If you are a homeowner you may enjoy reading this article, as it will be your first stop for saving money this winter. It is commonly known that when boilers reach a certain age they more than likely break down, even if you have had it repaired multiple times. In fact it’ll break down more often after that first repair.
We wanted to investigate this problem that customers are experiencing and we wanted to see whether having a new boiler installed was in fact cheaper than having your old one repaired. We sent out a couple of independent researchers and these were their findings…
The problem
My boiler An 11-year-old Baxi Combi Instant 80
The Problem Water was not heating up to a high enough temperature and sometimes not heating up at all.
For our investigation we are going to compare the price of having your old boiler repaired vs. having a new one installed…
The Options
1) Having a new boiler installed with Boiler Plan has ZERO upfront costs. Over a 7-year plan the monthly payment is £34.95 (inc. VAT) with an average gas saving of £20 per month depending on the size of your house and previous boiler.
This means that the REAL price of having a new boiler installed is £14.95, which includes the saving on your gas bill. I still have the option to pay in full for the boiler which would be around the £2000 mark. Fortunately Boiler Plan gives free boiler cover, so any breakdowns in the future would be covered.
2) We looked at having a new boiler installed with British gas (inc. VAT) and we found that it will cost between £2700-2900 including installation fees.
While the engineer was out we had him give us a rough estimate on what it would cost to repair the boiler and the plans they had:
British Gas gives 2 options – either the ‘Boiler repair and cover’ or the ‘One-off boiler repair’.
The ‘boiler repair and cover’, costs £99 for the repair + £22 for HomeCare 200 and a call out charge of £110.
The second option British gas offers is a one-off boiler repair and the price is entirely dependable on how long the installation lasts;
- 30-minute repairs – From £79
- 30mins – 2 hour repairs – From £199
- Over 2 hour repairs – From £409 (12 month Guarantee included)
For our problem British Gas would charge a call out fee of £110, the problem with the boiler was the heat exchanger was furred up therefore the boiler was working to half of its efficiency level and the fan was also noisy and needed a replacement.
The engineer said the repair would cost £490 and for my case a cover plan of £14 per month.
After the repair costs of £490 I had to pay £168 over the year (£14 per month) to cover another repair. However this is only a 1-year cover. If the boiler were to break down in 18 months, we would have to go through the whole process again.
3) We finally looked into having the boiler repaired with a local plumbing and heating engineer. The local plumber gave the same diagnosis as the British gas engineer. The call out charge was £49 and he charged £370 for parts and labour totalling £419. No cover was offered for the inevitability of another breakdown happening.
The other option was to get the local plumbing firm to fit me a new boiler, even though they were cheaper than British Gas, I don’t have the money to put down on a new boiler.
My conclusions
- The chances of a breakdown happening again is very likely which means £1000 could easily be spent within 2 years on my old boiler.
- A general rule of thumb is to replace your boiler between 10-15 years, so by repairing a boiler around this age I am offsetting the inevitable and wasting money in doing so. However it is difficult not to do this when a new boiler costs around £2000.
- At this time I don’t have £2000-£2900.
- Boilers on Finance can get me a new boiler installed for no upfront cost, which would help my finance position and stop me wasting money fixing my old boiler, which needs to be replaced in the next few years anyway.
We found that Boilers on Finance was the best option to go with….
Why?
Boilers on Finance has different payment schemes, which means it is very flexible and easy to keep track of where your costs are going.
Boilers on Finance offers free cover throughout the duration of all 4 agreements and you have the added bonus of having a brand new boiler installed rather than having to spend money on fixing your old inefficient boiler.
The £500 I would spend on fixing my boiler could pay for my first 14 months of a brand new boiler, so it really is the most cost effective way in getting a new boiler, unless the repair you need is a very small job!
So if you are needing boiler repairs in Leyland look no further than APG Boilers on Finance.