Is my Gas boiler Technician exploiting my lack of knowledge?
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libertycuk
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Is my Gas boiler Technician exploiting my lack of knowledge?

by libertycuk » Fri Jan 08, 2010 4:34 pm

I had my boiler serviced 3 days ago. I said to the technician it seems to be losing pressure and needs topping up every 2 weeks. He said he could not find a problem and I was charged £80 for an hours work. The very next day the the remote clock attached to the bolier did not come on at the time set and the pressure on the bolier had gone down to 0. I topped it back up to 1 and called the company to come and have a look again. He identified that the frost stat was defective and replaced that with a £25 charged and so now the timer is working. Is that not a bit suspect that it went only the day after a tecnician came in? Secondly he now found that the boiler was losing pressure because of a defective expansion vessel. Should he not have found this out during the first visit? I was charged a total of £111.55 for this subsequent visit. Sime friendly boilers are hard to find parts for so he is doing a search or with have to one external to the boiler. Help

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htg engineer
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by htg engineer » Fri Jan 08, 2010 8:49 pm

It's quite hard to say - sometimes faults occur on boilers after servicing - and it's not the engineer's fault - just coincidence.

As for the pressure loss - there's many ways you can lose pressure from the system, if he checked the pressure relief, checked everywhere visually - radiators, pipes and boiler for leaks and heat tested the system - where the pressure didn't seem to rise more than expected, then he's done right.

If he didn't heat test the system - then you could argue he should have - because the expansion vessel is one of the main causes of pressure loss.

Also has he tried to re-pressurise the expansion vessel, has he checked to see if there's still air in the vessel - or just said a new one is needed ?

If you're not happy - I would get someone else to repair the boiler and carry out future services.


htg

libertycuk
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by libertycuk » Sat Jan 09, 2010 3:37 pm

To be honest this guy didn't even look at the radiators or even ask me if they had been leaking. The boiler is in the garage and so I don't know what he had been doing. The invoice did not say what work was carried out when he did the original service on the Wednesday apart from the words "serviced boiler"! So I have no idea if he carried out a heat test?

The replaced "defective" frost stat worked on Friday the second time he came and the heating came on through the timer this morning but the timer clock has since failed to turn the heating off this lunchtime so it looks like another lot of money has gone down the drain.

The pressure gage was again on 0 this morning so I have put a bowl underneath the pipe that comes out of the boiler but cannot see any water in it yet, so am not sure where the water is leaking from?

I have called in another company who will hopefully be here on Monday but can I think about making a claim for the money I have lost.? The company is registered by Corgi, HETAS and IPHE.

Thanks for comments I am learning more all the time. I have a small baby so at least the heating is still working but I am obviously still very worried as it is horrendous weather in Brum at the moment.

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by TheDoctor4 » Thu Jul 01, 2010 9:12 pm

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