What is the cheapest gas boiler I can buy today in 2024

now this Ariston ecomi one boiler is coming to the end of its life here at Tona the trainee have absolutely abused it the knobs falling off the front it puts up fault codes and it leaks inside so it's time for a change and that got me thinking now what actually is the cheapest boiler you can go out there and buy today because this Ariston boiler is one of the cheapest on you can get now because of this clean heat Market mechanism B manufacturers in January put the prices up by between 100 and 150 quid on their premium products but I believe this weekend I heard that uh the government are dropping the clean heat Market mechanism so will the boiler manufacturers be actually dropping their prices back to what they were were last year anyway that is to be seen so like I say what is the cheapest boiler I can go out there and buy now Brands which come to mind on the cheap side like bii Alpha feri they're the kind of boilers that kind of come to mind on the cheap side I believe navian boilers are quite cheap as well so what I'm going to do is I'm going to go to a Lo our local suppliers I'm going to go to a local plumbers Merchants which is City Plumbing I'm going to go to a local screw fix which is just in Ashton and so is our gigantic B&Q so we'll see exactly how cheap I can buy a boiler today now we're not talking next week we're talking what can I go out and actually buy now now if the boiler manufact B throws in the flu and the stat that's going to be taken into account but obviously I'm going to need a boiler and I'm going to need a flu so let's get on with it and get to our local I think we'll do BQ first and see how much it is to buy a cheap boiler first protocol being Q let's get on with it [Music] and now it appears BQ don't sell boilers anymore they say you've got to go over to screw fix cuz screw fix are part of BQ so that was my next portol anyway so let's get over to uh screw fixer now how hard can it be to buy a new gas boiler screw fix they've got loads on the iPad I've scrolled through but they have a 2 three four six days for delivery they've got this one boiler this baxi 830 which is an LPG boiler 1,185 and 83p now literally down there is City Plumbing so let's go and take a look and see one if they've got any in stock and if they have how much is he hopefully Gavin's in and we can have a little chat about football cuz he's a man united fan and a season ticket holder also so praise the uh Lord if there is one for gav at City Plumbing because he sorted me out straight away when I went in and says what's the cheapest B you've got and can I take it away now he went which one do you want Warehouse full of them so first thing is the one I've gone for is what's on the cover of here it's the gloworm and it's the gloworm microcom never heard of it never seen it looks pretty good on the front I think I did see it in fs and what's it cost me including the vat it was 700 quid I think 79 24p including the vat £79 for a 24 KW now I was going to go for the navian which is slightly cheaper which was 559 plus that but you got a free filter with it or you could have had the 7991 plus that with the with the stat didn't have them in stock the only one they had the cheapest the one they had in stock was this gloworm so let's get get it to the center and let's get it unboxed and see what I've paid nearly £710 for come on then now let's have a look and see what uh Gaff from City Plumbing in action has sold us so this is the flu box you need a knife open the end so oh well it's one color for the flu so that would be the flu what goes to the elbow that's pretty much the same as every Glow boiler I've ever fitted this is the condensing boiler flu and it's the new flu where you can take this end off you have to slide something in there and you can put the PLU management kit on so yeah the new new PLU system what else we got obviously we've got the turret El which has been around for a while now with the sample points for flu gas analyzing and this horrible collar so don't really when they went to this plastic like that there should be another one which there is so we've got two of them one for inside one for outside I say the they were better when they were thick rubber ones and then we've got some destructions so pretty much the standard glow worm flu which is been around the is not donke put away yeah right put it back in the right way would it elbow all the way down to the end that then those and then that go in there always remember when you're opening these boxes you don't need to rip that but open you just open that end the other end so that's the flu let's get this box open it says no no knives no knives on the Box O hang on a minute I have seen this boiler before this is the glow W Compact and I saw it at F in 2021 I think this is the one with the stainless steel heat exchanger so let's dig that video out and have a look at that and see exactly what we get with this boilet so here it is small But Mighty this is the brand new gloworm compact C range so it comes in 24 KW and 28 KW it also comes as LPG and natural gas there is no conversion kit for this you have to buy an LPG one or a natural gas one so let's have a look at the key benefits of this new boiler now these key benefits it's a small footprint which allows