Be Excellent To Each Other

Does £2370 sound like too much money for a boiler installation when all there is at the minute is a back boiler?

It's only slightly more than we paid, because remember you have to have the back boiler removed, then a flue put in along with your new boiler. Lots of stuff has to be moved around and you will probably need new pipes, etc. It ends up being quite expensive. We managed to get a grant from the government which is why it ended up being cheaper, but they've stopped that scheme now.

I had an old boiler removed, all the tanks taken out of the loft and airing cupboard and a good sized Worcester Bosch combi boiler fitted for about the same price. That also included a couple of replacement radiators and the system flushing through.

That's basically what this guy is doing. Except he hasn't suggested any radiator action. I don't mind if it's about the right price as the guy seems a thorough worker. He serviced (yearly checkup) my parents' boiler very thoroughly so I tend to trust he'll do a good job.

He'll have to powerflush your entire central heating system which will take half a day. This is mandatory, not optional. The price you're paying isn't excessive depending on the cost and make of the boiler he's fitting. There's nothing stopping you being cheeky and asking for a discount, though.

Just one more thing I want to add...

One reason I ask is that my business partner says he knows someone who usually does it for him for barely over £1000.

That fee the guy is charging definitely sounds like "rate card" to me, so if you're business partner can find someone who can do the job as well for less than half I would suggest investigating the offer and the plumber in questions previous work. Do bear in mind that according to official legislation there is a lot of work that has to be carried out properly otherwise the work can't be properly signed off and the warranty of the new boiler will be void as soon as it's installed. I'm talking about powerflushing your central heating and a load of diagnostic work with regard to the boiler being properly installed and it's emissions being checked. None of the equipment necessary for this is cheap and part of the expense of fitting is attributed to this outlay and maintenance of said equipment. If you're business partner is suggesting that his mate can install what is essentially a £800[1] boiler for just over a grand I assume the man in question is cutting corners and insisting on being paid in cash. It's not impossible but it does sound too good to be true.

I had a new boiler and an extra rad fitted in my kitchen in December last year and it cost us £1600 or thereabouts, but the plumber is someone I know quite well and he definitely cut us a deal as it should have been more like £2k. I wouldn't factor too much into extra rads, as they're very cheap to buy and don't take long to install if you know what you're doing.

[edit]
[1] I accept that there are cheaper boilers out there, but that's pretty much the cost of having a decent one that won't need tons of maintenance work and won't cost a fucking fortune to run. I only have what my plumber advised me and he talked us down from the more expensive brand of boiler as he said from his experience they're actually less reliable than the make he installed. Who knows.

Sounds like DBSnappa has this wrapped up but can I ask about the back boiler? Is that behind the fireplace?

We had one of those and had to have it removed completely when we wanted a new fire. I'm sure your bloke would have told you this but I just thought I'd mention it in case you were thinking of having a new fire in the future.

We had our fire blocked up and now we have a cool AV cabinet built into the wall*.

* or will do when we get round to putting shelves in it.

It might just be that they were easier jobs than what you're having done. It's fairly impossible for anyone on here to say whether the price you were quoted is reasonable or not. But if the bloke's done work for your parents before and they were happy with him and if you don't feel he's a shyster then that's about the best information you'll get. Also by all means have a go but don't simply assume that he's expecting to haggle, or be affronted if he refuses a discount, he's a plumber not a second hand car salesman.

It sounds a bit on the steep side to me. The boiler is 600 quid. I imagine the flue will go out through a wall, which is fairly trivial to do. The plumbing is unlikely to be complex (unlike my stupid house).

Guy's got to make a living but that sounds high.

I think you're forgetting that the current boiler is behind the gas fire, then the new boiler needs to be plumbed in somewhere else. It's not a straight swap.

Not forgetting that, I'm just saying it's probably within a days work to do the job. Maybe there's complicating factors though. I'd ask for full details before going ahead is all.

Sounds about normal. Took them a day and a half to install our new one last month. They weren't slackers either. I think Kalmar is being a tad harsh on the poor plumber men if he expects it to be a "day job". I was at home for most of the installation and these guys were seriously hard workers. Still took them the best part of two days.

Also, the price comes with the territory. They're installing a potentially house-leveling explosive device if not done properly. They charge a premium for the pleasure. Be wary of the "my mate'll do that for half the price" folk, and ensure you have some sort of comeback when the thing explodes, killing your pet Labrador, or stops working on an extremely cold Christmas Eve 2011.

