Oil outdoor combi boiler thoughts/advice please

[Lindyboo]

Hello All

We’re looking to replace our Worcester 18/25 indoor combi oil boiler with an external equivalent. Man came today and suggested we go with a Grant Vortex Pro model 26 outdoor type. Not much about this online – any experience of it out there?

Ta.

 

[DJH]

Grant boilers are very popular here in Ireland in fact they are manufactured not too far away from me and, because of the lack of space inside older properties here the outdoor version is widely used. As with any flue less or balanced flu oil fired appliance it's best to stick to regular servicing as you don't want smoke or sooty fumes being given off as they tend to stain walls badly.

Another thing is that being an outside appliance it will depend on it's built in frost stat to prevent it or nearby pipework from freezing so the boiler will fire up occasionally to protect itself which in effect means that it will be using fuel but that's a cheap trade off to having to replace a burst boiler.

I fitted a Grant low level vertical flue in my neighbours house five or six years back and its given no trouble so far. Did I just say that?? :roll:

I've also got one sitting in the laundry room waiting for me to connect it up, one day soon I hope.

I hope this helps.

Doug

 

[Lindyboo]

Thanks Doug, glad to hear the Grant isn’t unknown. Useful to know about it firing up to keep itself warm. The only slender bits of info on the web seem to suggest that problems kick in with water leaks after about 4 years and some have found that Grant are unwilling, even a bit dodgy, in dealing with customer complaints.

We need to replace our Worcester 18/25 indoor (4 yrs old) because for the last 18 months it’s been nothing but trouble and has cost us several hundred in extra servicing/repairs and it still isn’t right. I’ve since gathered that this model is notoriously difficult and unreliable, so want to research the Grant as fully as I can before making a decision. We’ve decided to just get rid of the Worcester, though I’ve been told that the Worcester outdoor version is more reliable than the indoor. The engineer who came today is happy to fit a Worcester if we prefer, but recommends the Grant.

Mind you, that depends on if he turns up. We’ve offered the work to two firms since January who surveyed/quoted etc, then couldn’t be bothered to show up. Sigh.

 

[DJH]

I thought Worcester are now part of the Bosch Group who have a very good name for power tools etc. If you have any problem with Grant I'll pop up the road and sort them for you.

Doug

 

[Lindyboo]

Thanks for the offer. Might hold you to that ... :wink:

 

[Keith Bowman]

.......We need to replace our Worcester 18/25 indoor (4 yrs old) because for the last 18 months it’s been nothing but trouble and has cost us several hundred in extra servicing/repairs and it still isn’t right. I’ve since gathered that this model is notoriously difficult and unreliable......

Our Bosch Worcester 18/25 was installed in 2006 and had its FIRST service last autumn. They are not all unreliable! (It will get an annual service from now on though. After years of not bothering we finally signed up for servicing with Bosch themselves.)

 

[Flyfisher]

We had a Potterton Profile gas boiler in our previous house for about 18 years. In all that time we only had it serviced once when it stopped igniting reliably after about 10 years. The cause was a failing fan (bearings probably), though it cost a hefty £400 to diagnose and replace. :shock:

I've never quite understood why boilers should cause much trouble as they are a pretty simple device really.

 

[Lindyboo]

E-mailed boiler man last night re what are his payment terms and - here we go again (see my posts re a landscaper I tried to hire last year) it seems he has some odd terms which he's coming over this afternoon to explain. I sense a dodgy deal in the air ...

 

[tobydog]

I know a similar topic came up last year and a few of us were concerned with how much heat is actually lost to the elements considering how efficient these new boilers are supposed to be. I'm sure I recall Flyfisher saying how warm and cosy his boiler shed was :? . Our internal boiler gives off a tremendous amount of heat in its room and we use it to dry clothes (quickly) with the fan onto get rid of the moisture. The insulation of outside boilers may be something you want to consider or at least ask about. Just a thought.

 

[Baron de Gynes]

Our boiler is a Grant Vortex outdoor thingummy (at 36/42kw, I think...) and now we have an engineer who understands it, it's running well. *touch wood*

We had two previous engineers who couldn't get the measure of it at all (including the firm that installed it) although their difficulty in getting it running efficiently was because the original installers (yes, the ones who came to mend it) had installed it incorreclty for the size of the system.

