Gas Engineer Broke My Boiler

Scrawler

Hello, I would really appreciate help and advise on this. It's a long write up but please stick with me.

We have recently moved into property that had Ideal Logic boiler - fully serviced up to date, previous owner not had any issues and has left all proof and receipts of all repairs and servicing. Now 4 weeks after me moving into we've found that boiler keeps on switching off as pressure goes to 0. I would depressurise it but in a day or so it would go back to 0. After taking the boiler door of I found that Pressure release valve was dripping slowly.

I posted an ad on MyBuilder an a local company said that they will turn up on Friday to quote. Engineer came on time and quoted £300 + VAT to fix the issue, I was at work and agreed over the phone. Engineer got the parts, came back home and somewhere during the installation something went wrong and water exploded all over the boiler covering our all electrical components, sockets, ceiling, floor etc. My wife ran down to check on him, he apologised and said that this happens sometimes. She did not say anything to me.

20 minutes later I get a call from this companies office to say they found that PCB is now failing, I was surprised as it was working fine before but they said that they will do me a deal and will not charge labour - just £200 for the part, I didn't know what to do so have accepted it.

Engineer went to pick up the part and started installing and I got home and found that he was trying to dry all the electrical components in the boiler with a hairdryer. He explained that now pump has got some water somehow, said that "it's no one's error" and that he has one in his garage at home and will help out by coming tomorrow morning to fit it. He left and my wife explained about the explosion. I got furious, messaged the manager asking why did they charge for PCB which was working fine until the flooding and manager responded that engineer will come back the following day and he will refund me for the PCB.

Engineer returned on Saturday with the pump from his garage, fitted it but the whole boiler was now tripping as soon as you turn it on. Engineer said he couldn't do much more and we need brand new pump unit. I confirmed to the manager that it's not our fault that they have flooder our boiler and that they need to repair it now. He started to get defensive, no one returned on Monday and on Tuesday finally engineer came back with a new pump. Fitted it but boiler is still tripping.

At this point I've got a message from this company saying that they have already spent too much on something that wasn't their fault. Their main excuse is that the boiler is over 10 years old and that it was problematic (it was working fine apart from the leak). Their manager has processed a full refund of everything we spent with them so far and said that I could keep the new parts he installed but he is not interested in fixing or replacing my boiler at his expense. After processing the refund he concluded that since I accepted the refund the matter is completed.

Now what we're left with now is a broken boiler that potentially needs to be replaced. What are my changes of getting a report done by another company of the cause for the boiler to fail and if it's the flooding then takin them to small claims for a new boiler or whatever I pay from my pocket to get it sorted? Does me accepting refund for the parts I paid so far somehow negate my right to sue them for braking my boiler and incurring me additional costs proven that it's them that caused it?

What are your thoughts please?

Thank you

Simas

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

You'd be entitled to claim damages if you can demonstrate they caused the damage but you would have to consider that the boiler was 10 years old so I don't think you can claim for the full cost of a new boiler, only the value of the rest of it's expected lifespan which you have lost.

Aylesbury_Duck

As above, at best you would only get a contribution to a replacement boiler.  To do so you would have to provide reasonable evidence the company put your boiler into its current state.  As you suggest, that might best be done by paying a second gas installer to look at the boiler and give his written opinion on what was the likely situation before it was touched and whether anything the company did caused the problem.

Scrawler

I appreciate your time to read through this and confirm my thoughts. I was hoping that they would be entitled to fully pay up for a new boiler as even though it was old it was working just fine. I have organised a gas engineer to come down to inspect it and provide a quote.

Aylesbury_Duck

Scrawler said:

I appreciate your time to read through this and confirm my thoughts. I was hoping that they would be entitled to fully pay up for a new boiler as even though it was old it was working just fine. I have organised a gas engineer to come down to inspect it and provide a quote.

That would be betterment - you'd have a brand new boiler in place of a 10+ year old faulty one.  We'd all be hoping gas engineers break our old boilers!

Hopefully you'll get a contribution to a new one.  As you've recently moved in, at least you'll know that a new boiler should be reliable for your time in that house, or at least a good chunk of it if you live there for many years.

Jumblebumble

Scrawler said:

Hello, I would really appreciate help and advise on this. It's a long write up but please stick with me.

