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Boilers
Installation, replacement, servicing and repair. Worcester Bosch accredited, which allows guarantees of up to twelve years on a new Greenstar.
Call Julian 07831 718509Almost all of Julian's work comes from repeat customers and recommendations. Over forty years, that is the only measure that means anything.
A boiler is the single most expensive thing most households buy for the house, and the one they understand least. This page sets out what Julian does with boilers and points you at the right page for your situation.
The short version: if it has stopped and it is a Worcester Bosch, start with a repair. If it is fifteen years old and parts are getting hard to find, start with a replacement quote. If you are not sure which, ring and ask, because Julian will tell you honestly rather than reaching for the bigger job.
A new gas boiler where there was not one before, or a change of system type. Sized from a survey rather than a chart, because bedroom count alone gets it wrong more often than not.
Swapping an old, unreliable or dead boiler for a modern condensing one. The most common job on this list, and usually a single day if it goes back in the same position.
Accredited installer status is granted by Worcester after they assess training and workmanship. It is what allows the longest guarantee terms, which a non-accredited fitter cannot register on the same boiler.
Suits homes short on space and households where two outlets are rarely used at once. Mains pressure and flow rate set the ceiling on what any combi can deliver, so both are measured at survey.
Annual, and it covers every make. It checks combustion, seals, safety devices and pressure, and it is the condition attached to almost every manufacturer guarantee. Miss a year and a claim in year eight can be refused, however sound the installation was.
Lost heating or hot water. Julian diagnoses the actual fault and tells you honestly whether fixing it makes sense. Repairs are Worcester Bosch only, and he will say so on the phone rather than after a wasted visit.
Working on one make means the fault codes and known weak points are genuinely familiar, so the right part goes in first time rather than by elimination. Many of the boilers he repairs are ones he fitted himself.
Julian looks at the existing boiler and its position, the flue route, the mains water pressure and flow rate, the state of the pipework and radiators, and how the household actually uses hot water. Those things decide what the right boiler is.
An older system holds years of sludge. Pushing that through a new heat exchanger is the fastest way to ruin it, and most manufacturers will decline a guarantee claim where no filter was fitted. Both are standard here, not extras.
The old boiler goes, along with any redundant cylinder and loft tanks where the system type is changing. Redundant pipework comes out rather than being capped and left above a ceiling.
Commissioned to the manufacturer's procedure, notified to Gas Safe, and the guarantee registered with Worcester on your behalf. The paperwork is handed over on the day rather than promised.
Timers, thermostats and flow temperatures set up before Julian leaves, and explained properly. A correctly set flow temperature is worth more on a condensing boiler than most people realise.
Cash or bank transfer on completion. There is no finance arrangement, which keeps things simple and means no commission is built into the price you are quoted.
Most households are choosing between three arrangements. The right one depends far more on how many bathrooms get used at once than on the size of the house.
Heats water on demand straight from the mains. No cylinder, no loft tanks, so it frees up a cupboard. Best for one bathroom. It cannot produce more than the incoming mains supply gives it, whatever its output rating says.
Stores hot water at mains pressure in an unvented cylinder. Holds pressure at two showers at once, which no combi will do. Needs somewhere for the cylinder, and needs the unvented qualification to install legally.
The older arrangement with a cylinder and tanks in the loft. Still the right answer in some houses, particularly where mains pressure is poor and the existing pipework suits it.
Bristol housing pushes this decision in both directions. Older terraces around Fishponds and Kingswood are usually short on space and suit a combi. Newer estate housing in Bradley Stoke and Emersons Green tends to have two bathrooms and outgrows one.
The most common mistake in the trade is fitting a boiler that is too big. It sounds like the safe option and it is not. An oversized boiler short-cycles, firing up and shutting down repeatedly instead of running steadily, and a condensing boiler that short-cycles never reaches the conditions where it actually condenses. You end up paying more for a bigger unit and then paying more again to run it.
Sizing properly means a heat loss calculation for the building, not a rule of thumb based on bedroom count. Wall construction matters, because a solid wall Victorian terrace loses heat at a very different rate from a cavity wall semi of the same floor area. Glazing matters. Insulation matters. So does whether the household actually heats every room or keeps two of them shut.
Hot water is calculated separately from heating. A combi is sized on how many outlets might run at once and on the incoming mains flow rate, which gets measured at the tap rather than assumed. A system boiler with a cylinder is sized on how much stored hot water the household gets through in its busiest hour. These are different sums and they produce different answers.
Worcester Bosch offer guarantees of up to twelve years on a new Greenstar, but the longest terms are only available through an accredited installer. The same boiler fitted by a non-accredited engineer cannot be registered for the same length of cover. That difference is frequently worth more than the gap between two quotes, and it is invisible until something goes wrong in year eight.
Almost every manufacturer guarantee requires a service each year by a registered engineer, recorded properly. Miss one and a claim can be refused however sound the installation was. This is the single most common reason people pay for a repair they assumed was covered.
Most manufacturers now require a magnetic filter to be fitted. If a heat exchanger blocks with sludge and there was no filter, the claim goes nowhere. It is fitted as standard here, along with a full system flush, rather than offered as an upgrade.
A guarantee only exists if it was registered with the manufacturer after installation. Guarantees that were never registered are an unwelcome and fairly common discovery. Julian registers it on your behalf and hands you the paperwork on the day.
The commissioning record at the front of the boiler manual is the document that proves all of the above. It gets completed at every visit. If you sell the house, it goes with it, and a full service history is worth having in that conversation too.
Boilers overwhelmingly fail in the first genuinely cold week of the year, because that is the first time all winter the system is asked to work hard. Every engineer in Bristol is busy in that week. It is the worst possible moment to be choosing a boiler, and it is when people accept whatever is available rather than what suits.
If a boiler is limping rather than dead, or has needed two repairs in the same season, late summer and early autumn are the sensible time to deal with it. Appointments are easy to get, nobody is making a decision in a cold house, and there is time to consider whether a different system type would suit better rather than replacing like with like by default. Getting a quote costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
One last point that catches households out. A boiler is sized for the coldest week of the year, not the average one, and the flow temperature it runs at matters as much as its output rating. Set too high, a condensing boiler never condenses and you lose the efficiency you paid for. Set correctly, the same appliance costs noticeably less to run for exactly the same warmth. Julian sets it at commissioning and explains what it does, because it is the single easiest thing to get wrong and the easiest to put right.
A survey, a fixed price and no obligation. Late summer is the easiest time to deal with a boiler that is limping rather than dead.
Call 07831 718509