£120 labour for fitting a £13 part...fair?

Angilion

Sounds like an obvious "no", but there's a bit more to it and I am not sure.

I have a Vokera Maxin 24 combi boiler, nine years old.

Background information
First off, I noticed that the water was periodically running lukewarm for about 15 seconds at a time, every few minutes, while I was having a shower. My shower is one of the combo tap/shower things in my bath (a lever redirects the water that would normally come out the taps into the shower hose) so I don't have a shower unit to go faulty. I called someone out to see to the boiler, which needed servicing anyway. They said I needed a new PCB, at a cost of £105+VAT...and I heard nothing more from them. They ignored my phone calls and I decided not to bother. They eventually sent me a bill for £60, which I paid (the engineer had serviced the boiler, and £60 is a fair price for that).

Main information
I then noticed that while hot water was being run, my boiler would ignite, burn for about 15 seconds, go out, immediately try to re-ignite and fail (although there was the click-whoosh sound and what appears to be the usual burning is visible through the little window for a couple of seconds), try to re-ignite again and succeed, burn for about 15 seconds...repeat until I stop running hot water.

This might well be what was causing the periodic large drop in water temperature during showering.

So I called Powergen, and got e-on, which I presume is either Powergen's service section or a company Powergen uses for servicing.

An engineer came out and spent about 2 and a half hours failing to find the problem. He then left, saying he'd phone Vokera. He could have phoned them from my phone or his mobile, since I'd given him the boiler's service manual, which contained the relevant phone number. I had queried the time and he assured me that I wasn't being charged after the first hour.

The next day, he left a message saying that he'd spoken to Vokera and a part might not be needed. So I arranged another visit.

That time, he was here for about 4 hours, again failing to find the problem. He blew down some tubes. After that visit, I decided to learn something about gas boilers myself - I think he was checking/trying to clear the venturi. It didn't work, anyway. This time, he took the service manual with him to read. I had queried the time again: "the clock stopped long ago".

A couple of days later, I came home from work to find a message from Powergen about having a quote for the repair and my authorisation being needed to order a part. I phoned them and found that the quote was for £132.71, of which £12.71 was for a sensor (they didn't know what kind of sensor - they just answered phones).

The minimum charge is £70, which covers callout and one hour of the engineer. Subsequent engineer time is charged at £12.50 per 15 minutes. So I am being charged for the callout+hour, one additional hour and the part itself. I've actually had about 5 additional hours...but I am not convinced that it should have taken even one additional hour to sort the problem out.

I'm currently thinking that it's easiest to just pay for that extra hour (on top of the callout+one hour charge), but I'm just balking at the idea of paying £120 labour costs to fit a £13 part that, as far as I can tell from my looking around the web, takes little time to fit.

rjm2k1

Sounds like they don't know what they are doing. I personally would get BG round to fix it and consider taking out insurance with them, they still use their own engineers rather than sub-contracting. I got ripped off for around 350 quid a few years back and decided that insurance was the way to go, you get a service every year too included in the price. I know it's expensive insurance, but at least I know what it's going to cost, rather than having a nasty bill from a dodgy co.

Sadly, boilers are one of those areas (electricity too now), where the government has decided that only "qualified" people are competent to work on them, thus pushing out the competent diy-er and opening us all up to cowboys who couldn't care less.

bristol_pilot

The cost of the part is surely irrelevant, the bulk of the charge is a call-out plus the time of a trained engineer. £60 per hour for an engineer is not unusual, have you checked the hourly rate for a mechanic at your local garage lately? I think the charge is reasonable.

ManAtHome

E-on are Powergen's parent company.

£120 may be reasonable if you can't sort it yourself - unless you prefer cold showers...

Angilion

ManAtHome wrote:

E-on are Powergen's parent company.

£120 may be reasonable if you can't sort it yourself - unless you prefer cold showers...

I'm not having cold showers (I did describe the problem in my post and that wasn't it). If I sort it out myself, bang goes my house insurance. I wouldn't feel safe, anyway. I don't like to mess with stuff I don't understand well enough if a mistake could kill me and possibly other people.

Which is part of the problem, now that I think of it. I haven't seen this person's Corgi card (I've asked for it, but they've had excuses) and after them spending so much time failing to find a problem and then specifying a different cause to the one that the first engineer came up with, I'm not wholly confident in them. Either of them.

Angilion

bristol_pilot wrote:

The cost of the part is surely irrelevant, the bulk of the charge is a call-out plus the time of a trained engineer. £60 per hour for an engineer is not unusual, have you checked the hourly rate for a mechanic at your local garage lately? I think the charge is reasonable.

I agree that £60 an hour isn't unusual for a trained engineer (it isn't quite what I'm being charged, either, but that's a minor detail). That wasn't what I was questioning.

I'd like to look in the service manual to see if the problem and solution is in there, but I can't find it online and mine is with the engineer.

Canucklehead

Good morning: Take a look at this site https://www.partsarena.net/gas/catalogs/vokera/System/index.htm

My OH (a CORGI guy) uses it a lot to trouble shoot (customers don't always hold on to their installation/servicing manuals, parts lists or Benchmark books, not passed on by previous home owner, or left by installer).

Good luck.

rjm2k1

Angilion wrote:

I'd like to look in the service manual to see if the problem and solution is in there, but I can't find it online and mine is with the engineer.

I wouldn't count on getting it back!

I watched 2 guys fitting a new boiler at work recently and was very impressed by their work, they even filled the gap where the flue went and put tarted up some tiles they'd knocked the grout out of. I was also able to see how easy it actually was to fit the thing, the most complicated bit was when they measure the combustion efficiency using a device inserted into the flue. Everything else was in the installation manual (eg where you had to install it). I know the gas pipe has to be purged to some British Standard, but I'd be surprised if it's actually complicated (the standard probably says something like blow across the pipe for 30 seconds).

ManAtHome

Angilion wrote:

I haven't seen this person's Corgi card (I've asked for it, but they've had excuses)

Sure I saw something on the box a few weeks ago where only the boss was corgi-registered but the people working for him weren't. Any Corgi guys out there confirm/deny whether it's legal for non-registered plumbers to do the work providing it is inspected and tested by somebody who is registered? (wasn't happening with the company on TV - he was just signing forms...).

robby-01

If you know what your doing and you have the manual you should be able to diagnose a fault on a boiler in an hour.Then whatever time it takes to repair.
The guy you had round spent 6.5 hours on yours.That is a long time to spend standing in front of a boiler.Anyone with half a brain would have called vokera while they were stood there and asked for advice.
I dont think that what they are charging you is excessive though.

cjb1971

People can work for a corgi registered company if not corgi registered themself(thats how they gain the work experience in order to get corgi reg themselfs).Although all the gas work would have to to signed off and commisioned by somebody who has passed the acs gas exams and therefore deemed competent.If an employee who has got acs qualifications wishes to do a job in his own time-ie not a job for the corgi registered company he will then need his own personal corgi card to carry out the work.