Help Required Oil Central Heating

Georgek

Thanks guys....

The engineer is OFTEC registered and the inspector came today to inspect his work.

Due to about 20 faults, the boiler has had the danger sticker and the tap turned off with the fuse pulled out.
Together with false signatures, there is also an issue with the building inspector and drains. The tank should have been certified.

All in all..we have no heating in this freezing temperature.
The girlfriend was in tears, and I am in a state of shock. Before you say:- "Get an OFTEC qualified engineer", this guy IS OFTEC registered.

Goes to show that these logos don't mean a darn thing, and the engineer just could not even be bothered to come over.

Court actions don't help me keeping warm, and all too often, engineers good or bad are loaded with work orders, as this is all they care about!

smallblueplanet

If you've already spoken to Grants can you phone them again and get the details of some engineers in your area they recommend? I got one from them to do a service on our boiler. As you say you just need your heating working to start with and then look at getting the bad guys.

Good luck.

mark-w20

Point taken regarding Oftec or any other certification body for that matter, there's good and bad in them all, it's not easy as a customer to work it all out, all these organisations are based on good principles and in an ideal world would work, unfortunately we don't live in an ideal world.........

Georgek

smallblueplanet wrote: »

If you've already spoken to Grants can you phone them again and get the details of some engineers in your area they recommend? I got one from them to do a service on our boiler. As you say you just need your heating working to start with and then look at getting the bad guys.

Good luck.

The problem with what we call 'good engineers' is that there ain't any.
Personally, I have found that anybody any good, never makes enough prophet to keep going. With central heating, it appears to be a 'one off installation' Okay, there will be folks who disagree and say that word of mouth goes a long way. Of course there is always the servicing that a good engineer can prosper.

When I spoke to OFTEC, they told me that they only pursue complaints, once complaints are made. The trouble is, that you have to be really mechanical minded to realise that there are problems. Most folks never go any further with problems and just concede to whatever technical jargon is aimed at them. I was lucky to pick a few faults. Out of these few faults were another twenty or more, with the potential to kill. It was only through fluke that an inspection was called. The engineer must be doing about thirty central heating jobs a year, and as usual, he claims that he has never been in trouble.

It is completely absurd to have a zero fault out of perhaps 200 installations, only to find that out of one installation, there are at least twenty faults. That the only reason why these faults had come to light, was down to an inspection, whereby the 199 others were not put to task.

I phoned up Trading Standards and told them that apart from a civil matter, there was also a case of criminal negligence. Three hours later, I got a call back from one of their inspectors who even suggested that OFTEC could have made the boiler unsafe.

By this, I told her that one day he will kill someone through his negligence. By which she gave me an official warning to retract...what she called a threat!

In other words, these guys continue to strut their stuff and get away with it. The criminals are those who are the victims, leaving it okay for these traders to carry on.

To be honest, out of my 61 years, I have not come across anyone I can trust. Only last week we had to call a plumber out to our other house to fix a burst pipe. The plumber we called out previously; instead of removing the damaged section, just put a blob of solder on the hole, which finally gave way.

The prices charged are rediculus, as only six weeks ago, we had a log burner fitted which took four hours at £1000 labour. That is £250 an hour and this was the cheapest quotation!

It seems evident that engineers have to make their money in the Winter months. So much so, that it covers their lack of work in the summer.

Georgek

mark-w20 wrote: »

Point taken regarding Oftec or any other certification body for that matter, there's good and bad in them all, it's not easy as a customer to work it all out, all these organisations are based on good principles and in an ideal world would work, unfortunately we don't live in an ideal world.........

I agree!

There has to be good traders. I was a car vehicle repair guy about thirty years ago with a small work force. My workers claimed that they had never come across an honest motor engineer before, as this was strange.

I worked hard with low pay and was good at my job. It never worked.

Now I am a computer engineer with more qualifications than is needed. Been going for about 15 years and don't need to advertise.
Rich? No....I make £35 a job on average. Difference between other engineers is that most went bust after the first three years.

My point?

Work hard and be poor...If you are gonna make it rich then make it whilst you can! Cut corners and talk your way through!

malc_b

Given your problems this probably doesn't matter but I'll add it anyway. The remote oil sensing is very rough and ready. On mine it is a number and works like this

0 = 0-10%
1 = 10-20%
...
9 = 90-100%
F = > 100%

So your initial 5 could have been anywhere from 50-60%. The day the reading changed to 4 you had 50%. So you don't know if it was 51% -> 50% or 60% -> 50%. The only accurate method is to record the change days so it on the 1st it changes 5->4 then on the 14th it changes 4->3 it has used 10% in 14 days.

And even that isn't very accurate as the cross section of the tank is often not constant and these gauges measure oil height. My tank has two square tubes through to hold its shape (and perhaps to lift it). The oil level drops quicker at these.