It may or may not be expensive really. I agree with kalmar that it does sound expensive on the face of it. But of the bloke seems trustworthy then there might be a good reason. If it's just a boiler, some bits of pipe and a days work then it's a bit on the outrageous side. We had our last boiler changed by a proper legit plumber not doing 'mates rates' for £1100, it took him and his employee pretty much a full day.

Not really - you can pick and choose a Gas Safe registered plumber, they should not be able to hold you to ransom, and they should very definitely all be doing a safe job.

There's no harm in asking for another quote, or getting a detailed quote from this guy to check if the cost is justified. It may well be, but there's no reason to go writing these guys blank cheques.

Well I'm not suggesting we just accept anything they come back with, but I'm telling you from personal experience, less than a month ago, we had a boiler fitted and it was actually a little bit more expensive than what we're talking about here.

Granted, it required a complete boiler relocation, but yeah, the price seems about right to me based on very recent experience. And we shopped around, natch.

Side note: Is it just me who thinks being skeptical about tradesmen ripping people off is something that should be binned and left in the past? We live in an internet age and the tradesmen know it. We can ask people for advice, use search engines etc. I genuinely think most of them don't even bother trying to rip people off anymore. Certainly not a young stud brought up in the information age. Just a thought.

Nah, there's plenty of dodgy basts out there still.

Fair dos! I like to give them the benefit of the doubt, generally. Well, I dunno. I'll get a quote for something, do my research, and discover that it's about right. Nobody has ever tried to rip me off, so my "benefit of the doubt" has never really been tested. But doing research isn't really giving the the benefit of the doubt...

Hmm. I'm just as skeptical as everyone else.

I dunno, sounds like they well saw you coming with the boiler job

Absolutely true. And as demonstrated here, it's difficult to argue over the internet about a quote when it's bespoke work which you don't know all the details of. The only solution is the old way of getting a few quotes to check they aren't taking the piss or doing something that isn't necessary.

There's also a sort of "cartel" effect in some areas, where nobody will undercut anyone else by much - except for the Poles of course.

Depending on which boiler is being installed as a replacement, what control systems are being installed with it, if it will be a chemical flush or power flush before the new boiler is connected to the old system. Also you need to take into account the fact that the new boiler will be in a different location as the old boiler was a back boiler, some houses can be a right pain in the arse to get a good place to link into the flow and return, also where the gas meter is in regards to the new boiler location, most high efficiency boilers need a 22mm gas supply straight from the meter.

Taking all the above into account and many other factors the price is in the right ball park, we have installed boilers for more in the past and less, all dependent on factors mentioned above and others. Sorry but can't really give a definitive answer without a lot more details.

With regards to the guy doing it for about a grand....i would be shocked to find any Gas safe engineer able to do it at that price, even if it was a straight swap. Get the guys name off your business partner and check him out on the Gas Safe website.

Talking of GasSafe...

When we bought this flat 4 years ago, the gas appliances were all certified and signed off with no problems. We've done nothing since then. However, when I moved the wireless router, I ran the cable under the back of our fireplace (which is never used). When I moved the decorative marble slab out by a centimetre to drop the ethernet cable in, it became evident that the firebox and surround aren't fastened in, they are balancing on the marble slab which doesn't extend into the hearth. Is this really certifiably safe?

I ask because we're hoping to sell soon, and when we do I presume I'll need a new gas cert, and don't want any surprises.

I checked the cheap guy's name on the gas safe register and it wasn't there. Ian (my BP) says it's possibly because he works for a company and does this in his off hours. Which to me sounds suspicious. I don't like the sound of it at all.

Anyway should you be interested, this is roughly the layout of my new house. Grey block is the back boiler, yellow block is proposed position of new boiler (understairs cupboard) and lines from that are new pipework to go under the floor of the front room to the old pipework location. Other work he's doing include removal of tanks and things.

Like I said, sounds like a perfectly reasonable price considering it's going to be in a completely different place (which is an identical situation to ours).

Yes. And lifting floorboards to lay piping isn't exactly a quick or trivial job.

‘Possibly’ isn't good enough, really, and ‘off hours’ certainly isn't. Steer clear.

Thanks everyone, you've certainly helped clear things up in my mind.

Yup agree 100%. If he is working off a gas cert from a company then he is only covered for gas work for that company, any work he does off hours is entirely illegal. Which would make it very difficult for him to inform the local authority that gas work has been carried out (legal obligation of fitter) so that the home owner gets a certificate for his sellers pack.

