Getting a new boiler???

So you need a new boiler???.................. One of those unplanned and unexpected costs which hit us all (hopefully) not sooner than every 10-15 years assuming you haven’t moved house.

Say…… you decide to get three quotes as this is the sensible thing to do of course, and for arguments sake, you get 3 completely different prices which range from £2000 to £4000. This is not uncommon I can tell you. 

But how do you decipher these quotes, as it is a minefield???

Do you go for the middle one and hope you get ‘middle of the road’? This is the easiest place to be right?? 

Cheaper means good value??? Or does it???

More expensive means higher quality??? Or am I being ripped off???

Now I am not about to tell you how to spend your money…. I would be foolish to do that and when it comes to my own larger purchases about things I know nothing about i.e cars or TV’s etc etc, I get stuck in the same mental conundrum and at the end of the day we all have different budgets, needs and practicalities to fulfil. 

However……. When it comes to choosing your installer I would always offer a few sound pieces of advice for you as a homeowner:

-- Always try and use somebody recommended by friends or family where possible. There is no better recommendation then word of mouth. However if you struggle to find a good recommendation and find yourself trawling google or Facebook, then make sure you do your research on people. 

Do they have a website and a social media presence on Facebook for example? Have a look at it, have a read and get a feel for their company. In general (and this is by no means 100% accurate) but if they have a good informative website, and a regularly updated social media presence showing who they are, the work they do and lots of reviews, then this can go a long way to giving you confidence in having them in to your home.

If you Google FJM, you can see that we have a great online presence so that people can find us when they need us, read reviews from customers and find out a little bit more about us.

-- ALWAYS check they are Gas Safe Registered and can sign off their own work!!!!! All too often we get asked to sign off boilers fitted by a 3rd party. The answer is ALWAYS NO!!! Any good heating engineer will be proud to display they are Gas Safe Registered and you can check their license number of the Gas Safe Register web site.

Next, when it comes to the price you are given there are also a couple of other factors to consider in order to make sense of price differences.

1. The boiler 

All too often a customer says to me I have seen I can get this boiler for £400 or £600. Well……. to coin a phrase, ‘you will get what you pay for’. Yes there are boilers that cost as little as that (and not all are bad or evil), and yes it will work fine – for a while. My experience and extensive research (being a self-confessed geek), has taught me that for a boiler in these price ranges generally will give you more problems and be built with lower grade materials which will inevitably mean higher running costs, increased breakdowns and higher repair costs (the cheaper the boiler, the higher cost of spares in most cases). ‘But I get a 10 year warranty!!’ I hear you say. Which is great however there are still caveats to this. If your boiler has been found to not have been installed to the manufacturers specifications, job not covered. If your system has not been power flushed correctly, not covered. Let alone the day you have off work you have to have in order to wait for someone and then potentially have to pay for the repair anyway. 

So if your budget will allow, try and look towards the higher end of the spectrum, the higher spec boilers are made using higher grade materials, have better technology, lower running costs, lower repair costs as well as lower frequency of breakdowns so long as your engineer installs as per the manufacturers guidance. These will cost you £1000 and up to £1500 depending on varying factors, but believe me you will save twice that difference, if not more, over the life of your boiler when you factor all variables in.

2. The Installer

This brings me nicely on to your installing engineer. Again, in my time I have seen the shockingly bad and dangerous, the average and the absolutely ‘money no object’ incredible. But your engineer is the most important part of the process.

I am a firm believer that a good installer will have firm passion and knowledge for their product. And when they talk to you about their boiler, supporting components and methods of installation, you should see them get a bit excited about it. I cannot wait to tell a customer how good our boilers are, what makes them so good, how they will save them money, the supporting components we can fit in order to make then run efficiently with as few opportunities for breakdown as possible. You also need the confidence that they will come back to you and help if you have any problems. Engineer knowledge and quality of installation is worth paying good money for!!!!

So do not be afraid to ask your engineer questions about their products and why they choose to fit them. If the only reply you get is because they are good value, work well or have a good guarantee, then anybody can say this and that should not instil confidence. We are engineers!!! We should know the ins, outs, pros and cons and why!!! Many don’t……… Many do…..

- What is so good about this boiler? What in particular does this boiler do or have that makes it better then anything else?

- How efficient is it compared to the other makes and models.

- Are you going to powerflush my system? 

- Are you going to fit a heating filter? Which do you use and why?

- What about the rest of my system, what can I do to make it more efficient, what products do you advise and why?

Interrogate your engineer, you are about to part with a lot of money for something you need to rely on for the next 15 years to keep you and your family warm and give you hot water. You want to know you are getting a quality product, quality installation that is going to be as hassle free and efficient as possible surely!!!

Also, just bare in mind, like your loyalty points for your supermarket, many manufacturers entice their installers in by offering loyalty schemes, cash back etc etc. Personally I believe these should be scrapped. An engineer should offer the best product because of the product, not because of the rewards they get from selling them. 

As a company we fit ATAG boilers, I will be doing a blog post on exactly why we use them. But we believe in ATAG as a product from an engineering point of view. We do not have loyalty schemes to be cashing in on, its not in our interest.

So I know it’s long and I could go on forever, but just to summarise here. Choosing which quote to accept is hard, and I would always be sceptical of cheap more so than expensive. At any price always research the boiler, the engineer you use, their methods of installation, bring this together and you can soon weed out which is the better option. If it is cheap, I would always question the products being installed and if they actually fitting all the things they should be. They could be fitting a boiler on its own to keep the price down and get the job – No good to anyone. A good installation will have additional parts advised to maintain reliability and meet regulatory efficiency standards. Also, the labour price could be exceptionally cheap because they are not very busy and need the work, again, RED FLAG!!!

For most boilers and products, as a consumer you can go online and get a rough idea of how much things cost that you are being advised. Don’t take all prices as gospel and always bear in mind your installer will charge a small mark-up on materials, that’s standard business practice (It’s not necessarily someone ripping you off unless it is inflated by £1000’s). And in terms of labour, I have seen engineers charging as little as £100 for a day (Red Flag), all the way up to £1200 for a day in London. If you have done your research and looked at the quality of work a top engineer does, in the South East you can easily pay between £400 and £700 per day. That is a lot I know but that money will be saved many times over in less breakdowns and efficiency. It’s one of the biggest and best investments you can make in your home, and like most things, you only realise when it breaks and doesn’t deliver what you were hoping for. A good installer will deliver reliability and efficiency. It may cost that bit more in that case, but it will be worth it.

Thanks for reading, and keep your eyes peeled for the next post.