for flexible fast installation gloworm actually say it's the smallest boiler on the market at the moment it has userfriendly display for quick and easy commissioning you can get a 25 mm spacer frame which enables piping behind the boiler while still fitting in a standard 300 mm cupboard it has an optional analog clock which can be fitted hasslefree with without removing the boiler casing we'll have a look at that in a minute and it's got an optional pipe accessory for central heating return to bring the connections in line with traditional domestic boiler layouts we'll have a look at that underneath later and you'll see what I mean about that so how small is this boiler then so it's 130 mm from Center to the flu to the wall and it's 626 mm tall it is 400 MM wide and 270 mm deep so the Boer we're going to be playing around with is the gloworm compact 28c now they tell me this boil has been around Europe for the last couple of years so it's not brand new to gloworm but it's brand new to the UK market and the reason why they brought it to the UK Market is because of the stainless steel heat exchanger which is better for LPG rather than the aluminium one so as usual on these Insider boiler casing videos we do let's have a look at this boiler more closely now removing the casing is pretty easy it's just literally two screws underneath here and you just lift off the front cover so you can see the front cover has insulation on it to keep it quiet and there's also a big thick seal around and you can see the clips where the screws go so the first thing I want to do is look at this fixing bracket which isn't the norm type of bracket for gloworm it's a little bit like the old Raven bracket where you screw the screws into the wall and then hang the bracket which is already fixed onto the boiler onto the screws which I don't really like because it's not that flexible so that's the fixing bracket you can also see gloworm have moved the outlet for the flu back into the center of the boiler now if we actually have a look inside and look at the boiler itself we've got a few changes in here as well from a normal gloworm first thing is the F position which is a bit weird right up the top here above the heat exchanger and also we've got this new looking gas valve with this rubber looking pipe coming off it and I'll explain those later but there are still some familiar stuff in this boiler pretty much like the diverter valve which is the normal veent one and we've got this new control panel which we're going to have a look cap now let's have a quick look at this analog clock which uh gloworm say is an optional extra which will just plug in the underside of the boiler and it flips down like it used to do on the flexicon when they first came out so that's the analog clock now let's have a look at the siphon so the siphon has a deep trap of 75 mL so how do we get it out so the first thing we do is pull out this clip from the side panel here with we can then pull it towards us and it completely lifts out that's where it connects onto the bottom of the heat exchanger and then the other side there goes onto the flexible hose which goes down to your drain now just down from the siphon on the right hand side at the bottom here you can see the position of the pressure relief valve and you can see it's easily accessible and easy removable by just pulling out this pin to the left hand side you probably have to take the siphon out to get at it but once you do pull it out you will see that it's protected by a filter now so we shouldn't really get much damage to the seat of the relief valve now because of this filter so if we move from the opposite side of the relief valve to this right hand side the first thing you can see down here at the bottom with the wire coming off it that's where the connection for the analog time ago goes and this other brass colored thing you can see here is the automatic bypass now this automatic byass can be adjusted to give you the correct flow rate through the boiler moving on from here going upwards we can now see the diverter valve so let's have a quick look and see how easy it is to remove this diverter valve so to remove the diverter valve is pretty straightforward obviously we would have to drain the body down to do this first but it's just a matter of removing these two securing screws which are torque 20s pull off the wire and then it's a full cartridge now they say this cartridge now has new O-rings fitted into it and it is actually not repairable you have to buy a full cartridge so that's how easy it is to remove this cartridge and it is dead easy to check as well because we've still got the viewing hole to see whether it drives in or out so just behind the diverter valve you can just see it there is the AO event and the auto air vent has this rubber tube which runs right the way down to the outside of the casing so if it does leak for a dirty system then it's actually not going to be putting Central eating water into the inside of your boiler casing H is that a good idea or a bad idea I'm not sure move up from the diverter valve you can see the spark generator and the HT leads for ignition flame rectification and then we come to this gas valve so this is a new gas valve for us in the UK with this flexible hose coming off it basically that restricts the flow