Boiler FAQ

Who should I get to service my boiler?

As with all heating appliances, your boiler should be serviced on a regular basis to ensure that it is operating efficiently and safely. The service should be carried out by a qualified and experienced service technician / service engineer.

Why should I service my Boiler?

An annual boiler safety check and boiler service, carried out by a professional service engineer ensures that your boiler is functioning properly. Regular servicing of your boiler is important as it ensures that the boiler is working to the specifications designed by the boiler manufacturer. This will help prolong the life of the boiler as well as reduce the risk of faults and expensive repairs down the line.

The efficiency of boilers, both oil and gas fired, deteriorates with use. There are several reasons for this, the key ones being:

Soot production from the combustion process coats the heat exchanger surfaces.
The critical air-to-fuel combustion ratio changes due to gradual component wear.
A boiler service will remove any sooting and, by adjustment, will re-establish the optimum combustion conditions. But while optimising operating efficiency is paramount in these days of rising fuel costs, there are other important benefits in having your boiler serviced:

By checking the safety controls, early failures can be detected and rectified in good time.
A variety of operational systems and components will be checked including:
– Gas/Oil leaks
– Boiler start-up performance
– Noises that give an early warning signal of pending component failures.

Just like cars, boilers can operate for many years without servicing but generally with fuel consumption penalties, undermined reliability and even safety implications.

Is there really a benefit to servicing my boiler?

Because of the difference between individual installations, it is difficult to predict what saving servicing will bring for a particular house.

The following chart is conservative and gives the increase in fuel costs each year that the boiler is not serviced.

Fuel Savings from Boiler servicing Line Graph showing savings made by servicing based on boiler fuel type
For example, servicing a kerosene boiler, which has not been serviced for 3 years, will bring about an immediate fuel reduction of some 5%.

How often a boiler be serviced?

Most boiler manufacturers recommend an annual service, primarily on the grounds of safety but also to ensure reliability. On efficiency grounds it is well worth servicing oil boilers annually because the soot build-up is such as to significantly increase oil consumption. With gas, while soot build-up is not so much a problem because of its clean burning characteristics, an annual service would still be recommended.

What do I do if my boiler is more than 15 years old?

Typically, the “as new” efficiency of an oil or gas boiler over 15 years old would have been less than 80%. It’s present efficiency today, due to wear and tear is unlikely to be greater than 70%.

The current range of boilers available today will have efficiencies greater than 90%. This represents an operational improvement in efficiency of up to 20 percentage points

Increasing the operational efficiency of your boiler by this amount represents an actual fuel saving of more than 25%. In other words, by replacing an older, low efficiency boiler with a new, high efficiency boiler, you can cut your fuel bills by a quarter.

So, replacing old boilers makes good sense for two reasons:

Significant fuel cost savings with can only increase as energy prices escalate.
Improved reliability and safety.
If you have a boiler older than 15 years then it is most likely during the next few years that you will have to replace it on reliability grounds in any case. Change it now and start saving immediately!

By planning the change (rather than it being forced on you in the depth of winter when it breaks down) you can get competitive quotations and reduce the cost.

Hint: Remember, replacement costs are lower in summer

what’s the best type of replacement boiler for me?

When replacing a boiler, the first consideration should be about which fuel to use. Generally, you should consider replacing your boiler with one that uses the same fuel. If you have a natural gas supply then it is likely to be the lowest cost option in terms of both boiler installation cost and running cost. If you don’t have a natural gas supply then the choice is between oil, LPG or pellet boilers. For rural areas or areas that are off the national gas grid, oil or LPG are viable solutions.

Who should I get to install my boiler?

Your boiler should be installed a qualified and experienced boiler installer. A good installer will be able to size your new boiler based on the actual heating requirements for your home. This will ensure that the boiler operates at its optimum capacity and be most cost effective.

We recommend that you should check that the installer holds public liability insurance and that they have the necessary qualifications and experience to carry out the works in question.