2yr old boiler broke - guarantee ran out - help!

kelly4509

Hi,

Could anyone help with my current situation. Our current boiler is 2 years old. Guarantee ran out at end of Sep 2005 and (sods law!) the boiler broke down last week. The fitters have been - for a call out charge of £170 - and told us that we need a replacement fitting costing £350. We have placed an order for the fitting which is going to take 7-10 working days for receipt, in the meantime the house is without hot water and central heating.

As the boiler is fairly new and imo its not reasonable to expect it to break down within 2 years i am thinking of going to trading standards to try and recouperate the money we have had to pay for repairs. Has anyone got any advice or similar experience?

Thanks in appreciation, Kelly

StephenB_2

Five hundred quid sounds like a lot of money to have to spend on a nearly new boiler, and having to wait 7-10 days sounds odd too. What boiler is it, and what is bust?

SJB

kelly4509

Its an Ideal combi boiler 'response 120' model. They told us the heating exchange has broken. Im certainly not very happy about the 7-10 days wait but apparently they havent got that particular part in stock.

Magentasue

Similar - ours was repaired by Baxi when it was less than three years old, seem to remember they charged flat fee £180 call out but that covered the repair. Before that local CORGI engineers had tried to fix it but it never lasted. This year we took out cover for the boiler because OH thought it was going to need repairing again (losing pressure?) and the cost for one year was about the same as a Baxi call out. When they did come out, we had so many new parts we've practically got a new boiler.

robowen

was the boiler leaking prior to breakdown ?

kelly4509

robowen wrote:

was the boiler leaking prior to breakdown ?

Yes - does this imply anything? Kelly

withabix

This is an excellent example of why it actually IS Moneysaving to take out central heating/boiler protection insurance packages such as British Gas '3 Star' (as it was called) or one of the many alternatives. £130ish per year well spent IMHO. I've had two or three callouts per year over the past few years to my 14 year old house's central heating...I've got a 3-pump system and have had 3 pumps, one thermostat, one controller/programmer, 2 boiler thermostats, header tank ball valve and more in the last 2 years. Also, my heating/water system is a British Gas BoilerMate system, which are prone to faults, but as BG supplied it, as long as I pay the annual 3 Star policy, they're obliged to maintain it forever apparently!!

moneysavingplumber

kelly4509 wrote:

Hi,

Could anyone help with my current situation. Our current boiler is 2 years old. Guarantee ran out at end of Sep 2005 and (sods law!) the boiler broke down last week. The fitters have been - for a call out charge of £170 - and told us that we need a replacement fitting costing £350. We have placed an order for the fitting which is going to take 7-10 working days for receipt, in the meantime the house is without hot water and central heating.

As the boiler is fairly new and imo its not reasonable to expect it to break down within 2 years i am thinking of going to trading standards to try and recouperate the money we have had to pay for repairs. Has anyone got any advice or similar experience?

Thanks in appreciation, Kelly

Was it the manufacturer's engineers that you called out or an independent?

This could be quite complicated, although you are unlikely to have any recourse now that you have committed to this course of works. Heat exchangers rarely just spring a leak out of nowhere after 2 years, it would either have been sub-standard to begin with, or there may have been existing corrosion in the system when the new boiler was fitted that wasn't correctly flushed or treated when the boiler was commissioned that has rotted the heat exchanger. I'm not that familiar with the Response 120 and it appears to be out of production as it's a Sedbuk 'D' rated combi, but I assume it has a plated heat exchanger as well as a main heat exchanger with it being a 'high-flow' combi and I'd be interested to know which of these was leaking. Problems with the domestic plated heat exchanger are very often the result of incorrect commissioning, if this was the case then it would be the installer at fault and the manufacturer's warranty would be invalid anyway.

If a customer of mine called me two months after the warranty had expired on a boiler I had fitted (and correctly commissioned of course) with such a problem I would certainly be prepared to have a row with the manufacturers about it, and in the past have managed to negotiate free parts (fan assemblies for Baxi Solos were a favourite for just outlasting the warranty) via the local area company rep, and then fitted them myself.

Did you call the installer first or go straight to the manufacturer/different engineer?

If it's the engineer that fitted the boiler that's now going to charge £500 to fix it 2 years later I'd be a little concerned to say the least, as they should have fought your corner with the manufacturers at least if they were happy they'd installed and commissioned correctly.

£500 is a huge amount to spend repairing a 2 year old boiler. I'm not sure whether most service contracts and insurances actually cover heat exchangers anyway, especially as a result of sludge or corrosion.

If you've not yet been in touch with Ideal customer services then it may be worth a try, or call your local plumbers merchants and ask if they have the number of the local Ideal area representative and have a chat with him/her about it.

robowen

kelly4509 wrote:

Yes - does this imply anything? Kelly

It only confirms that a heat exchanger could possibly be the source of the problem.
Not having looked at the boiler myself, I couldnt say if the leak came from somewhere else.

Had they said it was a heat exchanger and no leak...I would have questioned them a bit more.
Can't find one for your boiler atm. A one for an ideal boiler costs around the £300 mark.

I would be inclined to write a nice letter to Ideal stating that you are not happy with the fact a heat exchanger has gone so quickly. Ask them if you could have a discount based upon the age of the boiler. Mira showers do this, so why not ideal ?
If they refuse, You'll have to accept it as the boiler is out of warranty. But, but reply that you intend posting your story on a popular Heating forum to advise others. They might not want the publicity to affect their sales.

If you don't ask...you don't get !

rob
< edit > Had I seen msp's post before I started typing, he could have saved me typing all this :rotfl:

moneysavingplumber

robowen wrote:

< edit > Had I seen msp's post before I started typing, he could have saved me typing all this :rotfl:

I'll make a point of pming all my posts to you in future to help preserve those precious plumber's fingers :rotfl:

robowen

moneysavingplumber wrote:

I'll make a point of pming all my posts to you in future to help preserve those precious plumber's fingers :rotfl:

I have a look...see no replies...start typing away....click post...and..

...find msp has got there before me....and done twice as many words :eek: :rotfl: