British Gas Central Heating Power Flush

ConsumerWarrior

This is what happened recently to a 90 year old widower near Oxford. He subscribes to Homecare 400.
Just after Christmas the boiler stopped working and an emergency call was made to BG, they were not able to respond for nearly a week due to the number of call outs, they missed his first appointment and did not bother to call him about it, (penalty £20).
A second appointment was made for a Friday, the engineer turned up had a fiddle with the controls and said nothing can be done today, you need a Power-Flush at extra cost. A new booking was made for the following Monday.
On the Monday the engineer arrived, (late), went straight up into the loft and re-worked the header tank ball valve. The boiler started and is now producing heat.
The engineer told the elderly gent that it was a temporary fix and he should still have the Power-Flush carried out, the gent signed a booking form for the £700 job and the BG engineer left.

Does anyone know how the BG engineer can figure that this gents system needs a Power-Flush seeing as he now has piping hot radiators?
Does this gent have to have the work carried out now that he signed some form of BG agreement/ booking for the work to be done?

ConsumerWarrior

We decided to complain to BG about the handling of this gents problem on his behalf as he is frail, has no computer and has difficulty using a pen due to problems with his hands. We found going through the normal channels proved ineffective so we looked up to see who runs BG here and sent Mr Sam Laidlaw all the information, we very quickly received a personal reply from Sam Laidlaw who gave us his personal guarantee that the matter will be investigated and resolved ASAP.
Today we have had confirmation that a whole team of engineers and customer support personnel arrived at the gents house and after clearing an air-lock in the loft he now has excellent home heating without the need for a power-flush.

I'm not certain if this gent has received any compensation for the missed appointments yet but I would imagine that the BG board of directors have his case under scrutiny.

gas4you

Excellent and well done.

As I keep griping on about, a powerflush, whether by BG or not, is seen to be the magic answer to all problems these days.

The BG engineers were obviously out to make target and commission on the flush, although they would never admit it!

spiritus

Exact thing happened to my 82 yr old mother today.

She called Homecare out as hot water kept changing to cold. They came, installed a new part then showed her a box with two pipes (one of which was covered in gunk) telling her that's what her pipes look like and that the boiler is deteriorating (even though it's only 4 yrs old).

My mother wasn't sure by his description whether the box he was holding up came from our boiler or not but when he left he took it with him and her boiler continued to operate so it looks like he had some mock up/demo model in his van that he brings out to scare people !

He also told her the system needed a powerflush which would cost her just over £ 700. When she winced at the price and told him she might be better off buying a new boiler he told her not to do that as Vaillant are excellent boilers and cost much more than that to replace.

Thankfully, my mother didn't sign anything nor will she.

tanya3876

You can send a water sample to the power flush association and they will test it and tell you if you need a power flush, for free. Always get another opinion when a power flush is recommended, it gets miss-sold to people all the time. It is true that people think a power flush will fix all problems, which is not true, but having central heating water that is clear/clean will make your system more efficient and lead to less breakdowns. Why would want a dirty system that keeps on breaking down and costing money to repair?

jalexa

tanya3876 wrote: »

You can send a water sample to the power flush association and they will test it and tell you if you need a power flush, for free. Always get another opinion when a power flush is recommended, it gets miss-sold to people all the time.

Thanks for that heads-up which I wasn't aware off (though where do you get a second opinion from???)

In your other post you mention "inhibitor". Indeed, IMO lack of inhibitor is the central heating maintenance scandal. Householders should ask about this every service and query the absence of a sticker on the boiler.

I would say unless radiators have cold spots at the bottom then a "power-flush" is not indicated.

bengasman

Very rarely is the powerflush really needed.
Out of the all the people that called me this year because they had been told by BG or one of the other big companies that they either needed a new boiler, or a powerflush, it was nonsense in 100% of the cases.

I have a strong suspicion that there are two reasons why BG guys are so quick diagnosing that there is nothing they can do about it today.

1. It is much, much quicker than actually repairing the fault, so they can tick the box, move on to the next job, and get down to the pub half an hour earlier.
2. If BG get a powerflush out of it, the chap that produced "the lead" gets a bonus.

gunmaker

If I had any radiators with a cold spot at the bottom the last thing I would have is a "power flush". I would isolate and remove the radiator and wash it out. I do this to each radiator as and when a room is decorated. If the going rate for a power flush is £700.00 I would think you could have someone remove all the radiators and wash them out for you for less that that if you can't do it yourself.

How did our CH systems work before power flushing was dreamt up as a way to rip people off?

bengasman

gunmaker wrote: »

...I would isolate and remove the radiator and wash it out.

Would you not bother to remove the gunk from the pipes and the boiler?

ollski

bengasman wrote: »

1. It is much, much quicker than actually repairing the fault, so they can tick the box, move on to the next job, and get down to the pub half an hour earlier.
2. If BG get a powerflush out of it, the chap that produced "the lead" gets a bonus.

But if the powerflush is not needed it won't fix the fault so how can it be quicker?
I bet the engineer gets less money in his pocket than you do if and when you sell one!....it equates to a couple of pints certainly nothing worth making any effort for.

gunmaker

bengasman wrote: »

Would you not bother to remove the gunk from the pipes and the boiler?

If I thought it was necessary, which I don't believe it is, then I would drain the system down and run it with a flushing solution and add an inhibitor afterwards. The "gunk" collects in the bottom of radiators generally not the pipes. I certainly wouldn't pay £700.00 for it to be power flushed.

My CH system is more than 30 years old to my knowledge. It has had all new radiators in that time, bar one, and a new boiler 10 years ago. The radiators were changed for modern looking ones not because they didn't work. The pipes are original and they have never been flushed. The CH works perfectly.