Plumbing Issue

AlexHarrison89

Hello All,

New here but hopefully someone can offer a bit of advice..

About 18 months ago we had a new hot water cylinder installed in our flat at a cost of around £2500. This seemed quite expensive to us but were reassured by the thought we'd never need to worry about it again and the apparent speed and professionalism of the company we'd engaged to fit it. We were advised that the workmanship was guaranteed for 12 months and the actual cylinder itself for 10 years.

18 months on and the cylinder appears to have been slowly leaking for around eight weeks now. During this eight week period we've been contacting the company that fitted it to try to resolve. They sent a manager round who advised that it was actually the pipework (which wasn't covered by the guarantee) leaking and that we'd need to pay c. £350 for a call out to fix this.

We were a bit sceptical as we'd had an independent plumber advise that it looked like the cylinder itself was leaking but agreed to proceed with the call out in the hope that this would resolve the problem. The subsequent work doesn't seem to have done anything and the cylinder continues to leak.

The same manager came out a second time and after a bit of pressing from me essentially said that it was impossible to know whether or not it was the actual cylinder leaking without removing it completely and testing for leaks - if it was found not to be leaking then we'd be liable for charges. We've just had an email from him offering to replace the cylinder completely for £1450.

We're relatively inexperienced in this field, being the first time we've had an issue of this type. It doesn't seem very fair that having spent £2500 to have a brand new cylinder fitted, it breaks very quickly and we're told we need to pay a further £1450 to resolve things.

Sorry for the lengthy post and thanks in advance for any advice people can offer!

shaun_from_Africa

Your post is very confusing.

You start off by saying that you had a new hot water cylinder fitted and that this cylinder was guaranteed for 10 years but then you go on to say that it was the boiler that is now leaking.
You then carry on by stating that the original installer has offered to replace the tank (cylinder?) for £1450 and finally you refer to the boiler again.

JJ_Egan

As above .
New HW Cylinder
Possible leak .
No its the pipework .
Independent plumber says its none of the above but the boiler is leaking .

Then you say you have a brand new boiler fitted .

AlexHarrison89

Hello, apologies for any confusion. There's only one piece of equipment which is a boiler/hot water cylinder/tank. I've edited my original post so that's always referred to as a cylinder. Hope this helps clarify things!

[Deleted User]

Might be worth watching this week's Watchdog. Probably not the same problem (easy fix leak that wasn't picked up by incompetent plumber, he advised replacing cylinder instead) but you never know.

I am no expert in this but in your position I would finger tip inspect the pipes to see if there are damp areas, to help detect where the water is coming from. Cut off the electricity supply to the cylinder first.

Dry the area then you could place paper towels under the suspect pipe to confirm if water is leaking from it.

If no luck with that, then concentrate on a close inspection of the cylinder to see if leak is coming from there.