Mod/Con Question

Robert O'Brien

What would make a contractor switch brands of mod/con they offer ? I have preferred brands of CI boilers but if a customer insisted on a particular brand, I would do so. Really, what's the difference with CI? Mod/cons are another story, the investment in time,training, parts etc. is substantial and the differences between brands so vast that we only offer two brands of mod/con. I'm curious how others feel about this.

Aaron_in_Maine

To be honest I've been buying my boilers based on the supply house I like to deal with. Mod Cons I have two brands I like to use but I have put in few different brands when I worked for other companies. I work on a lot of different brands service wise I don't carry the parts for all the different brands but if they're willing to pay I will find them. There are a couple brands I won't work on I just tell them to find someone else.

Bob Bona_4

If I begin to see a pattern of failure in a brand I *thought* I had vetted, that would be an incentive to switch.

JUGHNE

Getting burned on some warranty issue by the manufactor or the supply house itself, and that was the only place to obtain that brand.

Or key personal changes supply houses and you go with them....and start with another brand.

They were reasons for me over the years.

Tom_133

I switched brands due to premature failures for a while 8 years or so ago it was the Honeywell MCBA control. I installed 25 boilers 5-7 of them the boards went bad a couple months out of warranty and they were not cheap. So I switched.

Robert O'Brien

I've done the same, I guess my question should be what would cause you to switch instead of dissatisfaction with your current brands. New features/technology? Pricing? Consumer demand?

Bob Bona_4

When the modcons seriously hit the market in the early 2000's, it was Giannonni HXers. Even then the pressure drops raised my eyebrows, but it was what it was then. Gritting my teeth as I'm bolting on a 0014 or whatever. Fire tube came along mid 2000, that was the direction that made sense to me. So that was my first reason to switch brands. 2017 and I'm hard pressed to come up with a technicological improvement over what's out there- minus the annoying niggling things each brand posesses. So that leaves me with reliability as my deciding factor as stated above.

Solid_Fuel_Man

I don't want to get into Ford vs. Chevy thing, but what are some of the preferred brands and why? With this talk of the FT hx's failure points and microwelds on the tube sheets. The Germans may be onto something. But the higher than everyone else's low fire makes me leery...

ScottSecor

I've switched brands of modcons a few times since we began installing them around 1998. The first ones we installed were failing often and the warranty never seemed to cover more than about half of the cost (parts and labor). Needless to say our customers were not happy.

The second ones were dropped by every supplier within an hour of my shop/office (our rep also dropped the line without warning). This did not sit well with me as we had just installed a total of about a hundred of these units, many for excellent long standing customers .

The third brand of residential modcons have been pretty good as far as reliability, but parts can be an issue. We switched to their commercial line out of necessity about five years ago as they were perhaps the only manufacturer that offered cascade style venting. They were pretty reliable but parts were often not readily available. On the past two large commercial installs we've had problems with these boilers. I prefer not to switch, and this particular company has always treated me fairly, hopefully they can get the bugs worked out and we'll continue to use them in the future.

Other manufacturers reps of commercial modcons have contacted me recently, but I am not willing to make the switch just yet. Me and my staff know the products we have specified and installed pretty well, I'd hate to have to learn yet another brand again.