warm air replacement

[simond]

If I warm to the customer when on a site visit I'll tell them the price we pay for the unit.

But some distrusting customers want to break down the deal into every constituent part, and then I find myself having to justify our costs by describing the training and assessment routines etc. They all assume (wrongly) that we're on £80K a year.

Generally speaking that type of customer is only asking for the minutae of detail so they can use it to negotiate the price down. And they are wasting their time, and mine.

I don't want to put your potential contractors at a disadvantage before they make the long unpaid trip to survey your house.

 

[Deleted member 105431]

Go to a BMW dealer and ask them to breakdown the cost of the car into parts costs, labour costs, manufacturing costs, markup etc etc and they'll send you packing. The total price is the important factor not its constituent parts.

Personally I prefer wet systems to w.a.u's but I am fully qualified to do both.

 

[Agile]

The OP seems to be fixated with the idea that one man can fit it in one day!

I expect it will be very difficult for one man to easily carry the unit on account of the bulk.

This seems like the kind of customer which we seek to avoid. We are always totally transparent about our pricing and will fit units supplied by the customer if that makes them more happy but we do charge a proper rate for the fitting.

I would always advise anyone to replace with a proper wet heating system as they dont have the disadvantages of warm air and will usually make the place more saleable.

Tony

 

[D_Hailsham]

Go to a BMW dealer and ask them to breakdown the cost of the car into parts costs, labour costs, manufacturing costs, markup etc etc and they'll send you packing. The total price is the important factor not its constituent parts.

The analogy is poor. The OP is not just buying a boiler he is also paying for the work involved in removing the old system and installing the new one.

When I have my car serviced and the garage phones up to say that additional work is required, which will cost £X, I always ask for a breakdown of parts and labour - they tell me. They will also tell me their hourly labour charge if I ask them. Their invoice is fully detailed with parts and labour shown separately and the labour broken down by job.

The only reason I can think of for independent installers not providing a breakdown of the costs is that they have something to hide.

 

[wolfman1]

Well, i never thought being interested in the price of something i wish to pay for would create such a fuss, i can assure you i am a very good customer, willing to pay good money for a good job, i don't expect anyone to work for free, and yes i would expect a car dealer to break down the cost (if i ever have the misfortune to have to use one).
i have just priced a job for a customer, my estimate shows labour, and cost of parts as assemblies as i receive them. The total is £20,000.00, I think he has the right to see where his money is going, I will if he askes tell him how much we pay for the parts.
I think I have the right to be given a brake down of the costs, that way i can make an informed decision when choosing my supplier. Anyone who would be unwilling to provide such information would make me suspicious, and now , unfortunately I have been made very suspicious of the trades people who replied here. especially those who seek to avoid a paying, intelligent customer with money in their pocket, just because they want to know where their money is going.
i've nearly secured the house now, i'm not looking forward to having the gas man round!

 

[wolfman1]

The OP seems to be fixated with the idea that one man can fit it in one day!

I expect it will be very difficult for one man to easily carry the unit on account of the bulk.

This seems like the kind of customer which we seek to avoid. We are always totally transparent about our pricing and will fit units supplied by the customer if that makes them more happy but we do charge a proper rate for the fitting.

I would always advise anyone to replace with a proper wet heating system as they dont have the disadvantages of warm air and will usually make the place more saleable.

Tony

Where does the idea of a warm air system being anything less than superior to a wet system come from?

 

[Deleted member 105431]

warm air is dusty, dirty, noisy and unless room sealed potencially dangerous. Largely fitted to (ex) council houses with 3 or 4 registers so doesn't heat the whole house, the water heating is often inadequate and they are big cumbersome units.

Compare that to ufh and an unvented cyl and they are crap. You can now get designer radiators so they're not ugly or even fanned convectors but domestically warm air is a cheap, poor alternative to either ufh or rads.

Industrially is a different story.

I would not have warm air heating if you gave me it for free.

 

[simond]

I have a few issues with a few comments above.

Firstly, the OP says

unfortunately I have been made very suspicious of the trades people who replied here. especially those who seek to avoid a paying, intelligent customer with money in their pocket, just because they want to know where their money is going.

He isn't going to be a paying customer of mine, living in Cambridge like he does, so my opinion is impartial. All of my customers in Surrey have money in their pockets and are intelligent.

Secondly, whilst I concur with most of Dangermouse's posts, I must disagree with his views on Warm Air. In my opinion a properly installed warm air system is at least as good as radiators, and offers some advantages over UFH.

No one here has denegrated air/air heat pumps, and of course, these blow hot air around a room. They happen to be fashionable and warm air isn't.

