Ideal Vs. Glow-worm – Which is Best?

Glow-worm has several different gas boiler ranges that encompass all different types and sizes of boilers including combi boilers, system boilers, and regular heat-only boilers.

Originally producing boilers back in 1934 at the Derwent Foundry in Derbyshire, Glow-worm, for the past 80 years state that they have been focused on offering their customers, reliable and highly efficient products.

They also claim that “it has been the drive which has led us right to the top as one of the leading heating manufacturers in the UK”. 

In 2001 Glow-worm became a part of the Vaillant Group, Europe’s second-largest heating company. Vaillant employs over 12,000 people across Europe and China, providing innovative heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning technologies to hundreds and thousands of homes all over the world. 

If you’d like to find out more about Glow-worm, please feel free to explore their heritage.

Now that we’ve learned a little bit about the history of each brand, let’s have a look at what their customers think of the brand.

During the Which? Best Boiler Survey in 2020, more than 7,000 members of the public were asked to rate both Ideal Heating and Glow-worm as a brand. Ideal was awarded an overall brand score of 69%, coming in at 6th place out of the 13 brands that were rated. Glow-worm scored an overall brand score of 57% and ranked 7th place out of 13 boiler brands, not far behind Ideal boilers. 

Customers of both Ideal and Glow-worm boilers were asked how they felt about their boiler and whether or not they would recommend them to a friend or family. In addition to this, 150 Which? Trusted Traders (boiler engineers) were asked their views on the boiler brand.

The 2020 Which? Best Buy annual survey results show that Ideal is found to be more reliable and efficient than Glow-worm boilers. Ideal boilers are known to be cost-efficient yet robust boilers. Ideal is also known to offer great customer aftercare, including up to a 10-year warranty on selected boiler models. Although Glow-worm boilers are found to be less reliable than other boiler brands, they are still loved by customers. A star rating of 4 out of 5 also for customer score supports this.

Touching on brand aftercare, here at WarmZilla, we feel that aftercare is just as important as purchasing a boiler and should not be brushed over. If you’re interested to know which brand we feel has the best aftercare, we have a separate blog that discusses this. 

Looking at Trustpilot, Ideal Heating has over 10k reviews with 4.8 stars out of 5 and 95% of their reviews are above average. This supports the customer reviews in the Which? Best Boiler Brand Survey Results, showing that Ideal’s customers are more than happy with their boiler, its performance, and its reliability. 

Here are a few of Ideal’s Trustpilot reviews that also show that Ideal’s customers are more than happy with their services: 

“Had the same engineer call today and as in the previous visit, he was very polite, professional and tidy with his work. As for the company, phoned yesterday reporting we had no hot water and 24 hours later problem solved can’t ask for better than that.”

Glow-worm has 4.7 stars out of 5 and over 5k reviews on Trustpilot.  A whopping 96% of their reviews are above average, which also supports that although they may not have a sought-after boiler brand, their existing customers are happy with their boilers and their performance. 

Here are only a few of the Trustpilot reviews for Glow-worm: 

“Excellent service. Extremely well installed and unfailing in delivering warmth and comfort during the winter. Impressive.”

“Our new boiler is excellent, very efficient and quiet, the fitter who we have used for many years, made a prompt replacement to our old boiler and was very quick and clean.”

Now let’s get into the bit we’re all here for, comparing the boiler models.