Dispute Aga Problem investigation invoice

kerrjp

Hi There guys,

I am not sure if this is the right part of the forum to post this but struggled to find an appropriate section. My story is this:-

My wife and I moved into a new property on the 14th February, the property has a large Aga oil stove in the property, after two weeks of moving in the Aga went out and refused to relight, not knowing much about Aga's I checked the paperwork I had and it said the Aga had had a full service by a heating company at the start of January.

So I called the same company and asked them to see what was wrong with my Aga. An engineer came the next day and did lots of umming and ahhing and saying it could be this and could be that he took out some of the innards and played with some of the parts near the wick and shells, and then he managed to relight it (I now suspect he simply reset the fire reset valve that I knew nothing about.) However that evening I noticed the Aga was getting hotter than ever before, by the morning it had gone out. I recalled the company who this time came out and spent a day with two engineers messing with the Aga jumping from possible cause to possible cause, they tweaked this and that and then went to my oil tank and supposedly pumped out some rain water with a deep pump etc... they managed to relight it, however that night the Aga again got extremely hot and by morning had cut out. After speaking to the company again they said it must be the flu being blocked and they would have to cut a hole into it with a metal grinder and sweep it and then attach a new access metal panel to the flu along with fitting another oil filter between the tank and the control box, it was at this point I had had enough, this didn't stack up we had jumped from needing a new fire valve to a new thermostat to now grinding a hole in the flu.

Any time I mentioned the cost of all this I kept getting told they would be fair and it wouldn't be too high. I then called a different Aga engineer company who said they would have a look and only charge a call out if they couldn't fix it, the guy turned up had a quick look and the first thing he did was check the oil high and low flow rates, these had been set completely incorrectly and simply setting these back to the correct rates has allowed the Aga to relight and function without issue for two months (all inside a 20 minute visit). I asked the second engineer about all the work that had been done and proposed and he was very shocked, he stated that the flow rates and the reset valve position would always be the first thing checked by any engineer and it all sounds very fishy.

Well today I have received the invoice from the first company they want £240 listing a full re-service and new wicks, re lighting cost and pumping water from the oil tank along with a call out charge. I feel that i want to refuse to pay them anything, I seriously believe that they messed the flow rates up and then went on a joyride of other procedures to generate work and a large bill! I was thinking of simply writing a letter to this effect outlining this, but I wanted to know where I stand legally on refusing this invoice.

Any help or advice greatly appreciated.