Ball park cost to replace an oil boiler

Is it a massive old one with a Reillo burner? I've found them to be fairly easy to fix..... what's happening?

Edit:
A few suggestions:
If nothing is happening at all I'd check the controls are telling it fire
If it's trying to fire but not doing so: check your oil supply including the filter (open the bleed screw on the pump to see if oil squirts out when it tries to fire)
If it fires but then stops after a few seconds I'd look at the solenoid on the oil supply to the pump - these can easily fail as they become too weak to keep the supply open - easy cheap fix.

Just a couple of thoughts.

Nothing is happening 🙁 It's a danesmoor 20/25 - i've taken the cover off and the controller (?) bit has a red light on the reset button. Have pressed that a couple of times, fan whurrs up and then it just dies after about 10 seconds. Doesn't seem to ignite.

No idea how old it is, i'd guess 20 years.

OK, it sounds like it's trying to fire but not getting any oil for some reason.

If you definitely have oil and the filter somewhere in the supply line is OK (have you ever cleaned it? they get gunked up with crap from the tank) then I'd be looking at the solenoid which costs <£20 and is a simple fix with just 3 wires to connect.

Old oil boilers are pretty simple things.

If i don't have oil, then i've 800L has gone missing in two weeks!

I've never cleaned it... moved in two years ago.

I'd take a look at it then - there's all sorts of gunk at the bottom of an oil tank. It may not be that but it's worth checking.
My money's on the solenoid though - a blocked filter can allow enough oil through to fire whereas a solenoid can fail very quickly and will 100% stop the oil flow.

Will see what the guy says thanks! Now i think about it, it was making a slightly weird noise a couple days ago. I put it down to me boxing in a pipe and it'd now caused a resonating or something.

I paid around £4,500 for a big oil boiler about 5 years ago.
Not cheap.

Need to have some idea, 4k? 5k?

Yup, that's about what we paid to replace a Rayburn with an external oil boiler (a Danesmoor too, or the exterbal version of it, Greenstar maybe?) last year.

Previous house had an internal oil fired boiler, and had a very old engineer to come and service it annually and repair it when it stopped working. He reckoned that the older boilers were more reliable and easier to fix (they are fairly basic mechanically).
Ours finally went due to a water leak, luckily it happened in September. Installed a new external Greenstar oil boiler, freeing up space internally and with no more oil smells. It wasn't a big job labour wise and you can check the prices of boilers online.
As previous the cost was in the region of £4 - 5k about 6 years ago.

Old oil boilers are like trigger's broom. Last forever but you just need to replace everything every now and then.

But if you do need to replace it, how about costing up a heat-pump alternative?

so you have no idea whats wrong with it and have defaulted to replacement?

You have not serviced it in your 2 years and have no idea when it was last serviced - id start there -

even if you replace it for the most energy efficient model out today youll never recoup the outlay.

Get the engineer round an indy oftec - not your british gas homecare bullshit. see what he makes of it.

so you have no idea whats wrong with it and have defaulted to replacement?

No of course not! I just wanted to have a feel for the ball park cost to replace the boiler in case the engineer announced it was kaput - he'd have me over a barrel a bit as I've got a 3 month year old so I can't spend ages messing around.

In any event, it's now working again and I know a lot more about oil boilers. Culprit was a gummed up filter before the nozzle and / or a broken photcell (he replaced both as they both looked shagged).

He's quoting for a new boiler as well, as this one is ooooold and apparently a new one will be 20% more efficient (seems a bit unlikely!). It was on my long list to do anyway as I have to get it replace before 2026 (house isn't really ideal for a heat pump - it's a H shaped bungalow so maxmises external surface area to internal area and has solid concrete floors. I've had cavity wall put in etc but it's polishing an insulation turd.)

Thanks for all the replies and advice. He guesstimated 4-4.5k (proper quote incoming).

Couple of years ago, my boiler went kaput.

So replaced 'like-for like' within reason - location and flue location etc.

Grant Vortex Eco 21/26 This cost me £1400 then, with flue and bits.

I stripped out the old one, so clear working area. Got a company in to install - this was £900.