We have recently moved into property that had Ideal Logic boiler - fully serviced up to date, previous owner not had any issues and has left all proof and receipts of all repairs and servicing. Now 4 weeks after me moving into we've found that boiler keeps on switching off as pressure goes to 0. I would depressurise it but in a day or so it would go back to 0. After taking the boiler door of I found that Pressure release valve was dripping slowly.

I posted an ad on MyBuilder an a local company said that they will turn up on Friday to quote. Engineer came on time and quoted £300 + VAT to fix the issue, I was at work and agreed over the phone. Engineer got the parts, came back home and somewhere during the installation something went wrong and water exploded all over the boiler covering our all electrical components, sockets, ceiling, floor etc. My wife ran down to check on him, he apologised and said that this happens sometimes. She did not say anything to me.

20 minutes later I get a call from this companies office to say they found that PCB is now failing, I was surprised as it was working fine before but they said that they will do me a deal and will not charge labour - just £200 for the part, I didn't know what to do so have accepted it.

Engineer went to pick up the part and started installing and I got home and found that he was trying to dry all the electrical components in the boiler with a hairdryer. He explained that now pump has got some water somehow, said that "it's no one's error" and that he has one in his garage at home and will help out by coming tomorrow morning to fit it. He left and my wife explained about the explosion. I got furious, messaged the manager asking why did they charge for PCB which was working fine until the flooding and manager responded that engineer will come back the following day and he will refund me for the PCB.

Engineer returned on Saturday with the pump from his garage, fitted it but the whole boiler was now tripping as soon as you turn it on. Engineer said he couldn't do much more and we need brand new pump unit. I confirmed to the manager that it's not our fault that they have flooder our boiler and that they need to repair it now. He started to get defensive, no one returned on Monday and on Tuesday finally engineer came back with a new pump. Fitted it but boiler is still tripping.

At this point I've got a message from this company saying that they have already spent too much on something that wasn't their fault. Their main excuse is that the boiler is over 10 years old and that it was problematic (it was working fine apart from the leak). Their manager has processed a full refund of everything we spent with them so far and said that I could keep the new parts he installed but he is not interested in fixing or replacing my boiler at his expense. After processing the refund he concluded that since I accepted the refund the matter is completed.

Now what we're left with now is a broken boiler that potentially needs to be replaced. What are my changes of getting a report done by another company of the cause for the boiler to fail and if it's the flooding then takin them to small claims for a new boiler or whatever I pay from my pocket to get it sorted? Does me accepting refund for the parts I paid so far somehow negate my right to sue them for braking my boiler and incurring me additional costs proven that it's them that caused it?

What are your thoughts please?

Thank you

Simas

I think you will be out of luck unfortunately
I can testify that Ideal boilers are an absolute nightmare when they get old
So much so that even Ideals own fixed price repair service will simply refund if they cannot repair.
On my own 6 year old a simple repair of no hot water turned into a £700 job by a gas repair man who I have known for 20 years 
This is because some bits on these boilers seize  ( Ie flow turbine) and others are made of cheese, and as soon as you disturb one part others fail and it ended up with mine cutting out 
The only advice I would have given is to ring ideals technical support while he was there as they provided a lot of diagnosis ref tripping which is not in the manual and can correct some of the  of the nonsense diagnosis by boiler "experts"
 
Here is an example
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From the Ideal manual es24  faultfinding 
ALTERNATING ‘L’ AND ‘2’ - Ignition 
Is 215Vdc supply available at the Gas Valve? (* See note)

* Note: due to the wave form of the rectified voltage, the reading will vary depending on the type of meter used to measure the

value. In general terms a reading greater than 150V indicates that the correct voltage is supplied to the gas valve.
This means 3b below is rubbish but that company  will replace the PCB if they measure 160V  on the gas valve cause they do not know the difference between ac and dc and they do not read the manual

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Smart Plumbing UK

Wakefield • Member since 12 Jun 2018 • 247 jobs, 98% positive feedback

To investigation L2 issue on Logic boiler

Check if you have 240v from PCB to gas valve with multimeter.

3B. If you don’t have 220-240V from PCB to gas valve then you will need a new PCB

This test should be carried out by competent person.

lincroft1710

You had/have a 10 year old boiler which had a fault (It was not working "fine". So it was probably worth nothing and needed replacing anyway. If the engineers offer you anything, just take it!