Replacing backboiler with combi boiler

sqooka

Hi everyone,

I recently bought a house with a super old back boiler behind a fireplace and I'm wondering if anyone has replaced one of these anytime recently and what it coldt them. I expect up to 3 grand for the new boiler but I'm a bit worried taking the old boiler out and moving it to the wall could be quite an involved process so I'd love to hear if anyone else had one of these replaced and was it an expensive/complicated process?

Any responses very welcome!

Aoife

MattFoster

Hi Aoife,

Have you made any progress?

I recently bought a similar property with a gas back boiler in the chimney.

There were two options I was looking at, one to stick a condensing boiler onto the system removing the black boiler and amending some pipe work. I was told this would cost around 3K for a small property.

The second was to stick combi boiler onto the system. This is what I went for and is a bigger job. It required taking out the old black boiler amending some pipework also requires removing water storage tank and emersion, the combi in some applications also requiring a break tank and pump for its cold water supply as in many properties low pressure can be an issue which will cause the combi boiler to lock out on low pressure fault. I also had the gravity-fed tank and heating expansion tank removed as was not necessary. The combi will give you instant hot water on his more efficient as you are not heating a large quantity of water. This will cost you around 5K for a small property. My upgrade has not been completed so i will keep you posted.

Note that If you are going for a combi you will now be pressurizing pipework which might not always have been pressurized and could as a result have some leaks on the system.

Hope this helps.