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Advice, please. I can’t tell whether I should be upset with the insurance company or the plumber, but something smells off.
Mom and Dad are in their 80’s and live in a small town about 4 hours away from us. They came home from the store last month to find the carbon monoxide detector alarm going off in the house. The cause was some sort of the leak with the boiler. It was installed when the house was built in the mid-1990's.
The local HVAC guy came out and charged $400 to repair the leak. He told them that the boiler needed to be replaced, and sent them an estimate for the replacement. The cost is approximately $15,000 for a new high-end system with on-demand hot water. They were planning to make the purchase, but it has not yet been installed. The installation appointment is 4 days away. It is a small town with only two HVAC/plumbing suppliers, and Dad trusts this guy.
Meanwhile, Mom spoke with the insurance agent, and realized that they have boiler insurance. They filed a claim and an inspector came to their home last week. On Friday afternoon, there was a voice message from the insurance company stating that the boiler did not need to be replaced, nothing was leaking or dangerous, and they would not pay a claim for replacement. The boiler insurance is thru Hartford.
At this point, I told them to hold off on getting the new system installed. Are they getting ripped off?
They are not wealthy, and $15,000 is a big chunk of their savings.
This common question intrigues many homeowners. People often assume that repairing their old and worn out boilers will be better than replacing them.
Boiler is a closed vessel that allows the heating of water or any other fluid. The boiler works on fuel or electricity to produce heat for numerous domestic resolves. There are dissimilar types of boilers like, condensing boilers, back boilers, systems boilers, central heating boilers, hot water systems, combination boilers, steam boilers, etc. Whatever type of boiler you have, you should maintain it well. Regular maintenance will keep your broiler in good running condition. However, if you haven't taken care of your boiler then we suggest you go for a replacement.
If you have been taking care of your boiler and servicing it regularly then boiler replacement may not be required. However, if you have never looked at it since ages and suddenly it breaks down, then you should contemplate a replacement.
If you have been looking to get repairs done, then consider a replacement and calculate the cost involved.
That is a big cost. One of the most high tech boilers (Too high tech IMO) - Lochnivar Knight, costs around $6000 for a 210,000 BTU unit. Few homes need that much power. The Tankless hot water is a nice luxury, but not a necessity.
The people who tell you you will save the cost of the work in a few years are lying to you.
We have a Lochinvar Boiler with an indirect Knight 40 gallon tank at our home. Just had to reconfigure a bunch of our underground hydronic piping as a return pipe broke underground and started a big leak so had to move all the underground hydronic piping, to a new creative routing throughout a portion of our home.
Due to the underground leak ($1800 water bill), our Lochivar had been short-cycling, and not producing sufficient domestic hot water, and "make-up" water kept getting piped in. Now that the major leak is repaired, and our piping system rebuilt, the Lochinvar is performing as it should again. Every boiler company in town has been to our home. All said not to replace the Lochnivar since "top of the line" and that the problem isn't with the Lochnivar - the problem is elsewhere. We finally found the problem - an underground leak which was steadily getting worse, and just recently solved the problem with the pipe rebuild and reconfigure, thanks to one brilliant plumber.
We did have one bid for an on-demand system (Navien), but read a lot of mixed reviews (bid was $14K). Our home: 4 bedroom, 4 bath, 4000sf 1.5 story + 3rd story loft - basement is fully finished 4ft below grade.
$15k sounds too much, but on demand system do cost more, you can simply do boiler replacement, I got mine done for $6k.
The boiler's age, in this case is over 24 years old, I think it may be time for a replacement. You can patch it up for a year or 2, but it won't be long lasting.
That's the thing with insurance, they always trying to get away with paying.
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