Boiler Installation Chatham

A boiler installation in Chatham starts from £1,850 with us, and the survey and written quote are both free. For most homes here it means one gas boiler replacing another, and if the new one goes where the old one was it is usually a one day job. What moves the price and the time is the house itself, the flue route and the state of the existing system, which is why the quote comes after somebody has looked.

Only 8% of homes in Medway are off the gas grid, the joint lowest of the 12 districts on this site, and a third were built before 1945 (33%), going by the Valuation Office Agency's figures. So a Chatham installation is usually a mains gas boiler going into an older house with an established heating system. We are a Gas Safe registered and OFTEC certified business based in Bearsted, a short drive from Chatham.

What the installation involves

The old boiler comes off, the system is cleaned before the new one goes on, with a full power flush where it is badly silted, a magnetic filter is fitted, and the new boiler is piped up, commissioned and set up to the house. Then the work is registered, which is what produces your Building Regulations compliance certificate. Moving the boiler or changing its type adds to the job.

If you are still weighing up whether to repair or replace the old one, settle that first. A boiler that only needs a part is not a reason to spend the price of a new one.

What a replacement boiler has to meet

Fitting a new gas boiler is building work, and Approved Document L, the part of the Building Regulations guidance that covers energy use, sets a floor for it. The boiler has to be at least 92% efficient on its ErP rating and needs time and temperature controls, and a combi going into an existing home needs at least one extra energy saving measure from a list of four.

• Flue gas heat recovery, which reuses heat that would otherwise go out of the flue
• Weather compensation, which adjusts the boiler to the temperature outside
• Load compensation, which adjusts it to how far the house is from the temperature you set
• A smart thermostat with automation and optimisation

Which one suits depends on the house and how it is lived in, and it is part of the installation rather than an extra to be talked into. A new edition of Approved Document L has been published, but it does not take effect until 24 March 2027, so the 2021 edition is the one that applies to a boiler fitted today.

Sizing it to the house, not the old boiler

The same guidance asks for the heating to be specified from a heat loss calculation for the home, says the system should not be significantly oversized, and asks for a combi to be chosen so that it can turn itself down to the home's typical heating load.

In our experience, sizing the new boiler from the house's heat loss works better than copying the output printed on the old one, because the regulations ask for exactly that, and the figure on the old boiler tells you what somebody fitted years ago rather than what the house needs now. New windows, loft insulation and an extension all change the answer.

Combi or system in an older Chatham house

For a house with one bathroom and nowhere obvious for a cylinder, a combi is usually the answer. Several bathrooms in use at once points towards a system boiler and a cylinder, and the incoming mains flow can settle it either way, since a combi only ever delivers what arrives at the stop tap. Weighing up a combi against a system boiler comes down to the house rather than the make.

Swapping a cylinder system for a combi frees the airing cupboard, which in a smaller house can be worth having back. It is also a bigger job than a straight swap, because the cylinder and any tanks come out and the pipework changes with them.

Choosing should be a conversation rather than a sales pitch. Steve Long, who had a new boiler fitted by us, wrote in a Google review, “He took the time to sit with us and talk through our options.” That is how a quote should feel.

Flues in terraced streets

Where the flue comes out is set by the boiler maker's installation instructions, which give minimum distances from windows, doors, corners, boundaries and the ground. In a terraced street with a narrow side return or a neighbour's window close by, the position the old flue used does not always meet the new boiler's rules, and the survey is where that gets found rather than on the day.

Where the straight-out position will not work, a flue can usually be extended or turned to reach one that does, and a plume kit can carry the visible plume of vapour away from a window or a path. Both add a little to the price, which is one more reason a quote over the phone is a guess. You can see some of the boilers we have fitted, flues and pipework included.

If the house is let

One household in five in Medway rents privately (20%), so a fair number of Chatham installations are for landlords. A new boiler does not replace the annual landlord gas safety check, which covers the appliances and flues you provide, and the record still has to reach the tenant, so it is worth lining up the landlord check with the installation paperwork.

The rules on carbon monoxide alarms in rented homes apply here too. Since October 2022 a privately rented home needs an alarm in any room used as living accommodation that has a fixed combustion appliance, and a gas boiler is one. A new boiler is a good moment to check that the alarm in that room is there and working, and to put one in if the boiler has moved into a room that did not need one before.

What you are left with

Our own work carries a 12-month workmanship guarantee. The boiler itself is covered by its manufacturer's warranty, whose terms depend on the make and usually on registering it and having it serviced every year. You should also have the commissioning record filled in, and the Building Regulations certificate follows once the work has been notified.

Jo Jordan, writing about a new boiler of ours, said Calum “took the time to explain everything clearly”, and that is the standard to hold anybody fitting your boiler to.

So, expect a mains gas swap into an older system, sized from the house rather than the old boiler, with the controls the regulations ask for and a flue position that meets the new boiler's rules. CTL Plumbing & Heating covers Chatham and the rest of the Medway towns from Bearsted, with new boiler installations from £1,850, and free home visits and free quotes across Kent. For a quote on your house, get in touch.