I Like a Challenge

[Doghouse Riley]

This was our old Bosh/Worcester boiler, installed in 2002. We had (another) new fitted kitchen in 2005.

This was fitted around the boiler. As I did the tilling, I made this removable MDF "L" shaped tiled fillet to hide all the boiler pipework. It just needed sliding out when the boiler was serviced or needed a water top-up.

But at the end of last year we had the boiler replaced. All the boxing in I'd done over the top of the boiler had to be pulled out. So we were left with this.

My wife thought she was going to get another new kitchen, but I said I'd sort it.

After an extensive search, I managed to find a kitchen company who could make me a door to match the originals. Manchester Board. They are located in Walkden Manchester, it's all a bit "Life on Mars" in that area, like going back in time. The cost of the door made exactly to size, having the holes drilled for the Blum hinges and the cornice came to £58. I'd had some silly quotes elsewhere for "not quite matching doors."

They also supplied a couple of lengths of cornice, which was hardly distinguishable from the original.
The hardest problem was mounting the fillet on the right-hand side after I had trimmed it down to fit as there was no way I could get a fixing on the wall behind the boiler, so I had to fix an L shaped bracket to the side wall and attach it to that .The top wasn't a problem.

I needed to have a panel screwd to the right of the cupboard to mount the hinges of the new door. So I made a little thin double cupboard to store recipe books etc.

I made a new larger tiled fillet for under the boiler, having kept a few spare tiles and those I soaked off the old fillet.

I had to cut the bottom cornice into three pieces with a tennon saw, as the boiler has a flap which folds down for servicing. The centre piece is kept in place with two bolts with "half moon" sliders to stop it turning. It's quick and easy to remove.

As an added bonus, the tiny gap betwen the bottom of the door and the cornice is just at the right level to be able to see the boiler light, green for off, blue for running.

The job was made more difficult as the Bosch fridge/freezer around which the original kitchen was fitted gave up the ghost half way through the job.
Replacements available were either one naffin' centimetre too tall or ten cms or more too short!

So we compromised. Bought a taller fridge freezer, lost the top cupboard, I cut down and used the door as a fillet and the handle for the new door in front of the boiler.

So no new kitchen!
.

 

[Retired]

Hi,

Very well done indeed and without breaking the bank. You can't get much these days for £58.

Out of interest you say you've had a new boiler installed and it looks to be an "Ideal". I hope you have better luck with your Ideal boiler than we did; it must be around ten years ago we had our Ideal boiler installed and all went well for a few years then suddenly it was absolute rubbish with British Gas here three days on the trot just on one of its many breakdowns; in the end we were paying a lot of money each year just to insure this boiler; something like £300 which was ridiculous; at the time I was a member of another DIY forum and the plumbers were highly recommending "Intergas" boilers these boilers having less parts to go wrong;

Our Intergas boiler is the 24 model with "kit B" expansion vessel its located in my workshop and it will be three years old next January; so far absolutely no problems; we had it serviced last year only costing £60; it came with a 7 year warranty but this can be extended by a one off payment up to ten years.

I'm not trying to worry you Doghouse because it's possible by now Ideal have have done lots of modifications to their boiler design but I'm just adding this as a bit of information for anyone wanting a new boiler; these Intergas boilers need installing professionally because water cleanliness and mains pressure are important. I believe our Intergas installation was about half price of a British Gas boiler installation.

Good luck with your Ideal.

Kind regards, Colin.

 

[Doghouse Riley]

Hi,

Very well done indeed and without breaking the bank. You can't get much these days for £58.

Out of interest you say you've had a new boiler installed and it looks to be an "Ideal". I hope you have better luck with your Ideal boiler than we did; it must be around ten years ago we had our Ideal boiler installed and all went well for a few years then suddenly it was absolute rubbish with British Gas here three days on the trot just on one of its many breakdowns; in the end we were paying a lot of money each year just to insure this boiler; something like £300 which was ridiculous; at the time I was a member of another DIY forum and the plumbers were highly recommending "Intergas" boilers these boilers having less parts to go wrong;

Our Intergas boiler is the 24 model with "kit B" expansion vessel its located in my workshop and it will be three years old next January; so far absolutely no problems; we had it serviced last year only costing £60; it came with a 7 year warranty but this can be extended by a one off payment up to ten years.

I'm not trying to worry you Doghouse because it's possible by now Ideal have have done lots of modifications to their boiler design but I'm just adding this as a bit of information for anyone wanting a new boiler; these Intergas boilers need installing professionally because water cleanliness and mains pressure are important. I believe our Intergas installation was about half price of a British Gas boiler installation.


Good luck with your Ideal.

Kind regards, Colin.

Thanks Colin.

One of my golfing pals is a gas central heating engineer, he installed it at "mate's rates." He had been servicing the Worcester for a few years. In his opinion the Worcesters were "over-engineered" and were subject to leaks (as was ours).

The new one is an Ideal Exclusive 30. They come with a five year parts and labour guarantee.
I'm not really worried about it as he'll be looking after it. It's worked faultlessly from day one.

A friend has just had a quote from British Gas for a replacement boiler. They want over £2000 more for something similar. Then £28 a month to maintain it.

The fridge freezer was a bigger problem. The first one worked for three months before the fridge part wouldn't hold temperature. Meile had just changed their computer system and we had to wait four weeks before they came to look at it because of a back-log of calls and John Lewis were no help.
Fortunately the freezer part was still working and I "lent the kitchen," my Budweiser fridge I keep in our tea-house.

Even if the freezer half stopped working, we've two table top freezers in the shed to store the occasional on-line bulk-buys of frozen food by my wife.




Anyway when the engineer finally came he said it would have to be replaced as he couldn't fix it. Meile swapped it themselves two days later.
I went ballistic with John Lewis, where we'd bought it, so they gave me £75 in compensation.
I went even more ballistic when they said they'd add it to my John Lewis account. i.e. I'd have to spend it with them.

Why is there always a jobsworth who wants to ruin a retailer's reputation by trying to be clever?

I made them give it to me in cash.