Anyhow, it works well, is quiet in operation and I don't think (judging by the depth of snow that was sitting on top of the casing over this winter) that it loses much heat through the case.

Drinks like Oliver Reed, mind...

 

[Lindyboo]

Chap turned up and explained his payment arrangements, which were okay but if he could've written 'em would've saved him a trip. Anyway, it seems he's keen to crack on because the boiler and necessary gubbins have been ordered and installation will commence Mon or Tues next week! Sounds too good to be true, so may well be.

Drinks like Oliver Reed, eh? Oh crumbs ... :shock:

 

[Flyfisher]

I know a similar topic came up last year and a few of us were concerned with how much heat is actually lost to the elements considering how efficient these new boilers are supposed to be. I'm sure I recall Flyfisher saying how warm and cosy his boiler shed was :? .

You may have a better memory than me. We don't have a boiler shed as such. We do have a new-ish (3 years) gas boiler installed in an otherwise unheated room and it certainly keeps the chill off when compared to the other unheated parts of the house, but I don't think I'd describe it as 'warm and cosy'.

I've always assumed that an oil boiler is best installed outdoors (or at least outside the normal living areas of the house) because of the small of any oil drips.

 

[Keith Bowman]

I know a similar topic came up last year and a few of us were concerned with how much heat is actually lost to the elements considering how efficient these new boilers are supposed to be. I'm sure I recall Flyfisher saying how warm and cosy his boiler shed was :? .

You may have a better memory than me. We don't have a boiler shed as such. We do have a new-ish (3 years) gas boiler installed in an otherwise unheated room and it certainly keeps the chill off when compared to the other unheated parts of the house, but I don't think I'd describe it as 'warm and cosy'.

I've always assumed that an oil boiler is best installed outdoors (or at least outside the normal living areas of the house) because of the small of any oil drips.

If you have oil drips from your boiler, the smell is the least of your problems! :shock: In that case the smell might be useful to alert you to the potential dangers.

 

[Lindyboo]

The (apparently) unfixable oil drip has been one deciding factor in scrapping the Worcester – house stinks. Boiler currently located in our tiny kitchen and unless the heating is turned off overnight the fumes are overpowering in the morning. We’ve been worried about the safety implications, so decided that instead of tangling with claims for replacement and all the other complications we’d get an outdoor one and free up valuable space in the kitchen. Also when the boiler needs servicing we won’t get a kitchen full of soot and the noise of the boiler won’t be a problem. If it starts leaking or emitting fumes then we’re not at risk. Expensive to replace but we think it best overall.

We were green ‘townies’ when we moved here and didn’t research boiler options enough before opting for the existing set up. Lesson learned.

 

[DJH]

I remember from my few years servicing and installing heating appliances that invariably when entering a property with an oil fired boiler that there was almost always an odour of heating oil. It sometimes seemed impossible to tighten up or secure the flexible oil line joint to the appliances oil pump on the burner in the cases of pressure jet boilers. I think this joint used to leak because of the vibration caused by an imbalanced fan which caused everything on the burner to shake. Another culprit for seeping oil was the fire valve which used an olive type connection and the more it was tightened the more it would compress the pipe out of shape.

Any smell of fumes on firing up we used to put down to the electrodes being slightly out of alignment causing a build up of atomised oil vapor which then, when ignited, went off with a whoompf and the resulting smoke and fume escaped from anywhere it could in the boiler as the flue could't cope with all the fumes. It would blow back through the air intake on the burner and, in cases where there was a balance vent on the flue pipe back through there as well.

In my humble opinion oil fired appliances should not be fitted inside a kitchen or any other habitable room although a case could be made for a utility room for example, to take advantage of warmth given of from the appliance. We used to reckon that boilers gave off 5% of their total output through the casings although most modern appliances have insulated casings nowadays.

Doug

 

[robgil]

We have an indoor oil boiler , never any smells.
If you smell oil you need to get your boiler repaired, outside or in.
Oil spillages can be catastrophic for the surrounding environment and very expensive to clean up and decontaminate the area.