What’s in a name? Every single day, we’re provided with so many choices – from big, household names, to the cheapest budget brands – which can often lead to many of life’s difficult questions. For instance, do you go for Heinz or Branston’s tomato ketchup? Ariel or Bold laundry detergent? Kellogg’s or Nestle cereal?
In my experience with customers, it can be just as tough when it comes to choosing your new boiler, which is why I’ve been putting together a series of comparison blogs with you in mind.
However, now we’ve come to the end of the line, I’m going to make things even easier by rounding up the pros and cons of each of the boilers I’ve already covered, in just one simple article. It’s your lucky day.
Worcester Bosch
When it comes to quality boilers, Worcester Bosch is no.1 on my list as being one of the most reliable brands on the market. However, don’t just take my word for it – it’s been awarded Which Best Buy several years running. That’s why Worcester Bosch is my benchmark for comparing other boiler brands.
- Boiler types/styles available: Combi, system and regular boilers to suit any home, including a compact range.
- Reliability: Excellent, long-lasting boilers.
- Guarantee: A market-leading guarantee, with dedicated engineers on-call.
- Reputation: Which Best Buy four years in a row means an unbeatable reputation
- Cost: Varies greatly. On average, £200 – £350 more expensive than budget brands.
- Other factors: Manufacturing plant based in the UK, so readily available parts. Also comes with a magnetic central heating filter, and is one of the quietest boilers on the market.
Superwarm score: 9.5/10
Baxi Potterton
Baxi Potterton are one of the biggest household name boilers around, and most people will have heard of them. They’re manufactured in the UK, which is a big plus when it comes to finding readily available parts. (For more detail, read the full review here)
- Boiler types/styles available: A large range to rival the likes of Worcester Bosch.
- Reliability: More prone to leaks and problems over time.
- Guarantee: These can be a bit confusing, and you might save money overall by paying for an extra year with a brand such as Worcester Bosch, rather than a 7-year guarantee with Baxi Potterton.
- Reputation: Less recognition, with independent sources such as Which rating other boilers (such as Worcester Bosch) higher.
- Cost: Slightly cheaper than Worcester Bosch (depending on the guarantee level), but still not exactly what’s known as a ‘budget boiler’.
- Other factors: Baxi’s twin-flue system is one of its main advantages, as their boilers can be run from longer distances. This allows for more choice on where to install one in your home.
Superwarm score: 7/10
Ferolli
Moving onto Ferolli, which may be appealing if you’re on a tighter budget. However, with tricky clauses and small print in their guarantees, you could find the stress is more hassle than it’s worth. (Read the full review here)
- Boiler types/styles available: Combi boilers and system boilers
- Reliability: Known to be unreliable, with cheap fittings that are often prone to leakages and fault codes.
- Guarantee: Five-year guarantee, with annual servicing required. Will charge your credit card for call-outs and won’t refund you if the problem is found to be with the installer or homeowner.
- Reputation: One of the worst reputations on the market, although they have recently been working on improving this.
- Cost: Extremely cheap, and at only half the price of Worcester Bosch, it’s a main selling point.
- Other factors: Hired contractors, rather than dedicated engineers that only specialise in one specific brand.
Superwarm score: 3/10
Ariston
A fairly reliable budget boiler, Ariston may be appealing if you want to save your pennies. However, the brand seems to have recently turned a bit of a corner, with the fancier CLAS NET ONE series. It seems to be a bit of a more upmarket surprise from Ariston. It’s definitely given Worcester Bosch something to think about!
Much like Ideal, Ariston are now also offering 12-year guarantees on their new CLAS NET ONE boilers! This is fantastic news for customers.
- Boiler types/styles available: Combi and system boilers (no regular boilers).
- Reliability: Fairly reliable
- Guarantee: Up to 12 years – although check their backup service to find out if they’re using dedicated engineers
- Reputation: Not bad. Global company, you may remember their TV advertising from the ‘90s
- Cost: Around £350 less than Worcester Bosch.
