer might use £3 of fuel to visit and repair.

The fan is difficult to quantify but obviously the fuel used is less that the final cost so perhaps a £100 fan might have £15 of fuel used?

So the boiler's £2000 of gas would have been about £3000 if it had been an old cast iron inefficient boiler.

Tony

For fun only and maybe to provoke a little gentle debate.

3 years fuel typical condensing boiler = £2000 – I think that’s OK but an improvement of 30% in efficiency from a fully controlled SE boiler to a HE boiler is not realistic – 10-12% is I think reasonable so the £2000 fuel would rise only to £2,300 (Nobody I know was putting in gravity F&R uncontrolled systems 15 years ago).

Design life of boiler = 15 years.

5 repair visits to a HE boiler.

5 miles to job, 3 to parts centre, 3 back, 5 miles home. 16 miles @4.50/gall 30mpg yes, £3 fuel X5 = £15

5 broken items @ £100 each plus labour say £170. Fan to be made, refurbished or PCB made, or refurbished. Both shipped to parts centre then collected plus purchase cost. Plus energy used in manufacture and disposal including all the muck that is required while making a printed circuit board and the rubbish left when it’s finished with. £865 in money and unknown amount in energy and cost.

So over a lifetime of 15 years the high efficiency unit has cost the client 5 visits and 865 quid excluding services plus the inconvenience of the breakdown and £10,000 in fuel = £10865 not including the energy to run the fan (I wonder what that would work out at?).

The equivalent BF boiler might need a thermocouple (£50) over the same period. While costing £11200 with less inconvenience to customer and less pollution caused by manufacturing and shipping of parts = £11250 plus no fan to run.

Not a huge difference over 15 years (£25.60p/year) if I am anywhere near correct - except in our income and that of those making and selling boiler components. Dangerous knowledge.

An old customer rang me this afternoon today to ask if I suggest he update his system – a Potterton Netaheat and an AQ6000 energy management controller I put in 20 years ago. I’ve had to change a PCB once. It usually costs him £500 but rose to £600/annum in fuel this year he says for a 4 bed 70’s extended detached.

He asked me what I’d suggest, I said a Viessmann and a weather comp.

He asked me what I would do.

I said look at the back panel of the Netaheat when it’s serviced to make sure it’s in good shape along with the case seal, blow out the pots on the AQ6000 with canned air and keep the lot until it falls over.

I don’t think he will as new = good to most people but I like to tell it like I see it.

 

[lawrance]

Yep short off work only done 2 and a half days last week and only earned £1300 be around the same as that most weeks in this summer . Life is such a struggle carrying golf clubs around

You may start before 8.12 but some off us are still in bed before we then go to the cafe before we start work . Working day is ten till 6 with no breaks.

Get good at your job and you may be able to do it

You are such a chancer and yet you cant even see it!
I am self employed so dont try and feed me your bull s*it!
If you were any good you would be working full time hours + overtime. You remind me of some local chancers who talk a good job and yet are a pure joke.
You might be able to fool the locals down your local bingo hall but you cant fool me
Oh and I have earned more than that this year (£1300) in a day you pr*ck

 

[gasbanni]

The fast glib answer was about balanced flue which was the majority i didnt mention FF.
So no it was not wrong or in error
Your answers in here and in the CC merely prove you dont have enough experience in the domestic market to know what boilers are out there.
Golf course calling must go.

yes gasman your right..... I dont claim to know all the boilers that are out there... does anybody ? My apology for winding you up (or attempting to if you weren't) is in the cc. Do you honestly belive that I'd still be working (Independantly) for manufacturers if I didn't have experiance in the domestic market ? My work in the lpg sector was very interesting however I've worked in the nat gas side of things for years, but it boils down to what you get called out to......which I have absolutely no control over, however a barrister said my ad in the yellow pages was the best one in there. which naturally I was pleased with so it must appeal to a certain kind of customer....those that dont have balanced flue boilers

 

[gasbanni]

As namsag says, the perception that BF boilers are as rare as rocking horse droppings is misplaced, the main reason gasbanni or anybody else doesn't have much to do with them is probably because unlike the later generation of boilers with fanned flues and PCBs etc, the BF type boiler very rarely goes wrong

Yes I'd agree with that, that they are more reliable simply because theyre simpler. Additionally All I'm saying is I hardly ever get called out to em !
and when you look round you see loads that have been replaced because of the brickwork patching around the ff terminations !

