New boiler and heating system

So sweet of you to care about the rules.
I know in my house so many do it yourselves have worked on their flats that I am just waiting for a few water lines to break and flood our place.
Most Hungarians just Jerry Rig home fixer jobs.
Our next door neighbor once asked my husband to run over and help him support his Loft that was falling down, had to hold it up while he placed support boards under it.
Have not been to their flat since then, no way do I wish to sit under their loft.
We changed out our boiler, a neighbors son works  as a plumbers helper, he came over with a friend and for $50. they put it in for us. Never filled out any forms with Fogas.
Pretty standard in HU to do it yourself.
If you go into Fogas and fill out forms you may be waiting for a decade for their approval.

I don't know of any restrictions on the sort of water heater you put in. As long as it is well supported.
I am not sure what a combi boiler is.
I know you can have the water heater on either for certain hours per day or evening or on all the time.
I was not aware that it was a special boiler just what system you ordered with the utility company.
We had a very large boiler when we bought our flat but replaced it with a smaller one for just the two of us. Didn't see a huge need for paying for a large water tank if we were not using it.
I know electric in Hungary is not cheap.
The boiler we have heats with electric power not gas like we have in the US.

We bought a new stove in Hungary and my husband installed the gas line himself.
He is very handy though, not a good idea for the weekend warrior to mess with a gas line.
He would of and could of installed our boiler himself except for the weight, I am pretty much useless when it comes to lifting weights overhead.
Most Hungarians are just used to doing everything themselves.
In the old days it took weeks or even months to get anyone over to do a job, people just learned to do their own repairs.
Labor is on the "cheap side" in Hungary but you must still keep your eyes open and watch what they do. You may pay more for a job then it is worth, usually western ex-pats are easy prey for repairmen.

Teddyb24 wrote:

Hi

I am in process of buying a new apartment in Budapest which I will be renovating I was wondering if anyone knew if there are new regulations on what boiler I can instal as I was thinking of getting a condensing combi boiler as I would like a system that has constant hot water.  I also have been made aware I need to put in plans to Fogas does anybody know what the exact procedure is and put in to simple terms as I do get confused quite easily, really would appreciate any help.

Many Thanks
Jule

We recently did our gas plans.

You have to hire someone to do the "gas plans" who then specifies exactly the boiler you will use. Once you have permission, you can use another one of about the same type - the kW is important.  The chimney is very important as the temperatures of modern boilers are different to old ones.  There's no way amateurs can know the regulations when not speaking the language. The gas planner will advise but will also visit to inspect.

You might find it worthwhile to get a boiler which heats on demand rather than one with a tank which you heat up once or twice a day on a timer.  Maybe this is what you meant.

I find the ones in Europe are strange. If the boiler heats the tap water I've found it switches off the heating.  In The Netherlands I had two boilers, one for water and one for heating.

I also see in many places here that people heat water by electricity and not by gas.  This is obviously a lot easier.

I don't know any gas person who speaks English.  Mrs Fluffy took care of all that in Hungarian for us.

We have the style in our kitchen where you heat up a gallon or so of water on demand and then can shut it off, Good for saving energy, I wish we had the same system for our bath. The bath is electric heat and turns on several times a day. We used to have it ready 24/7 but found we didn't need it on all the time, just a waste of energy and money.
Our gas line was already in our kitchen when we bought a new stove.I would allow my husband to run a gas line that could be dangerous if one is not an expert.
If I ever hear of an English speaking gas person, I'll forward it on.

I had to have new boiler in Hungary in September and became aware to my cost that there are recent regulations emanating from Brussels, the effect of which has been to extinguish the supply of spare parts for some recently made non compliant boilers. So from this ignorant buyer about boilers, there is a beware.

Seems the crop. world just is forcing people to buy new as nothing lasts long.
Made to break down and forced to spend , spend , spend on new products.
Everything from cars that have computer chips that no one can figure out at home how to repair to cheaply made household products that are made to be replaced within a short time frame.
In my storage unit I have a clothing iron that was my mother's from the 1950's. A Sunbeam brand, no longer in business. The best iron I have ever used, over 60 years old and still good as new.
I suppose Sunbeam may of gone out of business because no one had to replace their products.

Thankyou for your advice hoping to take a team over from the uk to do the renovation but didn't know if they was strict regulation when it comes to the boiler and heating system especially as the apartment is on the 2nd floor.