rate so they tell me when the Fan's running um there's also like a little Venturi inside here you can see which has to be cleaned out I believe when you're doing a service and they say this tube is not going to melt or fall apart so they say now because this gas valve is mounted on its side it looks pretty hard to get on this test nipple so I believe gloworm I've put a test nipple on the inlet of the gas isolation valve to allow you to do your Inlet pressures and if you did want to do your testing here at the gas valve for the natural gas one we're looking at a minimum of 17 M to 25 M but obviously at the isolation valve test nipple we're only allowed a 1 M difference between our working pressure at the meter and our working pressure at the appliance now just up from this gas valve is this new fan position I don't know whether I like the fan up here or not it seems like it's really hard to get to but literally it's just three screws to remove this fan and it all pulls out from the top but uh yeah bit of a strange position for a fan now coming down from this fan going past the gas valve we can now start to have a look at the water side of this new compact so let's get this front cover down and have a look now first thing we're going to look at is the pump and the pump you can see is mounted side on and it's a manufacturer we're not used to in the UK too who are they never heard of them it's not a grum Foss pump this one but it just has three screws to be able to remove this pump easily I think reason being if it had the fourth screw down at the bottom you'd never be able to get at it now if we leave the pump and go back towards the diverter valve right behind the diverter valve is the low water pressure sensor it's pretty hard to see in these pictures and you would probably have to remove the side panels to get at it but it's only held in with one clip and you can also see that the low water pressure sensor is now vertical rather rather than horizontal because we've all known about the problems gloworm and veent have had with our low water pressure sensors in the past so hopefully this will resolve the problem of dirty heating water affecting the sensor so if we keep going to the right we come to the expansion vessel and if you look in the back of the boiler you can see the expansion vessel is on a really long lead it's a flexible braided hose so let's find out exactly why this expansion vessel is on this long braided hose so to get out this expansion vessel first of all we got to remove the side panel which is dead easy to do it's literally two screws so there's a T20 screw here at the top and then in this recess here at the bottom there's another T20 screw so once you've removed these two screws this one is a little bit more fiddly than the top one you can just pull the side panel down into the side and uh comes out of the way for you so now to remove this expansion vessel there is a retaining clip on the top which again is another T20 screw so you can just undo the screw and pull out the retaining clip which locks in the expansion vessel and there's another clip here at the bottom again undo one screw and again you can pull up this and it literally do it it felt a bit stiff at first but get two fingers one either side of the clip and it will pull up easy rather than trying to flick it up the way I was then you can just tilt back the expansion vessel and it comes forward on this long hose and the reason for this is this is the only way you can actually get the plate-to-plate heat exchanger out of this boiler by coming out this way and removing this expansion vessel so there are two screws one here and one just on this side for holding the plate in and that's how you remove the plate which is probably the hardest thing to remove on this boiler so putting it back you just do it in reverse order now one of the things we did think about was you need three hands to get the plate out unless you've got somewhere to rest the expansion vessel or obviously you would have the heating system drained down or isolated and the the pressure blown out of the boiler and you could remove the vessel completely so putting it back in like I say it's just reverse order making sure the two clips go in properly first and then you can put the retaining screw back in obviously making sure you don't cross thread it side panel will then push back into place you can then put the screw back in hopefully so that's the one at the top and then back to the one at the bottom making sure you get the holes lined up first so that's the process for removing the expansion vessel or being able to remove the plate to Plate heat exchanger now let's have a quick look at the electrics so this flap is dead easy to drop down it's a waterproof cover and we can now see the fly lead and the PCB this PCB is a little bit different than the other gloworm boilers but you can pretty much see it's got the same plugs so as your live neutral in Earth and your rt230 volts and then you've got your low voltage side here on the right hand side so that's the electrics inside this boiler now this is what the new control panel looks like on the compact now they only had photographs on display they didn't actually have a boiler lived up so I can't tell you how good this is or what features it actually has because they also didn't