choosing a heating system

High on the inevitable list that is drawn up by any home renovator or self-builder is going to be the heating. Not just because it can take up some five per cent of the building costs, but also because it will be the sole provider of the comfort feeling as soon as the outside temperature drops. No amount of ‘warm’ paint or fake fires are going to change your body’s laws of physics!

What is the curse of heating systems is the level of unreliability. Any heating engineer of some experience will testify to the willingness of boilers and valves to break down - usually at the worst time. In most cases - but far from all - this is down to the level of quality. It’s a strange quirk in the heating business (and not realised by those outside of it) that almost the same level of quality will be installed in a council house as in a million pound home. And, inevitably, sometimes there are worse standards of design and equipment in the posh places than in council houses!

How can this be so? It’s all down to competitive tendering and client ignorance.

I had an occasion to ‘price-up’ a central heating system and was politely informed by the potential client that my quotation was the ninth she had had that week. For the first and only time I didn’t even bother working out the costs. What was the point, after all? She was quite evidently intent on achieving a budget system (and wanted a budget quote). Since I am far from the cheapest in my area then there was absolutely no point. Some years back I quoted my wife’s aunt for a full system. I didn’t get the job! This was a surprise, as I had cut away my profit and trimmed my labour costs for her. However, I later found out that she had gone for a estimate on a system including gravity-fed hot water from a diy-store boiler and manual radiator valves. My quote had been for a fully-pumped system, an excellent boiler and thermostatic valves on every radiator.

And therein lies the trouble. She had no idea that what this ‘engineer’ was installing for her would break down more often, the parts would be difficult to get, and the system had little if any control. In heating, the cheapest quote should never be taken. Believe me, there’s always a reason!

The modern client is far more aware of boilers, and especially radiators, than ever before. This is good. The self-builder is even more aware. Still though, there’s a level of ignorance and a reliance on ‘plumbers’ to tell them what they think. Well listen up: Ask your plumber what the best is, not what the cheapest is. The difference is sometimes just a few pounds. If you must go for thermostatic radiator valves (more about them later) then go for the most expensive. Roughly speaking they will be double the cost of the cheapest. But again, why? What does that tell you about the cheapest ones?

Amazingly, in these modern times, be very wary of boilers with foreign or exotic names! In most cases the boilers themselves are fine - or at least no less reliable than British ones. But the trouble will come when you need to call out an engineer to work on one. Some engineers now actually ask the telephoning-client what make the boiler is. Many will refuse point blank to work on ‘combi’ boilers. Their life is difficult enough without having to trawl through a ‘fault-finding guide’ to discover a faulty printed circuit board somewhere amongst the spaghetti wiring and the plethora of sensors.

Boiler engineers are quite well paid nowadays and most are very busy for the best part of the year. They can pick and choose their jobs and are unlikely to want to work on a boiler that is one of the rarer ones.

Your alternative would be to call out the manufacturers themselves. Well, prepare yourself for a financial shock then. Call-out rates are more often than not higher than that of your local engineer. You may be lucky in that they will actually send their own engineer - someone who works on the same boilers day in, day out. They will almost certainly be very knowledgeable and solve the problem quickly. They are also very likely to have the required part in their van. I won’t name one company that is so busy - and so short of engineers - that they refuse to go to a out-of-guarantee boiler if you have not registered with them for a previous annual service call! And they made the boiler!

However, some manufacturers are now so busy (again, what does this tell you about the reliability of their product?) that they will send a local engineer from a company that is registered with them. The cost may be even more than their own engineer and he most likely works on many (if not all) boilers. He will be a ‘Jack of all of them’ and may struggle to find the cause of the breakdown - which may cost you more in labour charges.