So my total was around £2.5k

Culprit was a gummed up filter before the nozzle and / or a broken photcell

The nozzles have a filter built into them and generally they are replaced when the boiler is serviced - cost less than £10!
It's worth getting a spare in just in case - the boiler should have a plate on it saying what size nozzle it uses i.e. 1.25 [US gallons/hour] or the info will be onine.

The photocell detects if there is a flame and if not it stops the burner. I'mm not sure how often they fail [mine's > 30 years old and still fine] but as he had the burner out to replace the nozzle then it's an easy swap.

Find and clean the filter in the oil supply line - there should be one and that will help stop crap getting to the nozzle.

Why replace the boiler before 2026?
If you use £1500 of oil each year then a 20% saving will save you £300/year - it will take at least 13 years to get your money back by which time your new boiler might be on it's way out!
I was advised that the only reason to replace a boiler of this vintage is if the water jacket starts leaking.

Yep guy costed the nozzle at 9.50! And also pointed out it would be replaced in a service. I have now scheduled a service obviously!

I am not planning to replace the boiler any time soon, but figured probably in 2025. I imagine everyone will have the same idea in 2026 when sale of new oil boilers is blocked, so 2025 seems a sensible time to do it. Not sure how much oil we use yet as we've only been in 18 months and have improved the insulation quite a bit in the autumn. I've also got everyone used to living in a house that never gets warmer than 18 degrees! I reckon we'll probably end up around 2500L-3000L a year, so pay back would be about 8-10 years.

Agree with the above. Mine is definitely like Triggers Broom, costs about £150 per year for a service Inc parts. I'm sure a new one would be more efficient but a long pay back period.

@sharkbait has it. Old ones are simple devices that are usually cheap(ish) to fix. Corrosion of the water jacket (or scarcity of parts) kills them in the end.

However they are not very efficient compared to a new condensing version. We replaced ours with an external Worcester Bosch unit. Cost about £5k two years ago. We would have stayed with the internal old Heatslave, but a kitchen make over meant it had to go.

HTH

We were quoted £6k a year and a half ago for a WB 20/25 Combi.

2026 when sale of new oil boilers is blocked

Not sure where you've got that from but currently there's no plans for oil boilers being banned.

3000L/year sounds a lot to me. My boiler gets through 10L/day in the middle of winter and it's big boiler in a biggish house - hot water only would us about 2-3L/day if it weren't for our PV.

We replaced our old heatslave with a WB 20/25 Condensing last week, just over £5k. With small kids in the house we couldn't really scrape by trying to patch up the old one. That included a powerflush to get all the gunk out of the circuit that had supposedly killed the old one, new flue and some further plumbing to put in the condensate + PRV drain as none of the boiler cupboard walls are external.

Plans to ban oil boilers from 2026: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/11/plan-rural-households-run-heating-on-vegetable-oil-uk

Under government plans, homes with “off-grid” gas connections will be banned from buying replacement boilers from 2026 and instead expected to install air source or ground source heat pump systems.

House is terrible from a habitable space to external wall point of view - it's about 210sqm set out in an H shape and a bungalow with solid floors. As I say there verdict on the oil use is still somewhat out, but in the recent very cold spell it was was doing 8 hours a day, and the burner uses 2.something litres per hour, that's after I've had posh cavity wall insulation in too. Floors appear to be uninsulated solid concrete slabs, tho that is hard to verify. I've now got a smart TRV system installed (drayton wiser) and generally run the house pretty cold (we all wear jumpers!).

Hadn't seen that and din't know it was a thing!

Well, until it corrodes through I think I'm fine! And hopefully we'll be moving to somewhere much more modern in the next 5 or 6 years.

Gonna be a lot of cold people in the country once wood burners and oil boilers are banned.

Yeah i'm not convinced it will actually happen or if it will be kicked into the long grass. Strikes me that a lot of oil burning places really aren't that suitable for ASHP, and unless the government wants to annoy a load of rural people.... (can't see the tories following through with it at least).

We had ours changed last year I think it was around the £5k mark and that was just a straight swap with hardly any pipework needed

Max warranty we could get was 7 yrs too !

If it was making a noise recently, & has a Riello burner, chances are it could be the pump.

I had exactly the same thing last year. Whole pump unit is not that expensive. My service guy replaced the pump and pulled the motor apart to put new bearings in.

Get a decent boiler engineer out, and they should be able to repair it.

Do some people just not read threads before they comment?