Baxi Duo Tec Combi Boiler Review (2022): Should You Buy It?

If you’ve been looking for a new boiler, there’s a good chance you’ve already considered Ideal, Vaillant, and Worcester. Chances are, however, that you’ve overlooked the Baxi Duo Tec combi range — another worthy (and well-priced) contender in the line-up of heavyweight boiler names.

In today’s review, we aim to remedy this omission.

Baxi Duo Tec Guarantee

When it comes to warranties, the Duo Tec matches the Ideal Logic Plus with an extensive 7-year parts and labour warranty. That’s relatively long, and not surprising, given the range’s quality brass components.

Overall, the 7-years on offer from Baxi is more than enough. Typically, we’d suggest avoiding boilers with less than 5-years in warranty.

The costs of repairing boilers isn’t exactly low, so you want to avoid being responsible for them for as long as possible.

The warranty will be upheld, as long as a Gas Safe registered engineer services the boiler once a year.

Alternatively, you can get a Worcester boiler fitted at a similar price, but with an extra 3 year warranty (10 years total) when you install through Heatable.

Baxi Duo Tec Combi Boiler Prices

The Duo Tec might be one of the best boilers out there, but how much does it cost? And, how does that compare to equivalent combi boilers from their main competitors? Here are the approximate boiler-only prices:

The Ideal Logic Plus is the direct competitor here, given the warranty is exactly the same.

They’re similar in terms of price, too. Ideal Boilers tend to run regular promotions, so you can expect to pay anything from £700-800 for their Logic Plus 24kW. Basically, the same price as the Duo Tec.

Boiler Dimensions

We’re regularly asked which boilers will fit in a standard kitchen cupboard. Unfortunately, the Duo Tec isn’t one of those boilers; it’s dimensions are a bit on the large side:

• Boiler height: 780mm
• Boiler width: 450mm
• Boiler depth: 345mm

Customers looking for a smaller boiler will usually to go for a Worcester Compact CDi or an Ideal Logic Plus. For those looking for a longer warranty (10-years), the Ideal Vogue is also an option.

If you’re looking for a boiler that fits into small spaces and are stuck on the Baxi brand, we’d suggest checking out their latest release, the Baxi 600 compact boiler.

Energy Rating

It’s pretty standard thing these for combi boilers to have a high energy rating, and the Duo Tec range is no different. It’s 89% efficient — good, but slightly lower than the Worcester range.

That said, there are new rules for boiler installers, who must install heating systems that comply with Boiler Plus. The Duo Tec is Boiler Plus compliant, not to mention Energy Saving Trust-endorsed for its high energy efficiency (you can see the endorsement here).

Online Reviews

I’m a sucker for online reviews. Whether I’m buying a boiler or a pair of hiking boots, I want to see what the people that own this product have to say.

And, although you won’t find 100s of reviews on Amazon like with other products, there’s a review site called Reevoo; Baxi are quite active there.

I punched in the Duo Tec, and it popped up with over 400 reviews, with an average review rating of 9.3/10. It’s especially great to see that owners think highly of the boiler’s user-friendly controls and performance.

Baxi Duo Tec Output

The table below shows the heating and hot water output, as well as flow rates, for Duo Tec models of different capacities.

Although this gives a rough guide of what size Duo Tec boiler you need, it’s always worth using a boiler size calculator like this one. The calculator’s algorithm can figure out which boiler size is most suitable for your property. You may find that you need a different boiler type altogether — like a system boiler or a heat-only boiler.

The Difference Between a Duo Tec HE & GA

There are two simple differences between the Duo Tec HE & GA models.

First, “GA” stands for gas adaptive. If your property isn’t connected to mains gas and you run LPG, the GA model is the one you’ll want; you won’t need to buy any adapters to use LPG as you normally would with a natural gas boiler.

Secondly, the standard warranty on the Duo Tec GA is just 2 years, and that’s quite a drop from the 7-years that customers get with the HE. Of course, the work around for this is to purchase an LPG conversion kit for the HE model.

Like the Duo Tec GA, the range includes the following models:

• DuoTec 24 GA
• DuoTec 28 GA
• DuoTec 33 GA
• DuoTec 40 GA

The Alternatives

Worcester Bosch have a similar entry-level boiler. For smaller properties, they have the 25i, and for larger properties they have the 30i. Given Heatable offer Worcester boiler installation so cheap, the 25i and 30i are great alternatives; you can get your price online here.

We’ve also reviewed the best combi boilers here.

Another option comes straight from Baxi; the Platinum HE. This is essentially a Baxi Duo Tec HE with a few upgraded parts. What this means though, is that it comes with an impressive warranty of 10 years. And, since it only costs around £200 more, it’s certainly worth the extra cash.

The Baxi Platinum HE models are as follows:

• Platinum 24 HE
• Platinum 28 HE
• Platinum 33 HE
• Platinum 40 HE

We’ve created a detailed guide to the Baxi Platinum here.

The Review Verdict

We’d certainly have no problems fitting a Duo Tec HE over a Worcester equivalent. Many of the Baxis we’re called out to fix are over 15 years old, which is certainly a testament to their quality.

Need a new boiler installed? Still not sure if the Duo Tec is right for you? A heating engineer will be able to assess your property, decide on the best boiler, and give you quotes (you can get a free on-site quote here).

Want to compare prices with the Worcester Bosch equivelent? Use Heatable’s boiler price calculator and get your fixed price online.

What’s Next

We hope our review of this all-rounder from Baxi will come in handy during your search for a new boiler.

Is there anything we’ve missed? Do you have a question? If so, please send us a comment below and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.