I need a bit of advice. I have a 17year old ideal c28 that the primary heat exchanger has been kettling for a while but now its got really bad . The system has been flushed and cleaner put in but it’s not helped so have it booked in for the exchanger to be replaced. The person who looked at it has advised that although not much came out when the system was flushed I should have a filter fitted at about £200. Do I really need this and if so any recommendations?
A new boiler will require a filter for the warranty, it isn't wasted money as long as you buy the filter that is recommended for the boiler you don't want to buy, but might have too. Sorry, that doesn't help much, does it?
yes they are well worth it, my plumber fitted an Adey MagnaClean with my new Ideal boiler(fitted 6 years ago and still perfect)
My advice is don’t waste money on the main heat exchanger. That boiler was never made by ideal. It’s a rebadged biasi. When it was new it was dog poo. Now it’s 17 years old it’s worse. Although parts for it are still available, they are becoming more limited and more expensive. if it was me I’d suggest putting up with the kettling for a while longer and then putting the money towards a replacement. The new ideal Max comes with a filter and has a 12 year warranty. That’s all parts, call outs and labour covered for twelve years. Your biasi will go through parts like a bus goes through oil in those twelve years, all paid for by you. also I’m not surprised that a flush didn’t cure kettling. It’s normally caused by limescale build up. You’d be better off sticking a couple of bottles of boiler noise silencer into the system via a rad. This is designed to breakdown line scale. A power flush uses chemicals designed primarily to break down magnetite. Entirely different problem.
@rustbucket isnt it just the Vogue Max with 12 yr warranty? I’m currently piping up a Logic Max with a 10 yr warranty.
I was informed that Ideal boilers nearly went bust due to the old isar range costing them so much money to keep them going. I know my old isar was like triggers broom I have faith in there latest generation boilers though due to the 9 year warranty
Ideal RS series- balanced flue natural draft - bombproof. Hideously inefficient Mexico. - floor standing beast. Solid pig iron. Lovely. Classic - lovely to work on and super reliable ICOS - dreadful pcb boards, not ideals finest hour but ok if looked after ISAR - absolute pile of turd - best skipped Mini C - rebadged biasi. Cheap and definitely nasty Logic and all it’s variants. - brilliant Vogue - even more brilliant but pricy and not available in small outputs and no cupboard fit.
It’s very old technology. Most modern boilers premix the gas and air, so by modulating the fan speed they can achieve 4:1 ratios, the mini isn’t premix. The mini has a tiny primary heat exchanger compared to the surface area of a modern boiler, meaning it’s heat lost through the flue is much greater, meaning poor efficiency. Biasi Is a budget brand. They achieve this by using budget components. The design of the hydraulic set is very old fashioned and prone to leaks. Being a brass water set it’s expensive to repair. Modern boilers use composite Water sets which are lighter and cheaper to replace. the expansion vessel is on the back of the boiler rather than a cassette type of a modern appliance. all round it’s just old fashioned, wasn’t well made and is prone to failures.
this is essentially a variant of the mini c family. Yes that’s right you can buy an entire biasi boiler at full price from b&q for less than £350. To put this into perspective I bought a fan for a potterton last week and that was £211 on its own. They are virtually disposable items. I bet the cost of a heat exchanger and the labour to fit it for your mini c won’t be far off the price of this whole boiler. They really aren’t very good.