Boiler failure due to fire - company won't refund call out charge

Tg87

IDEAL BOILERS

I have an Ideal boiler which is out of warranty and I incurred a significant fixed call out charge of £275 as it had stopped working (they wont come unless you pay in advance)- THE ENGINEERS EXPLANATION FOR FAILURE WAS THE BOILER CAUGHT FIRE - he had never seem this in his whole career.

I called Ideal & challenged the fact that I have had to pay £275 for the call out when Ideal have not provided me with an appropriate duty of care and put myself at significant risk.

Customer services said that the boiler had not defected – despite being supplied with photographic evidence of clear evidence of the 'PCB' Part within the boiler catching fire -their response to my view that the fire could have caused an explosion was that I should not discuss “hypothetical situations” and that the fire was “not dangerous”- in one call they even claimed that the boiler had not caught fire and even said upon following up with the engineer at my house that he claimed there was no fire.

I have gone through a merry go round of sending emails and speaking to various seniority levels within their customer services but they won't budge.

I was wondering if anyone could kindly advise on what I should do next and whether I have grounds on taking it any further?

Cardew

Welcome to the forum.


Make a formal complaint in writing, and if you get an unsatisfactory result, you can go to the Small Claims court. You might want to first see if the local council trading standards office will advise.


However as it is out of warranty, you might need to get some independent engineer to support your contention that it is inherently unsafe and the company's defence doesn't hold water.

System

Tg87 wrote: »

I called Ideal & challenged the fact that I have had to pay £275 for the call out when Ideal have not provided me with an appropriate duty of care and put myself at significant risk.

I agree with Cardew that I fear you will have difficulty proving that Ideal was at fault. Every piece of mechanical/electrical equipment has a failure rate. In most cases, the equipment will just stop working and, in other rare cases, there will be a secondary effect. The fact that the engineer has never come across this type of failure before suggests there isn't an inherent design defect in the boiler's design. I assume that the boiler wasn't beyond economic repair despite the fact that it caught 'fire.'? If it was, then you might suggest to Ideal that they make you a goodwill offer on a new boiler.

brewerdave

I had a major failure with an Ideal Icos boiler @ 9 years old; some insulation clips failed resulting in the insulation falling inwards and blocking the flame burner, distorting the back plate and melting/shorting all the wiring -BANG ! Ideal didn't want to know - claimed it wasn't a design fault -wouldn't even send an engineer to view with my plumber. No goodwill gestures ,nada.