Boiler failure during inspection prior to Exchange of Contracts

jeks2014

Hi,

Apologies for the long post but I was hoping you could provide me with your views/advice on this difficult and really unusual situation...

We are in the process of buying a house we love (which has been empty for about 6 months - divorced couple), and we have not exchanged contracts yet. Generally speaking the property is in need of some TLC as the current owners have let it decline for whatever reason. Clearly with it being empty the central heating was not on so we had no idea if it was working properly or not. In addition to this, in viewing the house early on I noticed that the ceiling in the Master Bedroom had some water staining, I therefore we went into the loft to see where this had come from. In doing so we discovered 2 x Baxi 105He condensing boilers side by side located above the Master Bedroom. It was clear that the boilers had suffered from 'problems' as there was water staining on the plywood floor beneath the boilers from leaks, that I had assumed caused the staining in the Master Bedroom aswell. This naturally raised my concerns, especially as I then googled this particular boiler and found it had a big reputation for failures (getting 1.8 out of 5 stars on review centre!) with most people basically saying stay well clear of it.

With this in mind our offer was conditional on us being satisfied that the boilers were 'fit for purpose' and ok which would be confirmed via an inspection from a fully certified Plumber we often use.

We offered on this basis pending the boiler inspection - and it was accepted by the Vendor (9% below the asking price).

However, this is where it gets tricky - we went round to the house today with the Plumber to do the inspection. We turned the central heating on to begin the inspection. Some of the radiators began to heat up but some did not, the Plumber also ran the shower (one of two in the house) and it was not flowing at the pressure he was expecting, so we went into the loft to look at the boilers 'in action'. He quickly identified that the boilers had zero pressure (should be about 1 bar), which is quite common with condensing boilers as they lose pressure due to leaking radiators (which this house has a few of). It's therefore routine to re-pressurize this sort of boiler, which he then did (this man has over 25 years of experience, is fully certified, and has installed boilers and heating systems of all types very successfully).

We turned the central heating off and he opened the water valves to get both boilers to 1 bar, which went fine. We then set the central heating and boilers going again and we went back into the loft to witness how the boilers were working. The boiler on the right then started to drip, which was concerning but not the end of the world, so we put a saucepan under it to avoid any damage to the ceiling below. For a while things then seemed to go ok - I was fairly pleased at this. Then after about 5 minutes the boiler on the left had what I can only describe as a catastrophic failure! Water just started gushing out of it. We quickly turned both boilers off, but unfortunately we just had to let the boiler that had failed just drain out onto the plywood boarding. Luckily there were some pots and pans nearly that we used to catch some of the water and we managed to mop up the excess up with a towel we found in the house. Luckily there was no damage to the ceiling of the Master Bedroom, with the remaining water on the plywood floor sure to dry off during the day (was quite warm).

It is sad this has happened but it clearly shows that the boilers have major issues (as I had feared), and the one which failed badly is likely to be totally knackered now and is beyond repair. Our stance will be that the offer was conditional on the boilers being ok and fit for purpose - which clearly they are not, so we are within our rights to reduce our offer. Our plumber told us that to replace these (his recommendation, as he does not rate Baxi due to this type of repeat failure and believes they will continue to cause problems) would cost about £4k for a decent make of boiler. We informed the EA of what had happened and they basically said they don't expect the vendor to be 'best pleased' at what has happened (of course, but this was just waiting to happen, after completion of course!) and in his view they will not lower their price.

I know it's not great news for them but all we did was run the boilers at the pressure they should be at and they failed - one catastrophically! I have to say I also feel misled by the Vendor as I feel they must have known that the boilers had problems but chose not to tell us in the hope of us discovering this post completion. Therefore I am glad we have discovered this prior to that stage.

The question is - in our situation what would you do now? Would you insist they change the boilers and pay for this, that they reduce their price by £4k so we can do it, or meet them in the middle i.e. they reduce by £2k and we pick up the other £2k???

We would also insist of retesting the boilers if they decide to try and repair them and then vendor also giving us a warranty period of some sort after moving in, just in case of further problems.

We are also concerned that the Vendor may accuse us of damaging their property and try to claim damages, which is ridiculous as we just ran the system in the correct way and it what happened was inevitable, but I am expecting this response unfortunately based on our experience with them so far.

To add to this the house also has a bulging wall(!) which was identified during a full survey we commissioned last week. We are meeting the Surveyor at the house tomorrow to discuss this further, he thinks this can be rectified without rebuilding the wall but we have no idea of potential costs for that yet.

Any opinion is appreciated!

Thanks.

pinkshoes

You knew they might be dodgy, so perhaps agree a £2k reduction in price.

How badly do you want the property?

harrys_dad

Why does the house need/have two boilers?

G_M

No, do NOT ask the vendors to fix or replace the boilers. They have no incentive so will do so as quickly and cheaply as possible.

