Plumber trying to rip off my 82 yr old mum !

1984ReturnsForReal_2

spiritus wrote: »

I agree with the first part of that sentence but cannot agree with the second part.

"unfortunate" is not the word I would use. The heating and hot water were working perfectly right up until the second he replaced the O ring.

Thats not actually a factual statement.

He would of had to shut everything down. So it would have been off for a while before.

& when you start things back up sometimes other things don't go according to plan.

The true story may just be a bit of electrical stuff got wet & when it dried out it may have worked again. But that you may never know.

spiritus

thanks guys

27col

C_Mababejive wrote: »

It seems to me that the fan had nothing to do with the leak and it was simply unfortunate that the fan packed up at the same time.

You would not believe the number of times people came to my workshop with a problem. They would say "When I did so and so this and this happened".
Quite often the two problems were completely unconnected and it was pure chance that they occurred at much the same time.

gas4you

What boiler was this? Just so I can work out if the fan could have been 'flooded' by a water leak. Which 'o' ring was leaking?

We can all make mistakes, I have done and no doubt will do so again in the future, that is called being human, but if he has done, then he should be man enough to admit it and sort things out for your mother without her having to pay for his alleged mistakes.

Just because someone is gas safe registered and can fit boilers, does not necessarily mean that he is any good at fixing them. The two skill sets are totally different.

Personally, I would get in touch with him and talk about your concerns and what you thought had been agreed between your mother and him.

People on here, although well meaning, haven't a clue as to what has been said or implied between you all and can only go on your posts, but there are always two sides to a story.

C_Mababejive

Indeed though fans usually live at the top of the boiler so it would be difficult to see how water could have affected it.

spiritus

gas4you wrote: »

What boiler was this? Just so I can work out if the fan could have been 'flooded' by a water leak. Which 'o' ring was leaking?

We can all make mistakes, I have done and no doubt will do so again in the future, that is called being human, but if he has done, then he should be man enough to admit it and sort things out for your mother without her having to pay for his alleged mistakes.

Just because someone is gas safe registered and can fit boilers, does not necessarily mean that he is any good at fixing them. The two skill sets are totally different.

Personally, I would get in touch with him and talk about your concerns and what you thought had been agreed between your mother and him.

People on here, although well meaning, haven't a clue as to what has been said or implied between you all and can only go on your posts, but there are always two sides to a story.

It was a Vaillant boiler.

He tried to dry something inside the boiler with a hairdryer which may or may not suggest that something went wrong whilst he was working on it.

I believe this boiler had two circuit boards one of which is strangely enough on the fan unit.

The plumber's tone also suggested that he had caused the problem although he didn't make an outright admission i.e. he offered to waive the labour costs to my mother. He also was sensitive to the fact that he was in a pickle as he was very, very wary about buying parts for the boiler in case the part he bought was not the cause of the problem.

Can you offer any suggestions as to what may have caused the ater to gush out from the bottom of the boiler when he tried to replace the O ring ? I'm presuming he drained the boiler first although I wasn't there at the time.

I appreciate that it's not impossible for the fan to stop working at the exact same time he starts working on the boiler but the coincidence is a little hard to swallow.

1984ReturnsForReal_2

spiritus wrote: »

Can you offer any suggestions as to what may have caused the ater to gush out from the bottom of the boiler when he tried to replace the O ring ?

Flushing a toilet

aboard_epsilon

if he had to do all that work ..meaning draining down the whole heating system to fit the o-ring ..it would have meant after refilling the whole system ..bleeding ..and checking ..adding inhibitor ..a good few hours work ...

perhaps he is only charging you for the work ..

82 years old ..i know how life is flying by at 48...perhaps he was there for a lot longer than your mother felt it was ..

just trying to envision things here ..dont take it badly

At what plumbers charge these days..the hours that were put in ..call out fees plus the sometimes £60 an hour..plus inhibitor (£20) ..perhaps he has let you off.

not that i would be fond of even giving a plumber even £50 for the whole job ..lol.. but above is what they want these days


The extra water on the floor would have been the bit that remains in the boiler in the heat exchangers ..that you cant drain until the pipe is removed..then you wont have any real control over where its going to end up...especially if you were in a hurry and you had literally tens of people calling you up to fix their broken down boilers at that date.

all the best.markj

gas4you

Doesn't help much by just saying Vaillant, there are many models.

IF it is one of the newer Ecotec Plus, or slightly older Ecomax range, then the fan is below the main HE and does indeed have a pcb on it that controls it and sends info back to the main boiler pcb, mainly from the hall sensor.

There are many 'o' rings on these boilers, but if the boiler had been drained to work on, I am finding it hard to fathom where all this water came from?

You can always get a small amount of water left in the boiler that will run out when a part is removed.

I would still need to know the model of this vaillant and what 'o' ring needed replacing to be able to try to be more precise with my help.

pearl123

Check out the he is on the "Gas Safe Register" which has replaced CORGI registration. If he is not then he is not legal and would be in hot water. If any warnings had been given to him on previous occasions then they would have that information also.