Head-to-Head Countertop Water Boiler Comparison: Burco vs Buffalo
When it comes to choosing a Countertop Autofill Water Boiler for your small to medium-use space, we'd like to present two quality, popular, and established brands and their options, and pit them head to head to give you our unbiased opinion. We aim to present two similar products with close functional intent and offer some informative differences to help you decide what might truly be your best option. In this article, the competing Boilers are:
Countertop Boilers for the small staffroom, café, or catering environment: The Burco AFF10CT or the Burco CN534
About Burco
Burco has been known for offering innovation, value for money and quality British Isles built products for over 50 years!
Burco is one of the premier UK manufacturers of catering equipment, entering the water boiling market in 2012 with their autofill water boiler range. The AFF10CT is their flagship boiler, a unit perfectly suitable for any small to medium-use environment. It makes the most out of its latest technology, and Burco's extensive experience in designing and implementing kitchen and catering products for the market.
About Buffalo
Buffalo offer a wide range of catering equipment and autofill water boilers designed for use in a wide variety of applications. In their own words:
Established over 17 years ago, we’ve been designing, refining and improving the range, ensuring the products benefit catering establishments with their high quality build and innovative design. .. We’re constantly investing in improvements to product functionality and efficiency, whilst ensuring that the range is always competitively priced.... we were highly commended in the UK Chefs' Choice Awards 2016 for Best Cooking Range.
The Buffalo CN534 autofill water boiler model sticks true to this, offering a quality option that should provide great competition to any 10 Litre autofilling boiler.
How do they stack up?
- Filtered Water
Both the CN534 and the AFF10CT Feature inbuilt water filtration, ensuring that the machine deals with less overall limescale in the tanker and outputs clean water free from odour and unpleasant tastes. The difference in quality is hard to compare, both use modern, readily available filters that you can also handily find on our website. Both units come supplied with these as standard, and should last roughly 12 months, or less should you notice any change in flow rate or taste. (AFF10CT Filter Here) (CN534 Filter Here)
- Hourly Output / Initial Draw
Both are again very evenly matched here, though the Burco slightly edges ahead in this regard, being able to offer 31 litres per hour compared to the Buffalo's 30 Litres per hour. The initial draw off of the Burco units sit at 11.5 Litres compared to the Buffalo's 10, though these are the manufactures stated numbers. There's a decent chance that Burco is measuring this on a slightly lower temperature setting than Buffalo, regardless we would consider the Burco ever so slightly ahead whilst being wary that the difference is largely negligible. For the average user, 80-degree water should suffice to boil any tea or coffee intended, and both these units should be perfectly usable for this.
- Pricing and Expectable Quality
Pricing is an area where the Buffalo model clearly comes out on top. At the time of writing the price for the Burco unit sits at £481.85 exVat - compared to the Buffalo's £444.25. Both models are clearly built of quality stainless steel components and should offer durability for the needs of a catering environment which can be somewhat rough and ready. The difference here is minor, however from our experience and understanding the Burco unit is perhaps a slightly nicer build, the black metal panelling adding a nice feel and giving the air of a higher quality item.
- Warranty and Support
This is definitely one to give to Burco. Burco were absorbed under the GlenDimplex banner in 2018 which offers a huge support network of users and technical expertise. The unit sits with 2 years of comprehensive warranty coverage, whereas the Buffalo unit sits at 1 year. We would more than expect that the Burco units are more widely used across the country, though this you'll simply have to take our word on, we actively encourage you to seek out user experiences and you are always welcome to contact us to try and provide anecdote based on the item you're interested in. Buffalo being the newer brand on the market - having only entered the market 17 years ago, you may expect to find a less established purchase and use history, though this brand is under the Nisbets banner, a larger catering supplier and manufacturer with many more years of experience.
Conclusion: Close Call, But We'd Go With Burco
All in all - at Electrical Deals Direct has come to the conclusion that the Burco unit might well be slightly better, something you'd expect from the slightly higher asking price. The difference of roughly £40 exVat gets you the extra year's warranty, provides just as quality a solution and has the industry backing and history through Burco and GlenDimplex that Buffalo simply doesn't have. This is by no means to discredit the Buffalo unit, it performs pretty much just the same and would be a more quality budget solution for those simply seeking to outfit a location on a tighter budget this is by no means a poor choice. It would really depend on the specifier's wants and needs in these areas, and especially with the cost of living situation you could expect many might be aiming for a more budget-oriented solution. We are always up to chatting further about these things, if you have any further questions or just want to speak to a real person regarding these things don't hesitate to call us on 01934 253600 - many thanks for reading!