Coincidence? Burst boiler...

BombJack

Ok, a few months ago our next door neighbours boiler burst, and caused untold damage, resulting in replacement carpets and such. Interstingly ours has just done the same. Thing is, both our houses are fairly new builds - ie 7 yrs old. Surely the heating systems should not fail so badly in such a short time. We have had Scottish Gas out for intitial preventative measures, and they have advised an upgrade of the system, to the tune of about £2,500.

I have been told by various people after telling them of our predicament that we may be able to claim on our house insurance, and that we may be able to claim form some National House Insurance Charter or something as we should be covered for 10 years since the house was bought.

Can anyone give me advice on our situation? We could theoretically have the system repaired by replacing the boiler with an identical new part, however this course of action would set us back 2,200 and we were told that this would likely fail farily soon as well.

Does anyone have any advice for us? It all seems like a pretty horrible situation, and we are fairly clueless as to what our next steps should be...

Any help would be great folks. Mods - feel free to move if this isn't in the right section...

Astaroth

I am not too up on the warranty you get on new build properties but whilst I know that the building is covered for 10 years I do not believe that fittings such as boilers or washing machines are covered for the full length of the cover.

Details can be found:
http://www.nhbc.co.uk/Claims/Yourhomewarrantyexplained/