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Hi. I have recently bought a house that is fitted with a Ferolli Domicompact F30 B. It's a 4 bed Victorian terrace with 8 single unit radiators. The boiler gives intermittent hot water with an F9 fault, seems a common enough issue and probably something fairly trivial to fix.

We have a pot of money for doing work to change the house to our tastes. While we have that in hand I'm looking for a bit of advice off folks who will know best, if instead of spending money chasing this problem then potentially the next, and the next one after that, we'd be better off cutting budgets elsewhere and scraping enough together for a new one to be installed to hopefully make life in the future easier? Or just tough it out with this one and see how it lasts?

If so, what half decent boilers would you look at that would fit into existing pipework to keep installation costs as low as possible?

Cheers for any advice.
 
Good morning this question has been asked so many times on the site and each of our GSR installers will have a different opion , i would agree that your existing boiler should be upgraded there are so many to choose from my advice would be find a reputable local installer and let him advise you on your best options things to consider are a good long manufacturers warranty , and a willingness to look after you and your boiler long term dont go with the cheapest boiler you can find this may well sort your problems out short term but 2-3 years down the line you will be paying for niggling breakdowns and replacing parts . regards kop
 
You also need to assess your hot water usage/demand, do you have more than one bathroom? For a satisfactory outcome you may require a different solution than just a combi upgrade.
 
Personally I would find your nearest Worcester Bosch Accredited installer and go for one of their boilers with a Worcester primary filter and comfort II or Wave, will get a 10 year warranty covered by Worcester and their aftersales is top notch in my experience, hence why i fit them, plus with a 10 year warranty you can be sure the installer will have fitted the boiler and flushed correctly or that's a long time that it could come back on him. I'd say you're looking at ÂŁ2500-ÂŁ3000 plus vat, some of the smaller accredited installers are also now doing 0% finance. To be fair I also rate Viessmann, but I would say the quality of the installer is the most important consideration
 
Only one bathroom, loft has been converted and there's nowhere for a tank if you're thinking of swapping back to the old system.

ÂŁ3k is probably a little out of our reach right now. I guess it would probably be mid range if we did it right now. Boiler was definitely on the 'to do' list but we thought it would last longer than a couple of days!! :D

How often do these Ferollis go down? Maybe it would be better to wait a year and put some money aside for something in that category. I've no problem paying for it it's just timing.
 
Buy cheap, buy twice ... if you're saying you can wait a year then 0% finance gets you a decent boiler now without having to pay for it until next year, as a side note the controls and filter are covered by the 10 year warranty too ... God I sound like such a salesman! But i'm not offering to fit you a boiler, just what i feel is good advice
 
I try to avoid finance like the plague but I do see the logic here. I think I will get someone round and get a price, monthly repayments definitely aren't a problem. Buy cheap buy twice is a rule for me, although for a lot of products mid range is almost if not as good for lower cost and a less well known brand, quite often you're paying for a name, although I don't need to tell anyone that and I've absolutely no idea if that applies to boilers.

Assume it's better to use smaller local companies than the big national ones? As is nearly always the case in any industry. Thought I'd ask.

Cheers for the advice.
 
I don't necessarily avoid credit, i do avoiding interest though, only use 0% on credit card or finance... a smaller company is fine, just needs to be an accredited installer, the Worcester Boiler is a good product, but the main reason I would advise going with them is the aftersales... no quibbling, they just fix it, so long as the installer fitted it correctly
 
Sausages as you can see we are all basicly saying fit a branded boiler with a long manufacturers warranty by a good local GSR installer which ever boiler you decide on is really yours and the installers choice and will be determined by your budget, worcester bosch are very good boilers as GH77 has said and their after sales is second to none but you will pay top top money and your finaces are stretched right now, Baxi platinium 33kw would be a good alternative and is cheaper has a 10 year manufacturers warranty , the duo tec is cheaper still and has a 7 year warranty both are proven to be very reliable and have no plastic components are easy to work on and will serve you well for many years the choice is your really its like buying a car you can drive a BMW i.e worcester or you can drive a FORD i. e baxi both do the same job and are very reliable just one does it a bit quicker sorry this is a bit long winded but i think you will understand its quite important to make the right choice you will have this boiler for a long time good luck and i hope all goes well for you regards kop.
 
Shaun i have just seen the new 400 combi in plumbcity stripped it down mate. not impressed i will definitely be sticking with the older versions have you seen it or fitted one ? Kop
 
Shaun i have just seen the new 400 combi in plumbcity stripped it down mate. not impressed i will definitely be sticking with the older versions have you seen it or fitted one ? Kop

Seen it not fitted a combi heat only was ok

Any reason?

Just use them as my cheap fit a plat or 28cdi any day of the week
 
Thanks for all your advice chaps, much appreciated. Think a new boiler is on the cards, not sure which yet. But the missus agrees so I've got to do it now :D
 
Hello S.