- Other factors: Some of their boilers are noisy and use cheaper components
Superwarm score: 8/10
Vokera
Another budget boiler with good reliability, Vokera is definitely one to watch if you don’t want to spend a fortune on a new boiler. (Read the full review here)
- Boiler types/styles available: System and combi boilers. Decent range, but not to suit all types of home.
- Reliability: Middle-of-the line, fairly reliable boilers.
- Guarantee: Standard two-year guarantee, extendable via Domestic & General. Check the small print. They also use contractors and have a small number of their own brand-dedicated engineers.
- Reputation: Budget boiler that does exactly what it says on the tin.
- Cost: £300 – £350 cheaper than Worcester Bosch.
- Other factors: Mechanical clock and flue included in the price. However, they can be noisy.
Superwarm score: 6/10
Ideal
Another well-known British name, Ideal boilers are now back at the top of their game, and quickly gaining on Worcester Bosch in terms of their market share. And staggeringly enough, they’re now offering amazing 12-year guarantees! This is a brand that’s put a lot of investment into its research and development, as well as customer service.
This is definitely one to watch right now, because they’re just getting it right at every turn. They’re also listening to engineers about how they can improve, and do things better. That says a lot to me, because it takes a lot for a brand to own up and say they could be doing better at something.
- Boiler types/styles available: Combi boilers, system boilers, regular boilers and a compact range
- Reliability: Very reliable boilers
- Guarantee: Up to 12-year guarantee on selected models with their own dedicated engineers.
- Reputation: Well-known, back at the top of their game
- Cost: £100 – £200 cheaper than Worcester Bosch.
- Other factors: Manufactured in the UK. Have their own team of dedicated engineers for warranty and servicing.
Superwarm score: 10/10
Glow-worm
As budget boilers go, the Glow-worm brand has a lot going for it. It’s actually manufactured as part of the Vaillant group, so you know you’re still getting a fairly reliable, quality boiler with dedicated engineers. Let’s find out more below, or read the full review here. (INSERT LINK)
- Boiler types/styles available: Good range of combi, system and regular boilers. Also a compact range.
- Reliability: Decent, but not quite as reliable as Vaillant or Worcester Bosch, and can be prone to leaks and faults as they get older.
- Guarantee: Two – five year guarantee. Can buy into a 15 year guarantee with strict conditions. Part of the Vaillant group service. Dedicated engineers.
- Reputation: Fair. Marketed as budget boilers for the economy-conscious customer.
- Cost: Around £250 cheaper than Worcester Bosch.
- Other factors: Package deal with some boilers, which includes boiler clock and flue.
Superwarm score: 8/10
Keston
Keston boilers are known as a premium, reliable brand, and at the same price as Worcester Bosch, could make a great choice if you have a larger home. However, the two-year guarantee really lets the side down, and you could end up paying more for expensive repairs later down the line. (Read the full review here) INSERT LINK
- Boiler types/styles available: Combi, system and regular boilers, includes a compact range. However, this brand is only suited to larger homes.
- Reliability: Fairly reliable, although not all engineers will be familiar with the brand.
- Guarantee: One of the poorest on the market at only two years.
- Reputation: Favoured by architects and designers of larger homes.
- Cost: Quite expensive. Some of their boilers are on-par with Worcester Bosch.
- Other factors: Great twin-flue system means you can run your boiler from just about anywhere in the house. They can be noisy, but depending on where you fit it, you may never notice.
Superwarm score: 6/10
Vaillant
I used to say that Vaillant is one of the only brands that truly measured up to Worcester Bosch in my own personal experience. They had established themselves as a very reliable company, and the original inventor of the combi boiler, with a manufacturing plant in the UK. Vaillant boilers have also won an award for being the quietest on the market.
But here’s the real punchline. Vaillant only sold 40,000 boilers in 2017, compared to Worcester Bosch’s 490,000. This is quite a turn of events, because 10 – 12 years ago, they were no.1 in the market and sold more boilers than anybody.
So, what went wrong? Well, they scrapped their extended warranties for one thing. But is that enough to explain what’s happened to their market share? Goodness knows. They’re still selling good boilers.
