Combi dilemma!

[Nickfromwales]

5 hours ago, markocosic said:

I've yet to come across a British Gas or Pimlico man who quotes with integrity though. At best trying to fleece pensioners and Londoners respectively by condemning boilers that just need repairing in order to drum up work.

This names specific companies

 

On 16/09/2022 at 16:57, markocosic said:

Chimpanzee in a branded van? That'll be a bad replacement then...

This did not.

 

5 hours ago, markocosic said:

Does your experience differ?

@Nickfromwales

No experience of Pimlico.

 

Regarding British Gas, one of the biggest bunch of unscrupulous thieves I've come across. Indeed, they specialise in fleecing the elderly, I've recounted many instances on here, and that extends way beyond London I assure you.

 

Best to remember though;

Plenty of decent folk out there who are conscientious and diligent, trustworthy, and proud of their work. 

[markocosic]

Sorry - thought everybody used "branded vans" as a reference to the chains full of trainees (the best you'll get from these folks), those so utterly useless they're unemployable elsewhere, and outright flipping crooks.

 

Independents are usually great or bust with little inbetween IME. 🙂

 

My business partner's wife is the "don't touch anything yourself type" and wanted to call in Pimlico for a repeated loss of pressure much as Damon describes. Woman at home on her own so... Boiler.neers replacing as it's so old everything will leak if you try to dismantle it. Scaffolding needed to replace because 2nd floor flat. Managed to price a combi swap up to near five figures and f**ked off (after charging for the fallout and attempt to cheat the consumer) without even doing the courtesy of trapping so air in a rad so they could at least have a hot shower. Complete and utter scumbags in the British Gas mould.

 

Advised them to find nearby gas safe bod that wasn't with a large company and had an Eastern European sounding name whilst they were still fuming. Said Igor charged to service the thing and told business partner to go toddle off to Screwfix and nail on an external expansion vessel himself until something important died. Needless to say he got the job to swap the thing 5 yrs later when it came time to sell the place and 'brand new boiler" added more value than it cost...

[Nickfromwales]

BG favourite scam is to charge customers £10's each month for decades, until something breaks. Then, after you've drip-fed £3-4k into their bank, they tell you that appliance is now obsolete, that they will not repair it any more, or cover you any more, and you need a new boiler (  simple boiler swap ) at between £5k - £7k, or more, or piss off.

[markocosic]

IIRC they are also on a poor basic pay plus sizeable commission for punting things that the end customer doesn't need. Plausible deniability for Centrica that it's the rogue fitter at fault rather than their corporate policy to miss sell.

 

If Martin Lewis hadn't turned so soft headed recently he would to after centrica for mis-selling of a financial product (insurance that was unlikely to pay out / not in the customer's best interests) as he did with payment protection insurance. Alas he's more interested in helping Liz Truss bankrupt the UK with broad brush price caps these days. (vs more generous but more limited/targeted support to avoid subsidising waste)

[TonyT]

The only benefit I see from BG is when they are fault diagnosing, ability to keep changing parts until the problem is resolved..

[SteamyTea]

My parents had a complete new system fitted by BG, cost them about £8k.

Turned out it was not leaking, just a faulty tester.

 

They use a nice young man now, must get him in to do a service.

[SimonD]

1 hour ago, TonyT said:

The only benefit I see from BG is when they are fault diagnosing, ability to keep changing parts until the problem is resolved..

 

Isn't that more of a sign they haven't got a clue? 😉 IMHO You're much better off calling in the manufacturer as they often provide capped price repairs and will know a lot more about the boiler.

[SimonD]

9 hours ago, Nickfromwales said:

BG favourite scam is to charge customers £10's each month for decades, until something breaks.

 

Should've seen the state of the heat exchanger and spark electrodes I saw in a boiler I was fixing the other day that was still under a BG service/repair contract. Input was 8kW less than it should do and was 'serviced' only a few months ago. Customers got me in because BG couldn't come out for a long...long...time. Service my ar$e.

[DamonHD]

Thanks again for all the suggestions and discussion.