First time I've posted here. Well I've just swapped my Ferroli boiler an Optimax for a Worcester Bosch last week. It was a tragic boiler which gave a serious fault a a year in years 3-10 after installation-eventually my patience snapped and I replaced it without tears. Ferroli get one star on Which from their contributors under all categories - customer service, reliablity and customer satisfaction. Not a pretty sight.

You can't go far wrong with anything but a Ferroli. In Which order they come in as WB, Vaillant, Vriessman, Baxi, Ideal etc.

As someone says above you get a 10 year guarantee on WB if you use an accredited installer and have a full custom flush of your system.

I see you've only got 8 radiators - almost all medium size combis would eat this load.

More importantly you say little about DHW (domestic hot water requirements). I would start with you mains pressure flow - marry it up to the combis available e.g if you have 10 litres per minute flowing in from the mains you'd be mad to get my WB 38 cdi which heats 16.4 litres per minute. You'd be paying for capacity that the mains can't satisfy.

come back with your mains pressure measurement, your family hot water requirements eg how many bathrooms, en suites and how many showers, taps do you want to have open at the same time. There are lots of people here who could give you more advice but if would be folly to specify anything
before you give a full central heating and DHW requirement.

Best of luck TT
 
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I get fed up of installers saying that A Worcester Bosch (WB) is like a BMW and a Baxi is like a ford. I install lots of Baxi boilers but have not yet been called back to sort any problems, however I have been to plenty of WB boilers and even had a two to three week wait for an WB engineer to come to rectify faults. Could be they are busy because of so many breakdowns, who knows. Get a good installer, good boiler and someone who is schooled in energy efficient. Don't just listen to those who advertise most. The choice should be a decision of the customer after good advice.
 
A I quite respect your point of view but...... unless Which are telling Porkies, their figures say that 92% of their subscribers are very happy with their WB boilers - I do agree that Baxi get very acceptable levels of satisfaction too. I did say avoid Ferroli and you were probably in the lifeboat.
 
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As others have said, by far the most important thing is a good installation, a good boiler poorly installed will fail ... my experience of wb customer service has been excellent, the vast majority of warranty work has been carried out within a couple of days... even managed to get a free boiler given to us for a customer who's heat bank had split due to a poor install by another company who hadn't even registered it ... but that's just my experience, i'm sure you can find people who will give you good and bad stories about every boiler manufacturer out there
 
I am leaning towards INTERGAS shaun no plastic and built like a tank but baxi potterton are still going to produce the potterton titanium so will be fitting a few of them as a affordable option when duo tec and platinum are fazed out cheers kop
 
Hello S.

First time I've posted here. Well I've just swapped my Ferroli boiler an Optimax for a Worcester Bosch last week. It was a tragic boiler which gave a serious fault a a year in years 3-10 after installation-eventually my patience snapped and I replaced it without tears. Ferroli get one star on Which from their contributors under all categories - customer service, reliablity and customer satisfaction. Not a pretty sight.

You can't go far wrong with anything but a Ferroli. In Which order they come in as WB, Vaillant, Vriessman, Baxi, Ideal etc.

As someone says above you get a 10 year guarantee on WB if you use an accredited installer and have a full custom flush of your system.

I see you've only got 8 radiators - almost all medium size combis would eat this load.

More importantly you say little about DHW (domestic hot water requirements). I would start with you mains pressure flow - marry it up to the combis available e.g if you have 10 litres per minute flowing in from the mains you'd be mad to get my WB 38 cdi which heats 16.4 litres per minute. You'd be paying for capacity that the mains can't satisfy.

come back with your mains pressure measurement, your family hot water requirements eg how many bathrooms, en suites and how many showers, taps do you want to have open at the same time. There are lots of people here who could give you more advice but if would be folly to specify anything
before you give a full central heating and DHW requirement.

Best of luck TT

Good point that. How would I test it? Assume just fill up a bucket and measure how much it fills in a minute?

Just low hot water use I guess. Only one bath/shower, a downstairs toilet and kitchen. Dishwasher will take care of most the washing up, can't see us needing to use more than one hot water outlet at a time very often. Someone may wash their hands whilst another isnin the shower that's about it.

Some of those 8 radiators are big.
 
Get whoever quotes you for a new boiler to measure it, they will have a weir gauge, be a waste of money for you to buy one though ... if you use an accredited installer they will do a survey and tell you what boiler you need and will be able to explain how they came to that conclusion, standing/ working water pressure, flow rate, suitability of existing Gas and whether requires uprating etc
 
I am leaning towards INTERGAS shaun no plastic and built like a tank but baxi potterton are still going to produce the potterton titanium so will be fitting a few of them as a affordable option when duo tec and platinum are fazed out cheers kop

duos arnt going any where heard direct and the only thing with inter is spares cant get them everywhere yet
 
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