Baxi boilers any good?

[DONFRAMAC]

My own experience of gas pipe size is that 15 mm was OK for my old 40,000 BTU/hr Gloworm vented indirect HW system, but the new Potterton Promax 28+ condensing combi needs 22 mm. (Obviously the 28 kW combi demands much more gas-flow than the Gloworm, which was about 12 kW)

[Alan Gibbons]

From our own personal experience we cannot possibly advise anyone to purchase a Baxi boiler for their own home. Like others we have experienced many problems with their product. In one Baxi Heat Team service technicians words, their boilers are 'built with cheap components and thrown together they are rubbish'.

As to support of their products, the Baxi Heat Team provides shoddy and lackadaisical customer service and care, and very poor follow up and support of its technicians. It is just as well that we carry insurance or our costs would have been enormous. Only one service technician has diagnosed a fault properly on first visit, thus creating a further call out on all but rare occaision. This steals your time which is usually a part of your annual leave. We have had c.18 call outs in 7 or 8 years. I am not a gas technician but I can diagnose the problems better, I have told many a Baxi Heat Team technician what is causing a particular fault, only to be ignored, until the recall visit that is.

Apart from the burner flue componets, including fan, and the pump, all other functional components have failed at soime time and been changed 3 times and more.

The Baxi MD is not very responsive either to customer concern letters and delegates the responsibility for response to his head of the Baxi Heat Team service department, whose written advice has been --- to phone them!

The Baxi Heat Team service department appears very happy not to bother to respond or follow up, even when their last record shows they have left your boiler off line and a family of 4 without heating and hot water.

Of our latest experience the Baxi Heat Team service department ignored the request of the Baxi Heat Team service technician to call us to make and confirm the further necessary appointment. At that time the records Baxi Heat Team had showed that we were being left, as a family of 4 adults, with no heating or hot water. In fact a new fault occurred whilst the technician was present, an isolation valve failed mechanically and prevented the boiler from being put back into operation. Following letters and compaints the matter is now being resolved afeter several months, one hopes. The job details were lost by the Baxi Heat Team service department the spares had to re-ordered. Today the planned visit to fit the spares was cancelled, at 10am, due to the fact that the technician reported 3 of the newly ordered spares as damaged and unuseable (sorry I do not believe in such levels of numerical coincidence).


Be aware, perhaps you may wish to consider going elswhere for your new boiler!

[Oliver_murphy]

The Potterton boiler in question is the SUPRIMA. Yes it had its faults, and yes it has put many people off. The old suprima is now obselete, as its not a HE boiler.

The Viessmann is a excellant boiler, but not very popular, as they are still trying to break the UK market.

Worcester are my prefered boilers, and I install them in many houses.

The 24i Junior is a fantasic peice of kit, and installed by a WORCESTER APPROVED INSTALLER will give you a 5 year warrenty now. I have never had a problem with the Heat exchanger in these, as long as your system is correctly cleaned and inhibited on installion, you will find no faults.

Worcester all the way

[DONFRAMAC]

My old GLOWORM 40,000 BTU's/hr boiler (~12 kW), operated on a 15 mm gas pipe, but my new Potterton Promax 28HE+, needs 22 mm sized gas piping to deliver enough gas-flow.
I expect your 24 kW unit will also need the 22 mm pipe size, especially when you consider the drop in gas-main pressure to be expected at times of peak demand.

[andrewkfletcher]

This video shows a fitting end for a modern combination boiler!

Google "youtube.com/watch?v=TgChNhVyA5A"

After installing this useless piece of junk (Baxi 100 HE Plus) 5 years ago, we have never been able to get the water warm enough for a bath, we have wasted tonnes of water waiting for the tap to run warm and it broke down just after the guarantee expired (now there's a surprise) The main computer component cost a fortune to replace, a further 6 months later following a warm summer it packed up again, another part replaced, the following winter developed yet another fault requiring parts, in fact the only time it was reliable was when it was eventually disconnected! The final straw came when it sprung a leak and this was a turning point for us.

Now our home is heated by a log burner, it is lovely and warm, we have plenty of hot water and our drive is full of free logs. We no longer have one of those things you call a heating bill :)

If you are considering having a condensing boiler installed, make sure you google the brand name and model together with reviews. And read all you can about its reliability before parting with a single penny!

Hope you enjoyed this video. I look forward to reading your comments and suggestions. And please remember to rate it :)

[heatman]

We have been fitting Maxi boilers for years, back when they sold the original back boiler units. We have fitted the new range of condensing combi and system boilers for the last 18months and in that time have only had 3 breakdowns and Baxi had an engineer on site within 24 hrs. The boilers are one of the most efficient units on the market and the spare parts are very reasonably priced not like a lot of the boilers on the market

[heatman]

And Oh boy do you pay for the extra warranty on the Baxi Platinum over £200 + vat more than a Viessmann boiler. The Baxi Platinum is basicaly the same boiler as the Baxi Duotec/ Megaflo boilers, just more expensive to cover the extended warranty. The Baxi 105e and it's sister boilers 105e instant 80e & 80e instant where very good boilers as they where in fact the old Alpha Ocean boilers rebadged so had been around for some time before Baxi adopted them and even improved on them. Baxi had to adopt them quick as the previous combi range the Baxi Bahama was a total disaster for them and I do not think any one will defend that particular boiler. It's your money however and the best bit of advice I can give you is that what ever boiler you choose, I would suggest it's a band A boiler with a stainless steel heat exchanger, cast aluminium heat exchangers will be attacked by the acidic condensate and will have a much shorter life span than stainless steel. The better the quality of stainless steel the longer the life span of the boilers heat exchanger. Do the research now and save a lot of money in the future.

I have had feedback from other installers who have had issues with the Viessmann boilers. It can break down the same as any other appliance, but you seem to have a very big issue with Baxi, the only conclusion I can make is that you are a Vissmann registered installer. With your comment on the 105 and 80e's being a rebranded Alpha boiler and stating that the Alpha boiler was a good unit, all I can say to that is your definition of a good boiler is very suspect as I class it as one of the worst boilers ever to enter service, with the spare parts way overpriced.

[heatman]

Sorry he said we needed a bigger pipe than the 15mm gas inlet we have although the other quotes never made mention of this and checking the specs in the brochure's they say ( the boiler where looking at getting) uses 15mm gas inlet.

The bg guy said that by using the 15mm with a new boiler it would null our guarantee though as i say the brochure specs say 15mm

I am not an advocate of British Gas, as I think their sales tactics and prices are very bad, but I will say that what the BG guy is stating, as far as the gas supply pipe is concerned is correct. It has nothing to do with the warranty situation, its to do with the new breed of burners that the modern boilers are fitted with and they have to have an adequate gas supply to preform correctly and a 15mm supply is not sufficient.

[Carolynpig]

our baxi mega flow boiler is less than 5 months old and it has just broken down! The error code says than the fan wiring is faulty. Just spent 3 freezing days with no other source of heat, the engineer will not come until tomorrow to repair it under its' guarantee, I think it is very poor and that they should repair it within 24 hours of the fault being reported. We will never purchase another in future years and certainly not get a service plan with baxi as they are slow to respond.

[htg engineer]

I agree the response time isn't the best, but saying you wont buy Baxi again - fair enough your choice. A breakdown after 5 days never mind 5 months could happen with manufacturer and not one can guarantee it wont happen.

[TheDoctor4]

Hi All
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