Boiler brands compared: what you are really paying extra for

Ask five heating engineers for the best boiler brand and you will get five answers, usually flavoured by whichever manufacturer trained them. Here is the more useful framing: what does the extra money actually buy?

What the premium buys

Three things, mostly. A longer manufacturer warranty. Better parts availability, which matters enormously when it fails on a Friday in January. And build quality in the heat exchanger, which is the component that decides whether the boiler lasts eight years or eighteen.

What it does not buy you is a warmer house. A cheap boiler and an expensive boiler, both correctly sized and installed, will heat your radiators identically.

The warranty is the headline, and the small print is the story

Warranties run from about 5 years at the budget end up to 12 or more on premium models. Nearly all of them require an annual service by a Gas Safe registered engineer, and many require a magnetic filter fitted at installation. Miss either and the warranty can be void.

So a 10-year warranty is really a 10-year warranty plus roughly £90 a year of servicing. Factor it in.

Installation beats brand

This is the part the brand marketing will not tell you. A premium boiler fitted badly, on a system that was never flushed, with a filter nobody installed, will fail long before a mid-range boiler fitted properly.

The engineer matters more than the badge. Which is an argument for comparing installers, not just boilers.