have any uh broches on it but it looks pretty straightforward with all the usual glow and veent figures on there and I'm guessing what the 55 is is the central eating temperature so that's all I can tell you about this really now let's finish off this review of the gloworm compact by looking at the pipe configuration now this here is not the return this is actually the cold water pipe this one here is the return then if we go to the left this is the gas then the next one is the hot water and then we've got the flow and you can see they're also not in line with each other so I think that's going to upset quite a few Engineers you also don't get pipe tails with this uh boiler but you do get obviously the G the vowels to connect onto here so there are no copper tails what come with this boiler so also here you can see where you can get out the drain for draining the boiler so right on the top we've got the manufactured instructions there's a template in here and all the other stuff we need then we got the Erp label so how do you guys actually do issue an Erp label when you're installing a new boiler do you just put this one what you get with the boiler in with the instructions because this label will change if you've got controls and depending on what controls you've got so I've put down in the comments guys whether you issue a new Erp label or do you lead the Erp labels that come with the boiler so we have a 15 in pack so so we get the flexible Pake pipe in the pack and this B is still doesn't come with a built-in filling loop it's not surprising at the the uh cost of it and we got the blowoff PIP and the valve so no tails with this which I explained in the video before so uh yeah the fitting pack now this is this is what I don't want to see in in in boiler packaging polystyrene there's a lot of boiler manufacturers out there now who don't put polyyne in their boilers so uh for our en environmentalists gloworm is still polish Irene there's some more CO2 going into the atmosphere so it's tipping up and have a look and see what it's like he say inly light that's with doy on lifted that I bet there's a little of glow people now going don't lift it by the flow so get out the way that's what she looks like what you think think it's a neat little box so you can now see this fixed bracket on the back which like I explained in the video before is pretty much like the old Raven eat boilers and I don't know whether I like that or not but we'll see when we come to install it whether that's a good idea or not to have this fixed bracket and you're putting the bolts in the right location but they do give you plenty of holes to look at and something I haven't seen before I'll flip it around he padded on the back soundproofing so uh I've never seen that on the back of a boiler before but there's always the first is there now spinning around just to keep showing how light it is let's have a look underneath now the first thing we can see is we've got the flame lead so this we can wire straight into a fuse spur or we could put it on a plug top but remember the socket where the plug goes into cannot be switched if you're using it for a boiler kind of standed on a lot of boilers then one I think one of the things I didn't cover are these two plugs here and this one is our ebus plug with no link in it so and we've got this little plug here which comes on a little fly lead which goes to a Time Clock a mechanical time clock what you can attach down here so I don't really think I mentioned that or I was told about that in the uh effects in the effects video but that's what that little plug is just goes back in there if you're not using it with the time clock time clocks are a thing of the past now it's all off digital fancy stats isn't it with programmable room stats so let's have a look at the pipe configuration again so here we have the uh flow it would be the flow wouldn't it so flow out here we've got the hot water out then we've got the gas this one is our return into the boiler and this one with the filter in it is actually are cold water in so I didn't really like this one I saw it effects that they're switched and I do believe you can get a fitting to allow you to pipe into that but we're not going to do that so why do they do things like that why this why don't we make them standard and then also on the bottom here we've got grommets where we can put our wiring and our drain is here so that's pretty much what's on the bottom of this boiler so this is the cheapest boiler I could buy today as you've seen £710 not a bad price but besides the navian because I know the Navan was slightly cheaper than this put down in the comments guys which you no is the cheapest boiler out there and if you are a boiler manufacturer of these cheaper boilers and you want to send me one of these boilers to have a look at then by all means send away and we'll fit them and we'll see exactly how good they are so this is what the next video for this boiler will be we're going to see how easy it is to pipe up so hopefully you've liked the video and I'll catch you on the next one cheers

Channel: Tomkat Gas Training

Views: 43,936

Keywords: bandq, city plumbing, Screwfix, cheap boiler, cheapest uk boiler

Id: EuLG6QM4X1A

Length: 30min 31sec (1831 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 08 2024