Is the answer as clear cut as Worcester Bosch Greenstar?

Now, there is the million dollar question, and could need multiple blogs to get to a definitive answer, but with my 17 years industry experience and multiple customers surveys and awards to delve into I might not come to the conclusion you think.

Where to start

For the customer the answer I get a lot (even if they know nothing about boilers) is Worcester Bosch Greenstar which is hardly surprising as they sell nearly half a million boilers each year and are the number 1 choice for British gas who sell over 100,000 units alone with the Worcester 30i combithe most common. The fact these two great British companies are probably the best marketed and well known only emphasises the strong market position they both hold and will take some shifting, but are we starting to see a shift?

According to Which Best Buy Boiler they rank 5 stars for availability of spares (lots of spares lots of breakdowns?) build quality and engineer recommendation, but only 3 start for ease of servicing and repairing common faults which is maybe why the spares are readily available.

What other best boilers are out there? Ideal maybe?

Can there be more than one best boiler in the market? Well yes and no really, with the emergence of 10 and 12 year warranties, manufacturers both British, European, Asian, and American are all in a war to convince installers and homeowners alike that you should have their products installed in your home and one of those Companies is Ideal Boilers based in Hull.

Ideals new ranges of Vogue and Logic+ with 12 and 10 year warranties respectively, have got installers attention and to add to that, the marketing and brand awareness has really ramped that up with the creation of Boiler Man and becoming kit sponsor of West Bromwich Albion with the reach of the premier league. But that does not make them the best boiler to put in your home or does it?

Ironically,Which has Vaillant with 5 stars across the 5 categories and as the R&D at Ideal are ex Vaillant then that bodes well for the future of the Vogue range for sure.

So,I find it slightly surprising that Ideal boiler review is 5th on the list voted by engineers themselves, but I do believe that with the Heavy investment in customer service and field based service engineers that could change very soon. I think there is also a little hangover from the old Isar and Icos range which as much as they were early condensing boilerswereunfortunatelyprone to quite a few common faults with a faulty PCB being bread and butter for boiler repair engineers.

Are Vaillant the best boiler?

Vaillant have been a well-known name for a long time and have a loyal Installer base which reflects in the 5stars across the board rating. But dig a little deeper and it appears that Vaillant has taken a bit of a back seat when it comes to boiler sales as it was not that long ago that they were the leading UK boiler brand, so what’s changed?

Firstly, I am a big fan of Vaillant boilers and products in general so why the slight fall from grace? Well from an engineer’s viewpoint the customer service leaves a lot to be desired, the times myself and fellow engineers have been on hold for upwards of thirty minutes leaves a lot to be desired. To me this puts engineers off buying Vaillant products in the future and look terrible in front of a waiting customer. To be fair, when you do get through to either customer service or technical support the experience is a good one so maybe it is just a lack of resources at busy periods.

Would I try and put you off buying a Vaillant boiler? 100% NO. The build quality on the pro and plus range is still right up there and complimented by the control range to give high modulation and efficiency.What has impressed me is with the 10-year warranty offering you get a boiler protection kit, what this will hopefully do is force installers to flush all systems thoroughly or invalidate the warranty. We all know that a dirty system causes a huge percentage of avoidable breakdowns so my thinking is that Vaillant are aiming to keep their high quality and loyal installer base rather than focusing solely on boiler sales, and I for one applaud them.

Viessmann, aren’t they a German boiler brand?

Well yes, Viessmann are a German boiler manufacturer, but so are both Worcester Bosch and Vaillantand we know those brands are most well-known to consumers.

I was introduced to Viessmann through Facebook of all places. After my wife decided to add me to a boiler group many years ago, the world of social media opened my mind to how much more was out there in terms of both, choices, education, and knowledge.

This is where I first heard the term weather compensation and was introduced to the Viessmann 200 range, and as I understood both boiler and operation more, it really opened my eyes to how much latent heat was used when incorporating weather compensation, and remarkably without a room thermostat in sight.The downside at the time was the 200 range was a sizeable unit compared with most boilers sold in the UK market, but I am glad to say they have now reduced its size accordingly. As a boiler engineer the technology this boiler possesses beats any other boiler and can work in its most basic form or can feed radiators and ufh at different temperatures.

Now the 200 range has reduced in size, to my mind this is the most advanced boiler in the UK right now and breaks the mould with weather compensation straight out the box and intelligent enough to cater for all of our current housing stock.

I had the pleasure of going to Germany (Allendorf) a few years ago when I first started installing them, and wow what an eye opener that is, the technology, the passion, the innovation just hits you when you see it. Believe me when I tell you that Viessmann spend 1 million pounds per week on research and development, and if more installers buy into the products on the back of their Which best boiler awards for the last 3 years then they might just be the number 1 brand in England and Germany, sprechen ze deutsch.

Wow only 4 boilers covered so far, but do not worry there is a part 2.
To summarise the first part of this blog, as you can read there are many factors that I believe go into making a Boiler the best, combining both engineer and customer scores to give an overall picture. To me I do not think there is a lot in it and for sure they all have strengths and a few weaknesses.

So, I will bullet point the important parts.

Strengths

Customer service = Worcester Bosch
ProductInnovation = Viessmann
Reliability = Vaillant
Fixing common Faults = Vaillant
Ease of servicing = Viessmann & Ideal
Build quality = Worcester Bosch, Vaillant, Viessmann

Weaknesses

Availability of parts = Viessmann
Ease of servicing = Worcester Bosch
Fixing common faults = Worcester Bosch

I hope you have enjoyed part 1 of this blog and hopefully you will look at part 2 which will cover boiler Manufacturers Baxi, Potterton, Intergas and Glowworm.

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