With regards to the new location of the boiler being totally the other side of the house it makes the price look a lot more reasonable, especially since the gas supply will need to be run to that location also. The removing the tanks etc. from the attic is not a big job at all and tbh is very profitable for the plumber as the price of nice copper scrap at the moment is very high, i have had customers who are nice and money savy request to keep the old scrap pipework and copper hot water cylinder and take it to the scrapies themselves....hint hint(especially if it is one of the older thick walled hot water cylinders). Unless he has nailed the scrap down in the quote he has no right to it, but make sure he hasn't offset some of the cost against the scrap value

Off hours is fine, it just means he's doing a homer rather than a job for the company, but if he's no on the register it means he can't sign it off as safe IIRC even if it's installed perfectly. Getting a real fitter to inspect ALL his work & sign it off would cost a fair bit anyway. Get him to fuck.

Indeed. I took a really small old cylinder in to the scrappies yesterday, along with a bit of lead pipework, £65 cash for it. Mad.

The one from my cottage which got nicked, after the police got it back for me I think I got more than £200 for that one, it was the thick walled kind..

nope Wullie that's wrong, if he is only working off a company card then he is only covered for any gas work for company jobs, he is breaking the law by doing any gas work out of hours, unless he just does the pipework and doesn't connect anything to the gas supply, and someone who has a valid card does the connection. I know it sounds pedantic but that is the way it works.

I was unaware that there was such a thing as a company card & assumed you were either registered or not. Hence I thought it was the same as every other tradesman doing a homer. The main answer's still the same anyway, get him to fuck.

Aye, i was suprised when i found that out when i was doing my Tech cert course, odd isn't it



lol aye, very true

I'd imagine it's an insurance issue. If he works for a gas fitter, he's covered under their insurance when doing a job. If he does a job on his own, and doesn't have his own insurance to operate independently, then you're fucked if he blows your house up.

No, it's a legal issue. Can't touch gas pipework unless!

Yeah, but isn't it a legal issue because it's an insurance issue? Ie your gas safe registration is dependent on a number of things -

1) Being skilled to a sufficient level
2) Being certified
3) Being insured.

So if he's doing it off hours, the last doesn't apply, so he no longer counts as being a gas safe fitter.

I think he's not personally certified though. He probably can't do a job and sign it off himself without oversight from someone else in the company.

SG obviously knows more about it though so I'll shush.

Technically is points 2 and 3 he is missing because he is only certified during company hours, well that's how it was explained to me, the gas regs are all in legal jargon and are horrible to read....

Speaking of gas stuff I've been going round in circles for weeks trying to get a meter put in.

Started with a supplier, they ordered a live/dead check and the local contractor turned up and did it. There was gas.

A few weeks went by and I poked them to get on with putting in a meter. They ordered it and the same contractor showed up, and expressed surprise that there wasn't an ECV fitted, so he couldn't put the meter in.

Went back to the supplier and told them this, but they only know about asking for meters.

Phoned national grid and asked for an ECV. Same contractor came out again and refused to install an ECV because the pipe looks a bit rusty.

Finally have asked the contractor to do a "safety check" on the pipe to officially see if it needs replacing or not, which they should be doing today.

This could run and run.

I have a large heavy water tank doing nothing in my loft and a load of old piping that's not used anymore. Are you saying there's money there?

Yup.
What's the tank made of?

Erm, dunno. Never really thought about it. It's dull grey on the outside, but it used to be part of the back boiler storage heating, so I assume copper on the inside.

Deuterium.

It's probably either lead or galvanised steel.
In the former case it's worth a few quid, the latter not so much.

You'll know lead if you see it - scratch / bend it to find out. Then wash your hands.

Copper pipes are worth ca$h mon£y.

If it's lead then I might have a problem, as it's 4 feet long. I'll have a look tonight. The pipes are defo copper though.

Dead bodiesLead tanks are dead easy to hack into pieces that you can carry.

Urg, I dread to think what's in there. The central heating's been in since the 80's...

If its from the 80's its more than likely to be galvanised steel, which isn't worth the effort of getting it down, but the copper pipes are defiantly worth cutting out if they are redundant, i think the wholesale price of copper is around £4300 per ton at the moment (for braziery copper), but you will get a lot less from the scrappy as they have to make a profit, still worth it though, i normally take it in when i have a good 4-5 sacks worth and a few cylinders, is nice to boost the cash in the wallet.

If your in doubt about the copper pipes being redundant then it realy isn't worth messing around with them as you could end up with a very expensive repair job