The Mad Drive Towards 'Energy Efficiency'

[cr0ft]

Does anyone else consider this whole area a contradiction? Our boiler in our house keeps leaking like a fish from the heat exchanger after just 5 years. I've kept the system topped up nicely with rust inhibitor and so there are no issues with the condition of the water in the system.

It's a Potterton condensing system boiler of course and so operates above 90% efficiency when optimal. But I'm having to replace it after 5 years. If I had an old floor standing boiler with a pilot light it might only have been 70% efficient at best but it would work for 25-30 years. In that time I will have bought (best case) 3 new energy efficient boilers. The savings in gas will be massively less than the cost of replacing 3 boilers.

TRVs are another case in point, how often do we see these failing and needing to be replaced? At even £25 each labour and materials to replace them, do they really pay for themselves over say a 10 year lifespan?

Basically, who is holding the boiler manufacturers to account. It must be possible to produce a boiler that's able to last a lot longer than 10 years these days. Is it just there's a desire from the manufacturer's not too??

The world is going mad!!

 

[oz-plumber]

Those are exactly my thought also.

And when you take it a step further, what is the cost to the environment in making 3 boilers over that period of time, multiplied by the amount of boilers sold.

I would hesitate a guess that it have less of a carbon footprint on the environment be to have a 15 +year old boiler operating at less efficiency, than have 3 new boilers manufactured in that time.

But hey, that's Governments who legislate changes due to Global Warming.

They set up a Department, full of inexperienced / ill informed Public Servants, who turn to the manufacturers for advice.

The manufacturers tell the Department how much their boilers will save on Greenhouse Gas emissions, and hey, their Legislated.

Pity the manufacturers didn't mention that the 1/2 to 3/4 of the savings would be nullified, if they included the end cost of producing one boiler.

Don't get me started!!!!

 

[voivod]

Cant wait till we have to start using old cars and motorbikes too...new ones suck

 

[Best]

A rated circulating pumps full of electronics will last only a few years at best and save a very small amount of electricity but customer will have to buy a new expensive A rated replacement again and heavy labour costs. Yet the old type pumps last regularity 10 or 20 years.
Push button toilets to save water use but you often have to press the button again wasting 12 litre water. Flush valves regularity leak in to pan wasting 1000s gallons over the UK. Then the buttons or flush valves fail costing the customers expensive parts and plumbers labour costs.

 

[ShaunCorbs]

All I will say it's in the interests of the manufacturers to make things fail more money in a shorter time scale

 

[Leo21]

As Croft says, carbon foot print etc. I heard somewhere that the most eco friendly cars are old jeeps. They last for twenty plus years, and give of less crap than the manufacturing process for Toyota Prius batteries.
Oh, and how embarrassing is it condemning nearly new boilers. Or repair bills over £250, more people are going to turn to contracts. And I don't blame them.

 

[hammers4spanner]

I went to a wozzie greenstar about 5 year old other day heat exchanger had gone , wozzie offered to fit a new one and put a 12 month warranty on the boiler for 269.
I said to cust i can't get anywhere near that I'm starting to think repair market is dying a death.

 

[bright spark]

Everything nowadays is engineered to fail. That's for sure.
You can see the quality of the parts dropping.
Heat exchangers leaking, new pumps packing up.
I serviced 2 Buderus boilers in a school the other day. The plate on them was 1970.
Have to. Say they weren't in bad condition

 

[hammers4spanner]

What amazes me is all these digital displays and little led's that are on boilers and our controls cost they say over a hundred quid a year so we are still using another fuel so still polluting the atmosphere. Also a gas pilot cost less they say than leaving these controls on so where do we go with that??

 

[Last Plumber]

I agree with every one of you.
It's all ballcocks !


It's all old hat but pushed as a new ideas. I can only think the difference in bygon days was because if something was ballcocks and a pointless waste of cash people wouldn't buy into it.

Now everything is sold under the
' I'm doing my bit for the environment ' ,
label.

These ideas, water/ air source heat pumps, solar power have been around for decades.

Government Brainwashing !