Gas engineer condemned my boiler

molerat

CashStrapped wrote: »

I had a situation where, back when my parents had homecare, a BG engineer came to test the 35-40 year old boiler.

This thing had chugged away for many a year without any problems, inefficient yes, liable to ever break down....no.

Anyway, this BG engineer spent about 30mins longer than any other check (just thorough we thought) and he was about to leave when he decided to do one last Carbon monoxide test, got a reading from somewhere and condemned the boiler, no ifs or buts.

He felt that it could have been a failed rope seal (could not prove it), which was no longer produced as a certified part. The one we had probably had asbestos in it and they did not make them any more. He also made the case that it was inaccessible due to the boilers age. If he took it down, it would never go back up.

We asked for a second opinion, the area manager came who repeated the same story.

This was conveniently just before winter.

I was really not happy with their story, it smelt fishy, so asked a local firm to come and have a look. They gave no promises however (which was fair enough). He accessed the rope seal within 5 minutes (it looked old but OK). Produced a modern equivalent of the rope seal (non-asbestos) which was a very common generic part (not manufacturer specific). Applied some heat proof cement to a few areas on the flue exhaust (which seemed fine anyway). Fired it up. Worked perfectly, no Carbon monoxide detected.

I would also point out that the CO detector in the kitchen, never detected a thing. Call me a cynic but I think the engineer went looking for a reading. Nothing to prove it, but the whole situation was odd. Maybe they thought my parents were easy targets for a sale, who knows.

To cap it all off, the other firm said that it looked like the boiler had not been properly serviced in a long time.

Needless to say, a complaint followed and BG, to their credit, refunded the cost of the "repair" and re-activation by the other firm.

I convinced my parents to cancel it shortly after.

House_Martin wrote: »

Thank you Cashstrapped. I remember BG being hauled before BBC s Watchdog with Ann Robinson presiding, accused of exactly the same sort of thing.Condemning boilers because they said the "part was nt available ". They fitted a 6k system to replace the old boiler to this old ladys house. After Watchdog found the part within a few minutes at several different outlets , BG s bosses answer to this was that the part was nt available in their warehouse !. He got off just about from an accusation of fraud by profiteering. I have no faith in many Gas safe engineers when they trot out the same excuse.

Similar issues for my son. Overheat tripping and boiler "unrepairable - no parts available" by both BG, who had just about replaced the boiler bit by bit over many visits trying to fix it, and a local indy. I fixed it by firstly looking at the logic diagram for the operation and understanding it then doing some proper fault diagnosis, both of which seem to be outside the capabilities of several different gas safe registered people . The fault was not even on the boiler !

Keep_pedalling

I would challenge the assumption that all modern boilers are unreliable and won't last. Our 5 year old Viessmann has performed flawlessly without a single fault, although the main warrantee has now expired, I've still got 5 years left on the heat exchanger should that fail.

If you are putting the house on the market a new boiler is a good selling point, and you should be able to get your money back on the selling price.

Rubidium

It is very unlikely that a new boiler or even a new gas valve is needed because of a yellow pilot flame. The gas valve has a screw to regulate the flow of gas to the pilot jet. A yellow flame means that the gas to air mixture is incorrect and the jet probably simply needs cleaning by someone who actually knows how to service boilers, rather than one who sees £££££ for condemning it and replacing with a new one. A yellow flame will produce carbon monoxide but a yellow pilot light is not enough to scrap an otherwise reliable working boiler.

Find a real gas fitter!

C_Mababejive

Could OP quote exact make and model of boiler??

System

On removing the front panel the boiler is not a Gloworm as I thought, but a Baxi, model is WM 381 RS.Thanks very much for any help . The boiler is on now and the flame has lots of yellow in it, not just the pilot light. Pilot light is quite big and I suspect it uses more gas than it should.

Norman_Castle

This?
http://www.boilersparesdirect.co.uk/parts-online/shopexd.asp?id=10699

From their page, "If you cannot find the part you are looking for or need help finding the correct spare part for your boiler please do not hesitate to call our helpline on 0197 755 4775, we will be happy to assist."

Enterprise_1701C

We have warm air heating and had a local gas engineer out who promptly condemned it stating that we would have to have a whole new system with a boiler and radiators as no-one did the warm air systems anymore. This was days before Christmas when we had family coming.

The only problem was the fan wasn't turning on when the heating was. The gas was burning cleanly. We promptly turned the gas back on and manually controlled the fan (with instructions from another local engineer). He came out after Christmas and gave us the best quote on a new warm air system (you know, the ones that didn't exist anymore) which has been working well since.

The old one was about 15 years old and genuinely no spare parts were available.

The moral of the story? People want to flog you stuff so will tell you anything they can.

BUT if the flame had been burning orange or yellow I would not have turned it back on.

System

Thank you Norman..£68 for a Honeywell replacement.All three gas men walked out , without looking for a spare part, just said no parts available. I ll try and find someone who will try not to want to fit a complete new system or as Rubicon says, clean the valve jet . Its the yellow flame they all condemned. Thanks to everyone for their much needed imput.

Mr.Generous

Pilot gas jet is really tiny, not sure you could clean one out with anything much bigger than 1 strand of very thin wire. Yellow flame probably more to do with too much gas / not enough air than a blocked jet. If the main flame is yellow it will need a good service / clean, and then adjusting the valve to get it blue again. I too would not replace it, old boilers don't have complex electronics and parts that fail. Our boiler at home had a new gas valve many years ago, the only part ever changed since is the thermocouple (remember those?) for a few £.

zaax

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XJcGKt1USg