h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Dammit! Just when things seem to be going OK for once (I've got myself a three-month attachment to be the Broadcast Journalist for Sport Interactive to cover the West cluster (Somerset, Bristol, Gloucs and Wilts which means finally, after seven years, being paid at the level of work I've often done and always been capable of doing) we get a bloke in to quote for fittinga new suite to the bathroom and have a look at the boiler...

...and he takes one look at the thing, notices the discolouration of the paint above the vents and says 'that's producing carbon monoxide' and condemns it.

It makes sense. My girlfriend has bad asthma (which in the past, before I met her, has been Very Bad Asthma to the extent of nearly dying and spending several years in and out of hospital) and she's been off work for three weeks with a chest infection which hasn't been showing any signs of getting better. I suspect she might have been quite close to being my equivalent of a miner's canary in a cage, which really doesn't bear thinking about.

There's one snag. Quite a big one. It was an old school (very old school, a 'Myson Apollo' if you're curious) boiler fitted on an internal wall in the kitchen. Seemingly, these days you have no choice but to fit a condensing combi boiler.

And they need to be fitted - or at least vented - on an external wall. That's a problem. I've only got a one-bedroom flat. Bedroom at the front, lounge at the back, and the kitchen and bathroom are in the middle - miles away from any external walls.

At the moment the plan is to fit the replacement boiler where the old one is, and pipe the exhaust out at ceiling level via the back wall and box it off as it goes through the lounge.

The quote was in the region of £2400 for the boiler and then probably extra for the venting. So there goes my pay rise.

Dang

I suppose one way of looking at it is that if it weren't for the pay rise you'd have been *really* scuppered, but that doesn't make it a whole lot better when you see all the plans you made for spending the wedge flying out of the window.

Is this bloke's opinion reputable btw?

Gutted....

Always worth checking with a couple of other people BTW like Gosho says. Lots of my pals are tradesmen and the truth is nearly all will try it on a bit if they think there is some extra profit in it.

Well, we're going for a second opinion... It's a little bit difficult still being comparatively new to the area.

I usually try to get at leat three qoutes for everything. It is *amazing* how much they vary.

And if you really feel like a geezer then you can try to play them off against each other a bit by "massaging" the figures you have previously been qouted when speaking to the next folks.

I suppose though in a smaller place like Yeovil a lot of the plumbing firms might know each other

They got my friend like this - she's having to have loads of stuff replaced just for the boiler, losing her airing cupboard etc.

On the benefits side, it will eventually pay for itself in fuel bills. I could probably check over how long if you want?

I used to work for Myson.

If you're not sure, there are a few websites that list trusted tradespeople as voted by their customers, such as ratedpeople.com

Well, the first guy's quote is through. £2750, sounds very comprehensive but there's no breakdown of what costs what. We've emailed back asking to know what kind of boiler he plans fitting and how much it'll cost.

I've asked around and most people reckon about £1800 for a new combi boiler.

So we'll see what other quotes we can get, I think.

An idea of how much the fuel bills would differ would be very helpful, ta...

Shame you didn't live closer to me as I know some very reputable plumbers

I'll reload my software later on today and come back with something later - I may need more info on your current set up but I'll let you know.

Damn!

It is good to shop around, the first quote sounded iffy specially since he was unwilling to break it down for you.

Good luck with a new boiler

just curious, since i'm not happy with the boiler in our house (question of comfort), i took a gander and say that my present setup i could replace for 1290 EUROS and a better system with a reservoir can be had for 1890 EUROS installed... with the existing plumbing and ventilation.

note that there are generally tax breaks for this kind of renovation. at least here.

Hope the lady recovers OK, 6 - guess that explains why we've been missing you.

Well, we had a plumber round on Thursday night and he was very helpful. He came round because he was the son of the bloke who serviced it last year, who's retired now.

So he wasn't in a position to do any work on it for us, because he had loads of work on, but had a really good look at the boiler and gave what seemed like some good advice.

There's nothing wrong with the boiler itself - the problem is with the flue, the exhaust air's got nowhere to go once the gas has burned.

So he gave us the name of a firm of heating engineers and said, call these guys out, they should have the gear to unblock the flue if it's at all possible and they won't rip you off. The only potential snag is that the flue's made of fairly flimsy aluminium and it's concreted in to the chimney breast at ceiling level, which must have been done when upstairs and downstairs were made into separate flats. So if it's bent, or it's collapsed, there's not a lot we can do except go for the new boiler.

He also said that £2700 was a reasonably reasonable quote for the boiler plus the venting work - we might get it a couple of hundred quid either side of that if we shop around, but it's not a major rip-off.