 

[gasbanni]

If you were any good you would be working full time hours + overtime.

Why ? enjoy life I know quite a few tradesmen that have come off been vat reg and have eased up as long as they can pay the bills. Why kill youself work clever not hard. If hard work paid best Labourers would be rich men.
Whats the point in slaving for the 3l33ding tax man.

 

[gasbanni]

Very, very, very rarely and if it were possible to accurately audit the energy used by engineers driving to change fans and PCBs over the life of a boiler and the energy used in first making and then disposing/recycling the blessed things plus the environmental cost in pollution I'd be surprised whether there was any net saving in money or energy in adopting the new technology.

Keeps people busy however.

Agreed. Totally. plus the servicing calls as well as the breakdowns.

Some of the old jobbies dont really need servicing when you look at the flame picture despite not having ben serviced for several years in some cases. Not that I'm advocating infrequent servicing. condensingsceptic.

 

[gasbanni]

Agile wrote:

In three years a typical boiler would burn about £2000 of gas.

In the one repair visit in those three years an engineer might use £3 of fuel to visit and repair.

The fan is difficult to quantify but obviously the fuel used is less that the final cost so perhaps a £100 fan might have £15 of fuel used?

So the boiler's £2000 of gas would have been about £3000 if it had been an old cast iron inefficient boiler.

Tony

For fun only and maybe to provoke a little gentle debate.

3 years fuel typical condensing boiler = £2000 – I think that’s OK but an improvement of 30% in efficiency from a fully controlled SE boiler to a HE boiler is not realistic – 10-12% is I think reasonable so the £2000 fuel would rise only to £2,300 (Nobody I know was putting in gravity F&R uncontrolled systems 15 years ago).

Design life of boiler = 15 years.

5 repair visits to a HE boiler.

5 miles to job, 3 to parts centre, 3 back, 5 miles home. 16 miles @4.50/gall 30mpg yes, £3 fuel X5 = £15

5 broken items @ £100 each plus labour say £170. Fan to be made, refurbished or PCB made, or refurbished. Both shipped to parts centre then collected plus purchase cost. Plus energy used in manufacture and disposal including all the muck that is required while making a printed circuit board and the rubbish left when it’s finished with. £865 in money and unknown amount in energy and cost.

So over a lifetime of 15 years the high efficiency unit has cost the client 5 visits and 865 quid excluding services plus the inconvenience of the breakdown and £10,000 in fuel = £10865 not including the energy to run the fan (I wonder what that would work out at?).

The equivalent BF boiler might need a thermocouple (£50) over the same period. While costing £11200 with less inconvenience to customer and less pollution caused by manufacturing and shipping of parts = £11250 plus no fan to run.

Not a huge difference over 15 years (£25.60p/year) if I am anywhere near correct - except in our income and that of those making and selling boiler components. Dangerous knowledge.

An old customer rang me this afternoon today to ask if I suggest he update his system – a Potterton Netaheat and an AQ6000 energy management controller I put in 20 years ago. I’ve had to change a PCB once. It usually costs him £500 but rose to £600/annum in fuel this year he says for a 4 bed 70’s extended detached.

He asked me what I’d suggest, I said a Viessmann and a weather comp.

He asked me what I would do.

I said look at the back panel of the Netaheat when it’s serviced to make sure it’s in good shape along with the case seal, blow out the pots on the AQ6000 with canned air and keep the lot until it falls over.

I don’t think he will as new = good to most people but I like to tell it like I see it.

I concur. A corgi inspector told me he was involved with some condensing boilers that had virtually rotted away....two years old but wouldnt say whose.... Ravenheat engineer told me he's opened up some of their boilers eighteen months old......like a ten year old boiler inside !