New Kerosene Boiler - How Much?

thetrickykid

I moved into a new second hand home last Summer. The old boiler that was in place was serviced and did us for the Winter, but it is on its last legs now. It's very noisey and emits a lot of fumes, so we are going to replace it with a new kerosene boiler.

I was quoted a price of Eur1200 for a new boiler, burner and time clock. This seems a bit on the cheap side, but the guy insists that this unit will easily heat the 10 rads in the house. Has anyone had a kerosene boiler installed recently? Is that price reasonable?

Lex Luthor

thetrickykid wrote:

I moved into a new second hand home last Summer. The old boiler that was in place was serviced and did us for the Winter, but it is on its last legs now. It's very noisey and emits a lot of fumes, so we are going to replace it with a new kerosene boiler.

I was quoted a price of Eur1200 for a new boiler, burner and time clock. This seems a bit on the cheap side, but the guy insists that this unit will easily heat the 10 rads in the house. Has anyone had a kerosene boiler installed recently? Is that price reasonable?

That sounds about right...is it an outdoor boiler?
WHat make was it? I was pricing outdoor boilers a year back and they can vary in price....shop around...

Most of them are 50-90k BTU boilers....they are adjustable in that range.
60k BTU will sufficiently heat 10 rads.

thetrickykid

Yeah it is an outdoor boiler alright. I don't know the make or model as yet. The amount that the quotes varied by is staggering. One guy was quoting me EUR2,700 and the next EUR1,200.

Lex Luthor

sounds a bit excessive to me

The Firebird Slimline from what I remember is a nice small compact unit up to 90k btu and should easily be less than 1k

where you shopping?

davidoco

with the way oil prices are going it might be worth looking at exactly the type of boiler and burner he's quoting. For 1200 you can get a Grant Popular fitted and while i have one myself I'd like a more efficent boiler/burner. money spent now for a good triple pass will pay for itself in the long run on oil savings.

My brother just paid well over 2000 for a viessman boiler and I'm beginning to think he is right with the way oil prices are going.
have a look here http://www.viessmann.co.uk/downloads/MediumLargeBoilers.pdf

rooferPete

Hi,

The boiler output should be decided by the total m3 area of each room which in turn dictates the size / type of radiator which in turn gives the number of BTU's required for each radiator.

Take the requirement of each radiator and add them together, don't forget to allow for the hot water cylinder which can take quite a lot of your boiler output to keep constant hot water.

I have about twelve rads maybe another one or two I've forgotten about, I know there are 6 x 2m double radiators in that mix and 2 x 1.5m doubles.

I use a Grant 140 heatpack (capable of 140,000 btu's) set at 120,000 which is enough to heat the house at the most economical rate for that class of boiler, the boiler cost around £1400.00 just pre change over of currency.

I also have a 90,000 btu gas boiler that was almost useless, it also used a dcrazy amount of gas (LPG) because it couldn't handle the load comfortably.

So without leaving the standard type boilers it is possible that one contractor quoted you for a completely different boiler just a higher output that has been proven to me to work considerably cheaper because it's working well within it's normal capacity.

The next lot of fun will be the new Pellet Fuel Boiler and Stove, the stove will be the first buy, then the boiler hopefully before Christmas.

.

thetrickykid

Thanks for the input lads. There's a lot of food for thought there. I spoke to the contractor bloke yesterday and he says the boiler is a Firebird - 90,000.

He was happy that this would comfortably heat the house and I was confident that he would carry out the job capably after chatting to him. Might just do some more research though.

Lex Luthor

I think I was told before that a rule of thumb is about 6-7,000 BTU per rad for avg semi det house.