Vaillant ecoTEC Plus 832 Boiler Review

Our Vaillant ecoTEC Plus 832 combi review is a big one; a 10-minute read. 

So, if you’re short on time, you can either:

• Read our quick overview below
• Click through to our boiler installation page to determine exactly which boiler is most suited to your property, as well as getting fixed prices on-screen.

Should You Buy The Vaillant ecoTEC Plus 832 Combi Boiler?

Vaillant is a premium brand with an exceptional reputation (as their 20,000+ Trustpilot reviews prove), and the ecoTEC Plus combi boiler is one of their flagship products. 

Admittedly, you’d expect to pay £50-150 more than the average combi boiler from other brands. However, for this you’ll get up to a 10-year warranty when using a Vaillant Advance installer. 

Features of the ecoTEC include: 

• Power modulation which helps improve efficiency dramatically
• Savings in comparison to an older boiler of up to £490 per year
• A compact design, making it perfect for small space installations
• Compatibility with vSMART, allowing you to integrate your heating system into your smart home
• Quiet Mark accreditation; it’s one of the quietest boilers on the market
• A stainless steel heat exchanger; much more durable than aluminium

Overall, the ecoTEC offers excellent value for money for those looking for a long-lasting and highly efficient combi boiler.

Get Vaillant boiler prices on-screen using our boiler installation tool here. 

Our Vaillant ecoTEC 832 Boiler Review

Vaillant ecoTEC Plus Prices

Before we jump into the nitty-gritty of our review, let’s discuss how Vaillant boiler prices stack up against other leading brands in the UK heating space. 

ecoTEC Boiler Prices

Vaillant is one of the leading brands in the UK heating space, available in basically every single plumbing and heating merchant in the UK. 

To get a gauge of if they offer good value for money or not, we’ll compare them to other popular and efficient boiler brands, including: 

• Alpha
• Ideal
• Viessmann
• Worcester Bosch

For a direct comparison to the ecoTEC Plus 832 - a 32kW combi boiler - we’ll look at prices for similar sized units from these 4 brands. And we’ll be looking at prices for the boiler only; prices don’t include copper fittings, a magnetic filter or labour costs for installation. 

Comparable boilers from these brands are priced as follows:

• Alpa E-Tec: £1,200
• Ideal Logic Plus: £1,100
• Viessmann Vitodens: £1,350
• Worcester Bosch Life: £1,350

Looking at Vaillant boiler prices for the 32kW ecoTEC Plus 832, you’ll find prices ranging from £1,350-£1,500. Being a premium offering from Vaillant, it’s slightly above the average price for a combi when compared to other leading brands.

Installation Prices

Installation costs for Vaillant boilers sit in the range of £2,250-£3,000. 

However, it’s worth bearing in mind that at the lower-end, that’s going to be a smaller 25kW boiler and an extremely simple installation. The bigger the boiler you purchase (the 832 is a 32kW unit), the higher the overall installation price.

There are plenty of other variables that affect the installation cost of your Vaillant boiler including: 

• If the flue needs to be upgraded or moved to comply with current Gas Safe regulations
• Whether or not your gas main is inline with Gas Safe standards; the labour involved with upgrading pipework can be substantial
• The type of heating controls you plan to use; the difference in price between a basic RF thermostat and smart controls can be in the £100s

Generally speaking, you’d expect a Vaillant ecoTEC Plus 832 combi boiler to cost around £2,650 including installation. 

It’s worth noting, the ecoTEC Plus range includes 26kW, 36kW and 40kW boilers. 

The 26kW would be suited to a small 1-2 bedroom property, whereas the 40kW boiler would be suitable for something such as a 5-bedroom detached with 15 radiators and 2 showers. 

Across the whole ecoTEC Plus range, there’s a boiler to suit anything from a 1-bed to 5-bed property.

Boiler sizing isn’t a one size fits all approach and can be confusing. That’s why we’ve created this boiler size calculator here. That’ll determine the exact size Vaillant boiler you need as well as giving you fixed prices on-screen. 

Why Should You Buy The ecoTEC Plus Combi Boiler?

The prices of the ecoTEC 832 means it sits in the higher end in terms of price. But generally, you get what you pay for. 

With Vaillant sitting at the mid-high end in terms of pricing, what makes it worth the additional spend in comparison to boilers from other brands?

Vaillant Boiler Reviews

Whilst the individual features of the ecoTEC Plus 832 are important, just as important is researching Vaillant reviews online from existing customers. 

Is Vaillant a good brand?