- Boiler types/styles available: Various solutions to fit almost any type of home, including combi, system and regular boilers. Compact range.
- Reliability: Extremely reliable with a good back-up service.
- Guarantee: 5 – 7 year warranties
- Reputation: Good reputation.
- Cost: Very cost effective, prices rival Worcester Bosch.
- Other factors: Not really
Superwarm score: 6/10
Alphas
Alphas Innovation design and manufacture quite a good variety of different boilers to suit “practically every property type or household size”. Like most boiler brands, they produce combi, regular and system boilers with a good range of outputs (more about that below).
They even have their own solution similar to a storage combi, called the FlowSmart. It’s an all-one-solution which comes in a wall-hung (with bolt-on thermal store) version, and a floor-standing option.
I don’t have a lot to say personally about Alphas boilers, as they’re not really a brand I’ve worked with in the past. However, they do have some terrible reviews online. This seems to be a mix of unreliable boilers/faults to bad customer service – which ties in with my own experience.
- Boiler types/styles available: Good variety of boilers to suit “practically every property type or household size”
- Reliability: Poor, and seem to have bad customer service to-boot
- Guarantee: Only 2 – 7 years, and check the small print
- Reputation: Known for faulty boilers and bad customer service
- Cost: Very affordable, budget brand
- Other factors: Storage combi-like option available
Superwarm score: 3/10
ATAG
Not many have heard of the ATAG brand. However, they’re offering boilers with some pretty nifty features. Including a built-in passive flue gas heat recovery device, which squeezes even more energy that’s normally lost out through your flue! This is something other manufacturers are starting to offer, although this one’s actually built into the boiler.
As standard, their combis also come with an outside weather compensator. So, technically these boilers contain more energy efficient features – which might explain why they’re marketing their boilers as a premium brand. One of these will actually be more expensive than market leader Worcester Bosch.
However, unlike Worcester Bosch, they’re not on the mass market. Combine that with not having dedicated engineers, and you’ll find a lot of engineers have never worked on them. I know it might sound a bit bland, but I’d rather stick with a well-known brand where parts and knowledge are readily available.
- Boiler types/styles available: Various solutions to fit almost any type of home, including combi, system and regular boilers
- Reliability: Neutral
- Guarantee: 10-year guarantees, but don’t have their own dedicated engineers
- Reputation: Neutral
- Cost: These actually work out more expensive than Worcester Bosch, although engineers can pick them up cheaper
- Other factors: They only sell through installers, not through merchants
Superwarm score: 7/10
Intergas
This is a bit of an odd one, as I don’t personally have a bad word to say about Intergas. But maybe not for the reasons you’re thinking! It’s mainly because I haven’t heard anything much about them. Their biggest claim to fame is that they have the least amount of working parts in a boiler. (Which basically means that there’s less to go wrong!)
The idea behind that? Well, the less working parts there are, the less chance there is of them going wrong or failing. Having to repair or replace parts in a boiler can be a pain, and potentially expensive – so this can only be a good thing! I’m personally of the opinion that it’s really quite brilliant, actually.
Saying that, Intergas doesn’t seem to be a particularly popular brand, which is something that puts me off. It may just be through a lack of marketing, because I certainly haven’t heard anything bad about their products. All-in-all, a fairly neutral reputation, here.
- Boiler types/styles available: Various solutions to fit almost any type of home, including combi, system and regular boilers
- Reliability: Extremely reliable boilers, particularly the heat exchangers
- Guarantee: Up to 10 years, but don’t have their own dedicated engineers
- Reputation: Neutral at the moment
- Cost: Very cost effective, prices rival Worcester Bosch
- Other factors: Fantastic idea behind this brand, least working parts in their boilers
Superwarm score: 6/10
And there we have it!
Conclusion
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading my definitive guide to the best combi boilers and brands on the market. However, if you’re wondering which type of boiler would be best for your home, check out my blog ‘Worcester Bosch Combi Boiler Prices, What to Expect’.
Links to all the comparison blogs listed in this article:
