Boiler Servicing Rip Off

cattie

When my boiler was serviced last year it cost me £99, for a boiler only 1 yrs old at the time. As this is in a London suburb, prices will vary depending on area.

discat11

HUMBUG wrote: »

Is this a London based company because that seems very cheap? <snip>.

No, not London based, Wiltshire!
I got a few quotes and they all cam in around this price here.

Good luck with the fix, from what you've said I think I'd be cheesed off too as it doesn't seem you've had VFM at all.

C_Mababejive

Welcome to the world of modern high (combustion) efficiency boilers that need expensive maintenance contracts, cost a fortune to repair and hardly last 10 or 15 years, all in pursuance of EU CO2 emissions targets.

HUMBUG

Thanks for all your comments. The company has now phoned me back and they are sending a new engineer tomorrow to carry out a more complete service as per the 'Which' checklist that DJ1471 pointed me to. So at least they've responded to put things right but it was so unnecessary.

PS. New engineer arrived and did a complete series of checks (Gas Pressure Test, CO Combustion, Checked Trap and internal systems for leaks , cleaned Fernox filter, etc etc). The Service took about 35-40 mins and now happy its all done (at least for another year). Strange thing about my Glow Worm flexicom is that all the internal systems are sealed, including the parts that automatically shut off the gas if CO levels get too high. So I doubt they can be tested unless you start disassembling the inner components which apparently is not required unless the combustion tests fail.

andrewmp

EssexExile wrote: »

and only in the first year.

Always read the small print.;)

You can cancel at the end of the year, then take out the same policy the following year, free service mk2 - repeat forever.

southcoastrgi

If your old boiler was 25 yrs old then it would be what's called room sealed the same as your new boiler, your CO alarm wouldn't go off unless it was producing too much CO & the case seals had failed which is no different to your new boiler, your new boiler needs the correct mixture of air & gas to burn correctly but it doesn't have any form of auto shut off if the CO levels get too high (so if that's what they told you it's BS), the burner door seal MUST be replaced at least every 5 yrs whether it's stripped or not.

HUMBUG

Hi All
Thought I'd just add this for information only if people have problems regarding their rights concerning gas engineers who say they have to shut down their boilers (especially for those 'flue hatch' requirements that were introduced a few years ago). Remember that this is not an excuse you can use to prevent an unsafe boiler from being shut down but just your rights with regard getting proof to validate their decision.

I asked 'Mike the Boilerman' for his advice (look at his website) as he seems a very knowledgeable and honest person. I understand now why the CO monitors might not go off from previous posters on this thread so many thanks for that. The combustion tests are for checking efficient burning of the Methane/Natural gas to ensure that the byproducts are CO2 and water rather than lots of CO gas. If high proportions of CO , then this could point to a fault in the boiler or maybe not enough air/oxygen supply to allow proper burning.

My email:
Hi Mike

My elderly parents have not had their boiler serviced (Kingfisher Potterton ) for a few years after I checked with my father
I experienced a financial shock 2 years ago having my old glowworm boiler annual service where the engineer shut it down as Immediate Risk (after it failed a combustion test). This was in December 2015 and I was freezing cold for over a month while I had to borrow £3500 for installing a new boiler and all the other add-ons to comply with new regulations (pipework , hot water cylinder efficency , etc etc). It was strange because the same company serviced it a year previous and said there was nothing wrong but still had to charge me their normal fee of £75 .

I had to take the engineers word for it that it was unsafe but it was old with old asbestos seals etc so needed replacing anyway but my own CO monitor never went off once. So I did doubt the integrity of his checks when he said that CO readings were over 10 times the safe limit.

But obviously, I am now concerned about the same happening to my elderly parents whose health could be at risk if their boiler got shut down because of some new health and safety regulation. I have installed CO monitors close to the boiler (ie. within 5 ft ) and they haven't been triggered so hoping any combustion tests will not give the engineer an excuse to shut it down.