Thirdly, I can only assume D_Hailsham is not an installer. If he was, he would realise the error of his ways. Being an installer is a bit like being a football manager; everybody thinks they can do it better. Until they try it.

Cost bases are different when you work on location. Car dealers know what a Ford Mondeo is, and you bring it to them. Heating installers have to work in different houses every day, and get over unique problems which will not be evident in the hour or so they can survey the job (usually for nothing).

Very few contractors who work in your house give a part/labour detailed breakdown for a fixed price job.


If the OP likes, he can have a full price breakdown and a daily labour rate. I would love to work on this basis. But if his WAU took two days, that is what he would have to pay.

Alternatively, he can have a fixed price and no work breakdown. 99% of customers really want this option, believe it or not.

 

[wolfman1]

I get the drift about the pricing.

Just done a huge thread about advantages of hot air, then i lost it.

I am a mechanical engineer, and cannot see the advantage of rads over hot air (why dusty and dirty) and under floor heating would be very hard to retro and what if you got a leak?

May be i am looking at the wrong angle, I have read though that heating engineers who consider warm air to be inferior are usually ill informed, with a lack of experience on warm air and only see the cost benefits of installing wet systems (ie longer job, brings in more cash).

 

[wolfman1]

Id like to hear some more on the warm air versus radiator systems, you never know someone might change my mind! forget the under floor stuff, not really an option as a retrofit and a recipe for disaster if not done properly.

forget the fashions, we all know warm air is unfashionable, but does that make it any worse than radiators, i can see the point if warm air is not already installed, as retro would be expensive and difficult but i,m racking my brains as why the warm air is considered by so many to be the poor relation to radiators.

And another thought, would it be difficult to fit an airconditioning unit to the system, does any one do an all in one heater with a/c.

 

[mickyg]

i can see the point if warm air is not already installed, as retro would be expensive

thats basically it. Most current installed systems are badly installed, usually in the middle of properties which is not the ideal place for a decent new one. The ducting is usually falling apart leaking hot air everywhere it shouldn't. Retrofitting becomes a problem, you want to do a proper job, but it probably means replacing all the ducting as well as re-siting the appliance. No thanks.
As for new build? Yes new warm air units can be fitted and be extremely efficient, problem free, and loads of benefits over wet central heating...but...then you look at the domestic warm air industry and there's only 1 manufacturer struggling so much to turn a profit that they've turned to knocking out cheap rubbishy combi boilers. I would be extremely concerned that in 10 years time you'd still be able to get a decent supply of parts. so again, no thanks. But I agree it is a shame, cos the technology available now is good, its just too late

 

[wolfman1]

Valid points, i have had a look at the ducting, which seems very good, in fact the house seems to be well made all round, the house was built early 70's, not sure if unit is original, but suspect it is, as with most things i suppose a modern unit will not be as well built as early ones, same goes for most wet boilers as well.

 

[Kev F]

to be honest i cant see the point of replacing the wau. For the same price as quoted above 7 rads and condensing combi (depending on quality) you could fit for around 2.5k. Surely condesing boiler and wet system will pay for itself over the years compared to warm air. Just my opinion

 

[Agile]

May be i am looking at the wrong angle, I have read though that heating engineers who consider warm air to be inferior are usually ill informed, with a lack of experience on warm air and only see the cost benefits of installing wet systems (ie longer job, brings in more cash).

I am sorry that you really seem to believe that heating engineers are so bad at their profession! You also seem to think that their only motive is to maximise their profit at the customer's expense. Would that attitude get recomendations though?

There is nothing wrong with warm air as a method of heating a residential property!

But thats only until you put people to live there! It will only have a few disadvantages with a couple living together.

Put an old parent who snores in the house and the snoring is carried all round the house through the ducting.

Then add the young and over sexed noisy couple.....

Then add the young baby continually crying........

Warm air has just one advantage over wet systems and that is it heats up a few minutes faster, say 5 min instead of 15 min.

Disadvantages, apart from the transmitted noise and dust issues, include the virtual inability to achieve a good control of the temperature and particularly different temperatures in each room.

I realise that you think that heating engineers are "plumbers" and are generically ignorant and that you now know more than any of them about all heating systems. On the other hand I have come across all the complaints from people who have warm air. I have never been asked to install a new warm air system but I have been asked to quote to remove several and replace with wet systems.

Tony Glazier

 

[wolfman1]

Not sure about combis, not heard a lot of good about these, tend to be unreliable and poor performance and we have two power showers to run.
I would need 11 rads, possibly 12 if i need two in the living room (i think i would, if they are only as i good as i have had before) so thats about a grand for the rads if i bought them myself. my research suggests £5-8000 for a full wet system and significant disruption.
House is around 1500sqft (both floors)