The best way to answer this question quickly, is to scroll through some of the recent reviews on Trustpilot. 

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Vaillant reviews on Trustpilot are plentiful, with over 20,000 to scroll through. And with an average rating of 4.1 stars, they’re also one of the combi boiler brands that customers are most satisfied with. 

We choose to include Vaillant boilers in our range as they offer a high quality and durable product, long warranty and excellent after-sales care. 

Get a price on the most suitable Vaillant boiler by using our clickable boiler tool here. 

Long Warranty

Regardless of the boiler you choose, you’ll want to be looking for the longest warranty possible. Boiler repairs are expensive and once your warranty runs out, you’ll be footing the bill for any repair costs. 

Here are a few examples of how much a boiler repair could cost: 

• Fan: £200-300
• Printed Circuit Board (PCB): £300-500
• Heat Exchanger: £300-500
• Diverter valve £300-400

Typically, we’d want to see a boiler with 5-years warranty as a minimum. That said, a lot of cheaper boilers come with as little as 2!

The out of the box warranty of 5-years for the Vaillant ecoTEC Plus 832 is just about enough. However, if you use a Vaillant Advance installer, you’ll be able to get this warranty to 10-years. 

Our Gas Safe engineers are registered with Vaillant Advance. So, any price you get using our boiler configuration tool is going to be inclusive of a long 10-year warranty.

Automatic Modulation

An important feature of the ecoTEC Plus is its Automatic Combustion Control; also known as power modulation. 

Older boilers tend to work at 100% output when there is demand for heating or hot water. That's going to result in a lot of wasted gas, and a high energy bill.

Using Automatic Combustion control, the Vaillant ecoTEC Plus is able to modulate down to 15%, contributing to an overall efficiency rating of 94%.

So, how does this correlate to actual cash savings?

Using this graphic produced by the Energy Saving Trust, we can see energy savings will be based on the type of boiler you currently have fitted. 

Based on their figures, jumping from a D-rated boiler to an A-rated one such as the Vaillant ecoTEC could result in savings on your gas bill of up to £220 per year. 

Have a G-rated boiler working at around 70% efficiency (rather than 94%)? You could see a saving on your gas bill of up to £490 per year…the savings you make could actually cover the finance repayments for your new boiler!

Use our boiler tool here. There, you’ll be able to find the perfect boiler for your property, as well as see potential energy savings on-screen. 

Perfect For Compact Installations

Whilst this certainly isn’t the smallest boiler on the market, it’s still compact. 

Dimensions for the ecoTEC sit at 720mm x 440mm x 338mm, meaning the ecoTEC 832 is perfect for small space installations; it can also be wall-hung to save on floor space. 

Remote Heating Control

There are various cheap and simple heating control options from Vaillant (such as the VRT350 digital room temperature control). However, the ecoTEC plus 832 is compatible with Vaillant's vSMART control. 

Using the vSMART heating control, you'll be able to monitor energy consumption, adjust temperature on the fly and also, be able to connect to smart home devices such as Amazon Echo. 

Quiet Mark Accreditation

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Boilers can be incredibly noisy. Thankfully, a quick way to check if a boiler isn’t, is to ensure it’s got Quiet Mark Accreditation.

Quiet Mark compares data of 1,000s of household appliances in almost every category, from fridges to combi boilers. Those that are in the lowest 20% in terms of noise are given Quiet Mark approval, signifying they’re the quietest appliances in that niche. 

Vaillant’s range of ecoTEC Plus boilers, including the 832, all receive Quiet Mark approval. It operates as low as 46 dBA. Typically, modern boilers work at an average of 55 dBa, so Vaillant’s range is a lot quieter than this average. 

Get prices on the quietest combi boilers on the market by using our configuration tool here. 

Durable Heat Exchanger

Many combi boilers use an aluminium heat exchanger. If you check the warranty on these boilers, it’s likely they sit in the range of 2-5 years. 

Why? Because aluminium heat exchangers aren’t durable. And as we mentioned above, replacing one could see a repair cost of £300-500. If you’re out of warranty, you’ll be on the hook for that bill!

Vaillant’s ecoTEC Plus combi boiler range uses a stainless steel heat exchanger. Being more durable, this allows the brand to offer its warranty of 10-years (when using a Vaillant Advance installer) with confidence. 

And that’s it for our Vaillant boiler review…

Ready to upgrade your boiler to a long lasting Vaillant complete with a 10-year warranty? 

Use our clickable boiler installation tool here to get fixed prices on-screen. 

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