Broken thermostat installed! Who should pay the bill

MrKIernan

Everlastingboilers fitted a dodgy room thermostat which would not connect to the boiler, the wiring was incorect and so i could not switch boiler off from the mains (i wouldnt have anyway cause we still needed hot water)

This resulted in my boiler being on heating at 21 for two weeks constant and have racked up a bill of 120.

Shoul i ask them to contribute to this?

matelodave

You can ask, nothing venture nothing gained

MrKIernan

Small claims if they say no? Cant help thinking they are responsible.

ollski

Difficult to quantify what you used over and above what you would have ordinarily used, you would probably have to explain why you didn't turn the boiler off and how much of a delay between the installers being notified of the problem and putting it right.

MrKIernan

I notified them on after the first day of it being installed, despite their 24/7 callouts that were in my service agreement then did t cone out for two weeks. The meter was at 0 before they installed boiler. The meter was at 270 the day they came to fit new thermostat.

270m3.

I estimate roughly that we only wanted the heating to come on at 4 go off at 7 then come on at 1600 and go off at 2300. 9 hours in total, so with it being on constantly for 24 hours we have used 2.5 times as much as what we should have in those first two weeks.

The boiler wasnt wired up correctly to the fused switch and would not tirn off so i couldnt switch it of if i wanted to.

With the new thermostat timer being on this week weve used 50m3. So my rough estimates do kinda work out.

Im going to ask them to accept 50% liability and pay atleast 50% towards the bill for the first two weeks.

Any one know how id go about it? Like how to word it?

ollski

I'll be honest you may get a token goodwill gesture for inconvenience but it would take an impressive wiring fault to prevent the boiler from being turned off completely.

amtrakuk

MrKIernan wrote: »

I notified them on after the first day of it being installed, despite their 24/7 callouts that were in my service agreement then did t cone out for two weeks. The meter was at 0 before they installed boiler. The meter was at 270 the day they came to fit new thermostat.

270m3.

I estimate roughly that we only wanted the heating to come on at 4 go off at 7 then come on at 1600 and go off at 2300. 9 hours in total, so with it being on constantly for 24 hours we have used 2.5 times as much as what we should have in those first two weeks.

The boiler wasnt wired up correctly to the fused switch and would not tirn off so i couldnt switch it of if i wanted to.

With the new thermostat timer being on this week weve used 50m3. So my rough estimates do kinda work out.

Im going to ask them to accept 50% liability and pay atleast 50% towards the bill for the first two weeks.

Any one know how id go about it? Like how to word it?

WOW I'm not a qualified electrician or installer but not being able to turn off the boiler?!?! If he bodged the wiring like that then what else did he do?

They sound a real jack the lad cowboy company who haven’t a clue about safety.

a) Say they pay up of you'd report them for leaving a customers home in a potentially lethal state

b) Suggest they send their engineers on a training course and check their personal certification

societys_child

My boiler has an on/off switch . . right there on the front.

penrhyn

...................and a thermostat, turn it to the minimum and the boiler won't fire up.

amtrakuk

As far as I can see, most boilers do have a "master on/off" switch that is easily accessible.

Although on the face of it, it sounds like the thermostat has been installed by a bit of a cowboy, you should be able to switch the boiler off and on manually (over riding any external control equipment (thermostats or timers) etc). If that didn't switch the boiler off then the installer must have played with the wiring inside the boiler - that may have voided any warranty straight away and may well have deemed the boiler "unsafe" as the boiler has not been wired as intended by the manufacture of the boiler.

matelodave

There's a lot of speculating going on here. As said, you could have turned it off manually or reduced the thermostat setting to low to save wasting energy, but obviously you chose not to.
If you did decide to do what some of the more gung-ho brigade suggest by taking him to the small claims court they'd probably tell you to go away as you did nothing to mitigate your losses.
Ask him politely if he will contribute to the additional cost, but don't expect for him to pay for it all when you did nothing to help reduce them.