Really appreciate everyone's help, this forum makes things so much easier than constantly spending hours on google researching and making my eyes go square 😀

Teddyb24 wrote:

Thankyou for your advice hoping to take a team over from the uk to do the renovation but didn't know if they was strict regulation when it comes to the boiler and heating system especially as the apartment is on the 2nd floor.

Materials and techniques are different here.  UK construction people will have to adapt to local conditions.   

Personally I think you need a project manager to do this work if it has an official person involved.  We have one who speaks a bit of English but as Mrs Fluffy is a local, it's not a major issue language wise for us. 

You should be aware that there's a loopy system where "construction work" has to be registered in some kind of construction database run by the tax office.  This thing is unfathomable for all but the experts.  Apparently it's done nothing whatsoever for whatever it was intended to do and probably will be scrapped sometime.  But if you use UK people, pay cash for everything, you should be OK on that particular front. Supposedly you are also required to have building inspections and permits to occupy etc.  We are even required to have a "windows" inspector.  I mean, come on, WTF is that about?

If you renovations are cosmetic, then I think you can say it's decorating.  What they do not want to see is changes to the building facade - e.g. new windows.  But if it's internal and like decorating then  you should be OK.

My FIL built his own house from the ground up back in the 1960's in Hungary.
He worked in construction as a heavy equipment operator.
Was a very handy person, knew just about everything about building from making his own cellar to making his own iron fence. Knew all about grapes, growing ,plumbing you name it he could do it and do it well.
He had to have licensed professionals to come over during his home construction to install the plumbing lines and gas lines.
His son was a construction worker and often helped his dad building the house but as he was not a legal gas man or plumber with papers, they left those few jobs to a pro even though they knew how to do the job themselves.
He finished the jobs but legally he had to have papers showing a "pro" had done the major work on those parts of building.
He later finished their rough work by building the boiler system etc. but whatever was legally required to have proper paperwork he had done. Too risky to later have to take care of the legal issues if they ever came up.
I have heard that at that time ( 50's  thru the 80's) many people just winged it and did all the lines without proper papers but they were taking a risk.
If you don't have the proper paperwork you may later have to have someone come in a redo everything.

Teddyb24 wrote:

hoping to take a team over from the uk to do the renovation

To paraphrase the Hungarian author Sándor Márai in his book Embers: the English bring England with them in their suitcase.  

Why not just hire a competent local general contractor (ask for references), and if necessarily, an interpreter (see here for interpreters: https://www.expat.com/en/business/europ … erpreters/)? The local general contractor will not only know the local materials and available hardware (such as boilers), but will also know all the rules, regulations, necessary paperwork, what inspections will be required (and can smooth then through), etc. etc. etc.

I was very happy with my chosen local contractor. And I am not known as someone who is easy to please.

https://stcoemgen.com/2012/10/02/house- … pisode-28/

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

If you don't have the proper paperwork you may later have to have someone come in a redo everything.

It may even result in difficulty selling if the paperwork of record is not correct.

Very true one could run into problems when selling later on if you can not back up your repairs with proper HU paperwork.
I forgot to mention that when my in-laws were building their house, they had to not only get licensed contractors but had to stop work until inspectors approved the work and signed off on them.

I need a new bathroom and any hugarian quotations are not written out properly because they try to avoid paying tax. If you have an apartment you must put up a notice in the hallway warning neighbours that you intend to be noisy. Your gas and chimney s are inspected every year and the inspector can ask you to change things. I have been asked to seal up an old chimney outlet in my bathroom.
I don't know anything about central heating boilers but assume it must be professionally fitted.

anns wrote:

I need a new bathroom and any Hungarian quotations are not written out properly because they try to avoid paying tax. .....I don't know anything about central heating boilers but assume it must be professionally fitted.

I usually get very nicely presented and quotations for things like windows and doors etc. They seem to use some sort of job cost estimating software and it sets it all out in an itemised way.  The hasty scribbled ones are estimates.  IMHO anyone who comes without a formal contract is best avoided.

The only way they can really cheat on taxes is services which is the labour part as that does not involve any physical goods.  Usually they put half on the books, the rest in cash.   It's very difficult to avoid the VAT.   

Bad installation of a boiler can kill.  I am very handy myself but I would not tackle that simply because it's a very dangerous machine wrongly installed and I'm not installing these things on a daily basis. 

And everyone should have a CO (Carbon Monoxide) alarm.