My questions are :
1. If it fails the combustion test but the CO monitor is not being triggered , can I question the integrity of their measuring instruments and stop them shutting off the boiler?

2. There is another new regulation (impacting my parents current old installation) concerning hatches that need installing if the parts of the flue are in voids or hidden behind casings or false walls which block view access to check if safe. If the engineer cannot inspect the full length of the flue they can ask the owner if they can shut down the boiler. Can we prevent them from shutting down the boiler until we can have time to install these hatches? Again , doing all this work can add up to several hundred pounds , even thousands if there is a long flue. This is very worrying for my elderly parents who are now having second thoughts about getting an annual service done.

Mikes reply :
1) Yes you can. They are obliged to issue you with a written warning notice but they can only shut off the boiler with your express permission. And yes I'd always question their CO readings. The important value is the CO to CO2 ratio. This must be equal to or smaller than 0.004. Ask to see the print-out or the display on their machine.

2) Again yes you can refuse permission to shut down the boiler. They must issue you with a warning notice and label the boiler but they cannot stop you using it. It's good advice to stop using it though while you verify their findings!

Bear in mind the concealed flue access requirements only apply to modern fan-flued boilers. Old format 'conventional flue' (chimney) type of boilers are not subject to these requirements and have a different testing procedure. Younger gas bods often seem unable to understand this distinction.!

southcoastrgi

Yes no hatches is AR (At Risk) & is labled as such & you are advised not to use it, ID (immediately dangerous) is a different matter, yes he is correct that it can't be capped off by the engineer without your permission HOWEVER if the engineer says it's ID & you refuse then they will phone nat grid (Transco as it used to be) & they will cap the appliance or your complete gas supply & you can't say no to them

Nilrem

Humbug.

Your store bought CO monitor will be far less sensitive than the gas technicians model that has been certified and tested on a regular basis (and probably cost several times more than your alarm just for it's last calibration testing*)

As I said earlier in the thread his unit is checking the emissions at source (IIRC they actually suck the air past the sensor at a set rate), a consumer alarm goes by the ambient level where the alarm is - which means it doesn't start to register a problem until potentially the entire room is affected.
The one the gas technician uses is there to find out if there is a problem before it becomes an active threat to life and give a reading to let them know how close it is to that threat level, and does so by measuring at source (so it's not affected by that droughty window).

As southcoastrgi says they may not be able to shut the boiler off if it's not an immediate danger, but IIRC the technician can't legally leave a dangerous appliance in use (he could from memory face criminal charges if anything happened), so if need be he could contact the gas supply company who do have the power to go as far as to force entry under certain conditions,


In short stop getting hung up on the fact your CO alarm didn't trigger.
They are not scientific tools unlike the tech's unit, the CO alarm is for when things have become a danger now, whilst the tech tools are intended to stop it reaching that point.

*Getting scientific/diagnostic level measuring equipment calibrated can easily cost hundreds, and the unit the gas technicians use is such a device.

HUMBUG

Many thanks for this information. So how would we know for certain whether the Gas Engineer's measuring equipment was calibrated correctly? If for example we did have an unscrupulous tradesperson saying that the boiler has failed the combustion test and shut it down, how could we check whether his equipment had been tampered with? I suspect we'd have to ask him to not turn it off until we'd paid for a 2nd combustion test via another company. I know its paranoia to think this way but there are lots of con artists out there who can make big money from helpless people. I just think Gas Safe need to give the public some options to double-check the integrity of these checks. From what I've heard , 70% of all Gas safety checks are not carried out properly and to Gas Safe standards (there was a petition about this which was rejected by the Government) , so it really is a bit of a mess.
With regards the combustion tests , I don't see how these can be completed if you have a flue that exits via a chimney . How can an engineer check the expelled fumes for CO/CO2 ratios without climbing up the roof and pointing his sampling tool down the chimney?