Teesside boiler and heating FAQs

£1,800 to £3,500 for a like-for-like combi swap, £2,600 to £4,200 to convert a system boiler and cylinder to a combi, £2,800 to £4,500 to strip out a back boiler, and £3,500 to £6,500 for a full heating installation.

Usually scope rather than greed: gas pipe upgraded to 22mm or not, system flushed or not, filter and scale reducer included or not, condensate run done properly or not, plus which warranty length is registered.

Mainstream brands offer 7 to 12 years when installed by a registered engineer and serviced annually. The warranty is only valid if the annual service is done and logged, so budget £70 to £120 a year for it.

Often, for parts availability and warranty length rather than efficiency, since all modern condensing boilers sit within a couple of percent of each other. Ask which brands the engineer can get parts for the same day locally.

From £90 for attendance and diagnosis, with the fee stated before the visit and parts quoted for approval before fitting. Common jobs land between £150 and £450 fitted, depending on the part.

Around eight years old with £400 or more of parts needed, or when a second serious fault appears in one winter. At that point the repair money is better inside a new boiler with a fresh warranty.

Commonly a failed expansion vessel or a leak, sometimes under floors, sometimes at the pressure relief pipe outside. It needs finding rather than topping up weekly, because repeated refilling corrodes the system.

Usually not. It points at a diverter valve, a seized pump or a controls fault rather than the boiler itself, and most of those are same-visit fixes.

Only if the system is dirty: cold spots at the bottom of radiators, black water at a bleed valve, noisy pump or repeated pump failures. Where the system is reasonably clean, a chemical clean and a magnetic filter is the proportionate job.

£350 to £600 by radiator count and how bad the sludge is. A magnetic filter fitted afterwards, £120 to £220, is what keeps it clean.

Hard water scales plate heat exchangers, which is why combis here benefit from a scale reducer on the mains and why hot water that runs lukewarm at full flow often means scale rather than a failing boiler.

Not usually. Sound radiators and pipework can stay, with the system cleaned, protected and rebalanced. Microbore pipework, rusting radiators or an unprotected system change that answer, and the survey should say which applies.

It is the gas safety record produced after the annual check every landlord must arrange on each gas appliance and flue in a rented property. Certificates cost £60 to £90, with boiler and fire bundles priced below two separate visits.

Within 28 days of the check, and to new tenants at the start of the tenancy. Keep copies for two years.

No. The check is a safety inspection for the record; a service cleans and tests the appliance so it keeps working and keeps its warranty. Many landlords have both done in one visit.

It happens, and the duty still stands, so keep a written trail of access attempts. Guidance on that and on the annual cycle is in the landlord gas safety guide.

It depends on the house. Well insulated homes with space for a bigger cylinder and larger radiators do well on a heat pump with the government grant applied; poorly insulated homes with microbore pipework usually do better replacing the gas boiler now and insulating first.

There is no ban on replacing a gas boiler in an existing home, and repairs and replacements continue. The boiler versus heat pump guide lays out the running-cost comparison without the hype.