 

C/o The Heating Hub today Tom Plumb London visited, and revived my existing expansion vessel at least temporarily.

 

I've asked him (Tom) to come back in a couple of months and do a full service and replace the ev then if it looks like it's not holding up.

 

But ... he's also a condensing combi and ASHP man, so we discussed those options if this Potterton packs in.  He has seen the layout of the boiler area and house, and he's happy that something can be made to work.

 

Rgds

 

Damon

[markocosic]

Happy days 🙂

[DamonHD]

1 hour ago, markocosic said:

Happy days 🙂

Indeed.  Good to have what looks like a resolution LONG before we need space-heat!

 

Rgds

 

Damon

[DamonHD]

FWIW, the boiler was fixed and then given a thorough service:

 

https://www.earth.org.uk/note-on-combi-replacement-dilemma.html#2022-10-04

 

And should it actually pack in, sensible boiler man tells me that second-hand condensing boilers can be had for £200 or so.

 

Rgds

 

Damon

[larry]

On 09/09/2022 at 23:03, markocosic said:

.

 

How so? Every kWh of electricity exported will save about 2.5 kWh of marginal gas being burned at a power station. It is a fallacy to consider the mean grid carbon intensity when evaluating what difference your immediate behaviour makes. 

 

As such use of PV diversion and the Sunamp is interesting but environmentally irresponsible. 

 

This is an excellent point well made. But I think hugely missed. 

I'd wondered the same about batteries for PV. I guess in both cases there is the potential for balancing out grid usage if the charge/hot water happens at the right time. 

 

[DamonHD]

Our combi failed again in mid-December again requiring expensive repairs greater than our annual gas bill, so, in spite of the short expected life of our house before it is pulled down, I booked a slot in the Octopus heat-pump queue:

 

https://www.earth.org.uk/note-on-combi-replacement-dilemma.html#2023-12-13

 

In order to allow a BUS grant I had our EPC redone.  It was B before all the aerogel IWI, and is now what seems to be a good A.

 

Rgds

 

Damon

[ProDave]

1 hour ago, DamonHD said:

Our combi failed again in mid-December again requiring expensive repairs greater than our annual gas bill, so, in spite of the short expected life of our house before it is pulled down, I booked a slot in the Octopus heat-pump queue:

 

https://www.earth.org.uk/note-on-combi-replacement-dilemma.html#2023-12-13

 

In order to allow a BUS grant I had our EPC redone.  It was B before all the aerogel IWI, and is now what seems to be a good A.

 

Rgds

 

Damon

So what happened to

 

"And should it actually pack in, sensible boiler man tells me that second-hand condensing boilers can be had for £200 or so"

 

And what is your plan with the property?  Earlier talk of demolishing it, now it has an EPC A, why would you demolish that?  Confused.

[DamonHD]

The council estate that the house is on is being redeveloped.

 

https://cambridgeroadestate.com/

 

My house will be CPOed and knocked down when the final phase is reached.

 

One reason for getting in the Octopus queue is that that gets another huge subsidy on top of the BUS grant.  Another is that I have a line to talk to the CEO and CTO.  Also I am doing a PhD in decarbonising UK home heating, so having an actual case study in my own home might be handy - really working from home...

 

Rgds

 

Damon

Edited February 11 by DamonHD

[markocosic]

I'm surprised you're not on their blacklist! 😉

 

(I was placed in a "do not call" lost for daring to challenge their "engineer" for running his mouth about heat pumps not working with microbore)

 

I look forward to seeing what they propose and how they go about it. Probably their 8 kW Daikin. (4/6/8 identical bar software) Will they touch a sunamp or will they insist on a cylinder? So many questions.

[DamonHD]

I pointed out on the screening call that yes I have microbore to one rad (at my desk) but I already run my system at ~45C and it is just about OK at -2C outside.  (35C is a struggle at -2C, and our demand is essentially zero at 12C, so a weather comp curve right there if Octopus will fit WC.)  The screener also claimed that Octopus is able to work with solar DHW, though will still need to install a tank, so I suspect as preheat only.

