I see lots of adverts and lots of claims from installers, telling the public they will save money by having a new condensing boiler installed, I think this is very misleading and in my opinion No, they will not make any savings, well not for many, many years.

If the customer has an old, and yes probably inefficient by todays standards boiler, but in working order, how will they save money having a new condensing boiler installed to replace a working boiler, lets take the claim of a £200.00 a year saving on running costs, as I often see thrown about, which I would be very wary of it been 100% accurate as a claim, but lets just take that figure, now, as a fair price for a good quality boiler supplied and installed with modern controls and the system properly cleaned, lets say £2,000.00, well it will take 10 years just to re-coup the £2,000.00 outlay before you would see any actual savings in reality, as before the homeowner was just paying for gas, also in 10 years the new boiler, now 10 years old, could be coming into some expensive repair bills itself.

Don’t get me wrong, if a boiler is broken, or is costing a fortune in constant repair bills, then yes, the investment will probably pay for itself much quicker, but I just think it is wrong and actually a damn right lie, for anyone to tell an end user they will save money on running costs with a new condensing boiler, when they have a old but working boiler, we do not want to go down the route of the old days of double glazing sales men, if we are trying to sell a boiler on a system that has an old but working boiler, then it should be sold on facts, better and smarter controls, although these could possible be added to the existing boiler, better for the environment, will help improve the selling of the property with a new efficient boiler, but to tell them they will save £200 a year as the selling point, is not the way to go in my opinion, it would be far better that installers look at the insulation level of the property and it would be best to advise improving the insulation to reduce running costs before getting them to pay for a new boiler, installers should look to link up with small insulation companies and have arrangements with them that you get a fee for any leads, that way you are still making some money, but giving the home owner the best advice possible to really save them money.

It seems a lot of installers have lost the ability to diagnose and repair simple problems with older gas boiler, so its far easier and more profitable for them to tell the home owner that its best to replace the boiler and using the line of saving £200 a year as their main selling point