Get the purchase price adjusted and then replace the boilers yourself. You can then use your 'trusted' plumber, who you know will do it properly, and can replace with decent quality boilers. Sounds like you might want to overhaul the radiators (and pipework) at the same time.

Getting the job done properly is only possible if you are in control.

As for being blamed for causing damage - well, you can only wait and see.

Did you have permission, ideally written, for your plumber to run the boilers/heating system?

Did you by any chance take photos showing the ceiling stain, the saucepans (clearly in the attic to catch leaks) etc before this all happened?

jeks2014

pinkshoes - we really like the house, it's ideal, however the price we are it puts us at the limit financially. We knew the boilers were a risk but we thought we could run then for a while, and put up with them until we had saved for better replacements.

harrysdad - The house has been substantially extended, so one boiler covers the extended part of the house and the other one covers the original part. It is unusual to have this set up for a large'ish house with 2 x Condensing boilers, normally there is a traditional pressurised water cylinder and gas boiler.

G_M - thanks for the advice, and we did not take pictures of the ceiling unfortunately. With regard to permission, we made it clear that we would bring a Plumber in to do an inspection, maybe I am wrong but one would reasonably assume that do this he would have to run the system and boilers to make an assessment? I agree with us commissioning the work is a better solution, I am sure the vendor will do the absolute minimum which may cause more issues in the future.

I_have_spoken

If the plumber is Gas Safe, I expect the vendors will claim on his trade insurance

AdrianC

You can ask the vendors to reduce the price. You're not on the strongest of grounds to do so because, as you say, you already knew the boilers to be unreliabile and were explicitly investigating them in more detail - so it could easily be argued that the difference between what you knew and what you've now found is small.

As already said, I'd not ask them to fix - it sounds like the whole system needs a lot of attention, and, frankly, the cost of a new boiler in relation to the rest of the plumbing is marginal, plus you were likely to replace these even if they did work until after completion. Yes, it makes for inconvenient timing. Hey-ho. House buying is full of inconvenient and unexpected expenses, which is why it's never wise to run yourself up to the absolute limit.

And, just as you're free to ask for a reduction, they're free to say no. And, in those circumstances, I think I would. So... what then? You have to decide to proceed and accept the negligible extra cost or walk.

They don't have any case to come after you for repairing "damage you caused" or similar - the same would likely have happened the first time they brought them back into service, and would have already happened had they actually been living there.

I_have_spoken wrote:

If the plumber is Gas Safe, I expect the vendors will claim on his trade insurance

Apart from this not being anything to do with the gas side of the boiler, so GS registration being irrelevant, do you really think the plumber's been negligent here?

martindow

This house seems to have problems with its bulging wall and now the heating. Are you sure you really want it?

If I was the seller I would certainly be seeking some compensation from you or the plumber. At the start I had a heating system with a small leak but otherwise working - after your visit there is considerable damage. I hope that your plumber is properly qualified and has insurance to cover this. If the owner comes after you I would pass anything on to the plumber. You were only a spectator.

AdrianC

martindow wrote: »

If I was the seller I would certainly be seeking some compensation from you or the plumber. At the start I had a heating system with a small leak but otherwise working - after your visit there is considerable damage. I hope that your plumber is properly qualified and has insurance to cover this. If the owner comes after you I would pass anything on to the plumber. You were only a spectator.

For the plumber to be liable, there would have to be demonstrable negligence. Pressurising a supposedly working hot water system to normal pressure is not negligent. If the boiler is incapable of being pressurised without something rupturing, that is not the plumber's fault.

Damage subsequent to that leak _might_ be negligent, if caused by a failure to take normal precautions. Would having a sufficient store of pots and pans ready to contain almost the entire system volume be counted as a "normal precaution"? Debatable, but I'd say no.

martindow

AdrianC wrote: »

For the plumber to be liable, there would have to be demonstrable negligence. Pressurising a supposedly working hot water system to normal pressure is not negligent. If the boiler is incapable of being pressurised without something rupturing, that is not the plumber's fault.

I'm not sure that it's quite so black and white.

The house owner will say that before the plumber's visit the system was working, the plumber came along, did something and the boiler failed. The plumber was testing the system at the time and needs to show that their actions were not to blame.

This is an unusual set up with two boilers. Is it possible that opening and closing valves as the OP describes could have starved one boiler of water or allowed a rush of cold water to come into a hot boiler or some other disastrous scenario?

silvercar

One boiler needs a leak fixing. Most people would consider it extravagant to replace a boiler with a small leak.

The other boiler depends on the cause of the catastrophic fail; major leaks will look dramatic, but without knowing the cause it is difficult to state whether you need a replacement.

The other issue is your unhappiness with these boilers. Replacing with a more reliable make is what is termed as betterment, something you wouldn't been seeking if they had been functional.

The seller's sensible move would be to get the boilers to a working state before your inspection, I doubt this would cost £4k - so your demand for £4k off the price may look like you are trying it on.

I would settle for the cost of fixing the boilers to be knocked off the price.