 

I also slipped in a message to Greg/Phil as one does checking that there is no problem with me documenting the process however it turns out.

 

Space is very tight here and so I may not get agreement from my other half, never mind Octopus!

 

Rgds

 

Damon

Edited February 12 by DamonHD

[ProDave]

11 hours ago, DamonHD said:

The council estate that the house is on is being redeveloped.

 

https://cambridgeroadestate.com/

 

My house will be CPOed and knocked down when the final phase is reached.

 

One reason for getting in the Octopus queue is that that gets another huge subsidy on top of the BUS grant.  Another is that I have a line to talk to the CEO and CTO.  Also I am doing a PhD in decarbonising UK home heating, so having an actual case study in my own home might be handy - really working from home...

 

Rgds

 

Damon

Interesting.  I would have thought the BUS grant would come with lots of small print, make sure "house being demolished within X years" does not require repayment of the grant.  More likely just to say about not to decommission the system within x years.

 

Seriously if my house was going to be CPO's within a few years and the boiler had backed up, I would get by on immersion heater and plug in electric heaters until then, and not spend a penny on the house.

[DamonHD]

Thus the dilemma in the title of this thread and the linked write-up...

Rgds

Damon

[SteamyTea]

I think as a research opportunity it is excellent, especially as you can be logging the data, and the associated costs, while you don't have a working gas boiler.  I assume that you can distinguish between imported energy and your PV energy, and how much is going to space and water heating.

 

13 hours ago, DamonHD said:

In order to allow a BUS grant I had our EPC redone.  It was B before all the aerogel IWI, and is now what seems to be a good A.

I am amazed that, with an early UK design TF house like yours (and mine), that with fairly sensible measures, you got it up to an A.

How much does the PV contribute to that though, rather than the aerogel wall lining?

Did you get it pressure tested before and after?

Edited February 12 by SteamyTea

[DamonHD]

The big chunk of PV helped a lot for both certs AFAIK.  At the time of the previous cert I did have two rounds of pressure testing done (to convince myself that the numbers were not just made up).

 

https://www.earth.org.uk/testing-a-house-for-air-leaks.html

 

Rgds

 

Damon

[markocosic]

12 hours ago, DamonHD said:

pointed out on the screening call that yes I have microbore to one rad (at my desk) but I already run my system at ~45C and it is just about OK at -2C outside. 

 

They're better now. They've stopped saying it's impossible now that they've purchased calculators and worked out the flowrates.

 

Cookie cutter design will be for 50C at design temperature.

 

"Making good" may be the deal-breaker for Mrs HD. Octopus et al don't include that in scope.

 

If I can sort you meters to ensure that it's OpenEnergyMonitored just shout. Octopus do install these for some projects of their own accord but don't share the data publicly.

 

It'll be a fun challenge for them doing a house that isn't pants for a change. It's the low heat loss ones they seem to be struggling with at the minute for want of paying enough for heat pumps that work well at low output. :-)

 

8 hours ago, ProDave said:

Seriously if my house was going to be CPO's within a few years and the boiler had backed up, I would get by on immersion heater and plug in electric heaters until then, and not spend a penny on the house.

 

All the toys (that worked) acn come with you. ;-)

[SteamyTea]

1 hour ago, markocosic said:

"Making good" may be the deal-breaker for Mrs HD

Have you seen Mr. HD's beard, she will put up with a lot.

(when I visited the IWI was being done and there was a baby somewhere, heard it, never saw it)

[DamonHD]

2 hours ago, markocosic said:

Cookie cutter design will be for 50C at design temperature.

 

"Making good" may be the deal-breaker for Mrs HD. Octopus et al don't include that in scope.

 

If I can sort you meters to ensure that it's OpenEnergyMonitored just shout. Octopus do install these for some projects of their own accord but don't share the data publicly.

50C at -2C outside would probably mean that we could keep all our current rads and be saving significant carbon, but WC would push up our SCoP a lot, I think.

 

Yes, this might be the time to slip in heat meters on SH and DHW if we are going to have some disruption anyway...  %-P

 

Rgds

 

Damon