EON left boiler in dangerous condition

mindy45

Hi

I'm not sure this is the right place to post this but I'm after some advice about how to proceed with a complaint to Eon.

I signed up for the central heating care plan and have had my boiler duly serviced for the last couple of years with Eon.

Before Christmas I had some work carried out by a local plumber and on opening up the boiler he found that a sensor that checks the airflow had been disconnected therefore if a problem had occurred the boiler would not have automatically shut down. I complained to Eon immediately then chased the complaint however their engineer could not make it to see me for several weeks.

Following a visit from their man I have received a rather bizzarre letter from Eon advising me that because I had sufficient airflow into the room* and my plumber had rectified the problem by reconnecting the pipe, they were unable to state conclusively that the engineer had failed to connect the pipe properly.

I feel that in light of the fact that my boiler had been left in a state which was potentially dangerous, such a response is unsatisfactory. Yes, because my plumber did the right thing there is no evidence, but was I supposed to tell my plumber to leave it off until Eon could come round 4 weeks later?

So I would like to take this matter further and was wondering where to go with it? Should I make a complaint to the Gase Safe Register on the basis that they are unwilling to investigate further? Should I go down the legal route?

Many thanks

Mindy

*Not sure what the size of the air vent has to do with an engineers ability to connect a pipe.

gas4you

Hard to offer any direct comment with the lack of content in your post, except that any safety device that is disconnected or bypassed then technically renders that boiler/appliance Immediately Dangerous and must be disconnected from the gas supply.

Sadly by letting your plumber fix this, you have removed any evidence of wrong doing, so unless he is prepared to put his findings in writing, you will have a hard job proving anything.

What he should have done at the time was to issue a RIDDOR over this defect. This would then involve the local HSE and Gas Safe, who would have inspected the boiler and acted accordingly, on your behalf, towards Eon.

Canucklehead

gas4you wrote: »

Hard to offer any direct comment with the lack of content in your post, except that any safety device that is disconnected or bypassed then technically renders that boiler/appliance Immediately Dangerous and must be disconnected from the gas supply.

Sadly by letting your plumber fix this, you have removed any evidence of wrong doing, so unless he is prepared to put his findings in writing, you will have a hard job proving anything.

What he should have done at the time was to issue a RIDDOR over this defect. This would then involve the local HSE and Gas Safe, who would have inspected the boiler and acted accordingly, on your behalf, towards Eon.

So the OP potentially faced Christmas with no boiler while the parties concerned argue the toss over who is responsible and who should pay and on and on......

Would the OP be prepared to do that?

I think you are looking at a small financial settlement in the end.
Use a trusted local RGI.in the future.

GSR

mindy45

Thanks for your replies, very useful.

If I go down the legal route I don't think I would worry about the evidence thing. Yes it would be a case of my word against theirs but given that there were two witnesses (both the plumber and myself as I was stood chatting to him at the time he found it and it was shown to me) I think I would have a stronger evidence base then them. Plus in my experience, no court is likely to think it reasonable that a boiler is left in that condition in order to provide evidence of their mistake to Eon.

Its good to know about the HSE thing though. I may get in touch with them.

I guess I'm just very disappointed at the lack of interest from Eon and as a result I want to press this further.

gas4you

If the OP had been informed of the proper procedure at the time this defect was found, she would have had the option of which avenue she wanted to pursue.

Also a RIDDOR form contains the option of stating whether one had fixed the fault or not at the time of issuing the form. He could have fixed it and still issued a RIDDOR.