Are CORGI Certs worthless when buying a house?

symptomless

Hi,

We bought our house in July and were satisfied that we had all the requirements regards the HIP and CORGI certificate for the gas boiler and installation.

We had problems with the boiler in September and called the original installers and issuers of the CORGI cert to fix the problems but weren't satisfied with their work, i.e. they replaced a broken PCB and transformer but still couldn't get the boiler working correctly. They then diagnosed a broken fan and quoted and additional £250 to replace which we later found wasn't broken.

We called out the boiler manufacturer who inspected and told us the boiler, including the fan was in perfect working order. The error was in the electrics, which were also install by the same company.

Since then we've had a call out from a heating engineering company who say that the electrics and gas installation are at best very shoddy, at worse, illegal.

The original installation company say that they will come back to do superficial work on the electrics (probably to cover up their own shoddy electrical work) but will not fix the boiler.

Gas Safe say that because the work on the boiler installation was carried out for a different customer then they cannot help us.

What on earth is the point of the CORGI Certificate?

Its absolutely worthless. Worse than that, its cost us £900 so far to put some of the work right. It will cost us a lot more to fix the real problems.

silverjay

CORGI still exist as far as I am aware. GasSafe are now the approved body but gas installers can still be members of both organisations if they wish. The old CORGI registration numbers were transferred over to GasSafe.

You may find that the CORGI cert you have was issued by the GasSafe engineer as they were using up old stationery before changing to the new GasSafe type.

I would recheck the position regarding the shoddy/illegal installation with GasSafe again as sometimes it's just a case of getting hold of a person who knows what they're talking about rather than them just checking something against the general guidelines. I'd try looking up the engineer's registration number on the certificate on the CORGI/GasSafe websites and make an illegal installation report.

You should also have a certificate for the electrical installation as well.

C_Mababejive

Installers who are GSR certified can install and self certify their installations.

The certification bit isnt a guarantee. Its simply a way of complying with legislation and making some money for CORGI at the same time.

You could just as easily have for example, a competent engineer who wasnt GSR,install a boiler in the home that he owns and it could be as good or better than others.