No Heat - gas system condemned - change to oil before Xmas?

nmacu

We recently bought a house in Galway that has an old LPG system (probably 40 years old) that uses one of the flues in the chimney. The engineer advised that we'd need to change it asap but as it seemed to be working fine we moved in and were hoping to get this winter out of it and get some big jobs done (windows, insulation + new heating system) next summer.

We got the other flue in the chimney replaced on Friday (for a stove that was already there - just the flue needed replacing) and the house was quite fumey over the weekend. My wife was concerned that it was a gas leak and called the emergency line and the guy who came out detected small amounts of gas on his detector and condemned the system.

As a result, we have no heat and have to get a new system in asap. The logical choice would seem to be to change to oil. My question is - do we have any hope of getting a boiler + tank installed before Christmas and connected to the existing plumbing system?

We would hope to change that to new rads, etc. in the new year. We just really need heat asap.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

I upgraded my system last week. took 1 man 4 days.
No one here can tell you if it can be done in time.
Have you phoned any plumbers and asked?

nmacu

Thanks for your reply. Sounds somewhat hopeful. My question really was ... is it doable in that timeframe - there will be more involved than simply a new boiler in our case as we're switching from gas to oil ... and the boiler will probably need to be housed somewhere outside which we don't have yet!
I don't want to completely rush it for Xmas and then realise that we would've been better waiting for the availability of a better boiler, etc.

nmacu

Also, I'd appreciate a PM for any recommendations for installations in the Galway area. Thanks.

spud65

plumbers in galway are very hard get, they all seem to be very busy and they vary a lot on price, to replace an old boiler to a condensing boiler plus fittings and insulation (pipe work and electric cables there already) vary from €2500 to €3700. ring few as I've had 3 no shows, actually I'm still waiting on a guy to come now.

nmacu

Thanks a million. I'm on the case! I think that there's a small chance of success before Xmas which would be brilliant if it happens.

nmacu

We may have an option of getting an external boiler installed as probably don't have time to build a boiler house. Has anyone any experience with condensing external boilers?

Wearb

nmacu wrote: »

We may have an option of getting an external boiler installed as probably don't have time to build a boiler house. Has anyone any experience with condensing external boilers?

They are very common and would most likely be a good solution for you.

Make sure that he's installing a good make.

nmacu

Thanks so much for taking the time. I think he mentioned Grant and from what I've been reading they seem really good. I didn't even know they were a thing until today.