Boiler issues / Pipework illegal.

pedram

@Jeepers_Creepers - thanks so much really appreciate your help it's really informative He made quite a few baseless statements, so yeah total BS in particular accusing me of having an un-registered boiler. I had to dig around in search of the paperwork but found it, here is my first response - the call out was £110, sorry to hear about your experience also.

"I have the building regulation compliance certificate to confirm that the work has been carried out by a Gas Safe registered business. I have his name, registration number and date of work for the installation of that boiler.

So your engineer’s reasons were wrong and therefore there is no evidence that you should have refused that job on site.

As a customer, this feels like a scare tactic by telling me that the set-up is illegal, not registered, not safe etc. These are very serious statements and even more serious is that you’re making them with no evidence or any effort to seek that evidence.

I now request a full refund"

The story continues let's see what he says.. 

Jeepers_Creepers

Excellent!

(In my situation, I got a full refund (£95) as I believed they used tenuous info in making their decision to not proceed with the fixed-price repair. They initially said 'non' to my request for a refund, but I persisted. To me these cases come down to what I believe is fair and reasonable. If I genuinely believe a decision was poor or unjustified, I pursue it. Your case is FAR more blatant than mine!)

Keep us posted. You have plenty more backup info to take it further - you can challenge them on their actual claims on the day (the pipework, the 'Ravenheat' make!) and you also have the power of the media.

pedram

Hey All,

Here's a new update, I've been calling around other boiler companies and they don't see any issues with coming out and fixing the boiler after seeing the pipework, they have the same assumption - it's only a 6 year old boiler, if they can repair it, it's worth a try and the boiler is probably being condemned because it's a Ravenheat. 

I had an email back from the company here's their response, note the engineer told the Ravenheat owner that it wasn't installed by a Gas Safe Engineer which is totally incorrect!  

''I’m not sure why you think we are wrong? The engineer you have used has carried out an installation in breach of regulations! Below is the owner of Ravenheat and his opinion of the installation after we sent him photos on social media… we assumed it was not fitted by a Gas Safe installer as it is illegal. 

My recommendation to you is that you either a) report this to gas safe immediately, or b) if you still trust him, call the installer and tell him he will need to come back and correct all of the errors on the installation''

I think it's now coming down to a matter of opinion, there are companies out there who are more than happy to work on this boiler and see no issues with the pipework. The company that unfortunately I'm dealing with turned down the job on site, they didn't perform a diagnostic of the boiler which was their main job so in my eyes they shouldn't have asked for the full call out charge. They instead offered to take off the call out fee on a brand new £2.5k boiler, nice 

The fact that they keep stating that the boiler wasn't installed by a Gas Safe engineer as a reason to not do any work, is still beyond me - as I have the certificate to prove it.

At the time I remember telling the engineer that it passed 'Building Regs' but he said that means nothing, as it could have been a brown evolve slipped under the table.  I then questioned him why didn't the British Gas engineer flag your concerns, they answered that the company is so large they make up their own rules.

To be continued...

pedram

@Jeepers_Creepers, I’m glad you got a refund by the way. I agree, it totally comes down to if a decision was fair and reasonable. If you are a fair person, I expect to get treated the same way. I can be wrong however speaking to multiple companies, and advice on here -  it doesn’t seem to be the case. Hopefully putting up this information online helps others in our situation.

I find boiler repairs a tricky area to be honest - £110 for a 10min diagnostic call out, then extra money to fix the issue on the day (if they do it ). Then more money if they need to replace a part + labor for the next day call back. Speaking to an owner of a boiler company today – he was saying that many companies simply don’t want to fix the boilers anymore and just want to replace them with new ones. However a £200 fix / clean can cost the owner £2.5k+ for a new boiler for no good reason. 

What I do have issues with is the refusal to work on a boiler and getting paid for it, and then getting a quote for £2.5k the next day without any options. Then getting told my boiler is illegal and hasn't been installed by a Gas Safe engineer - without any effort to seek this information from me.  This company may be doing what others do, however it’s totally bizarre to me how they can try and get away with things like this. So I’m very pleased that they are places like this we can seek advice from a community.

lesalanos

Reply to the owner of ravenheat stating the facts 

comeandgo

How do you know that e Mail is from owner of ravenheat and not a mate from down the pub?

theoretica

I snooped a little - and am suspicious.  Couldn't find a public profile of a director of Ravensheat which looked anything like that, and if the company you dealt with hated the boilers they would be unlikely to be personal friends the owner. And why go personal not to Ravensheat's business account?  May of course be my inability to search, but...

pedram

Hey all, I blocked the users because I didn't want to name and shame them yet until I get all the facts straight - however the response was from John Wilson, apparently he's the Ravenheat technical service and training manager.

pedram

Actually it's quite ironic that they reached out to him - I have watched John Wilson's youTube video's in the past to trouble shooting my boiler faults. One of the things he was adamant about was engineers fixing boilers. Would be good to let him know actually, that this guy refused to work on it due to the manufactures reputation and rather install a Worcester Bosch - 25i ErP Greenstar..    

southcoastrgi

Ok here's my 5p worth, John Wilson is one of the most respected guys in the heating industry, there is nothing wrong with Ravenheat & were let down in the past by selling through the sheds & getting fitted by muppets, obviously I can't see the gas pipework in voids (if there is any) but nothing I can see in your photos equate to AR, is the plastic too close yes it is, is it causing a problem well not for 6 years it hasn't, the rest of what they have said is just crap, would I repair the boiler yes of course