Boiler cover - beyond economic repair clause

sigreen

So I have a 2 bed house with tenants. For many years my Ideal Logic boiler has been losing a small amount of water pressure when the heating is on constantly in winter but was otherwise ok. 

The tenants reported an intermittent fault where the hot water would cut out if running a lot of hot water or occasionally in the shower. 

I had boiler cover with Hometree.

Their admin was polite, rapid, efficient and empathetic. They told me they would mark it as a vulnerable person in the house as tenant has an 18mth old baby.
They visited twice, same engineer,  with quick response for 1/2 day the first time, then 1 full day the second time, with ordered parts. 
Then they told me the boiler was beyond economic repair and left the tenants with no hot water at all.

So they made a manageable vulnerable person's situation unacceptable, and abandoned ship. 

The new boiler company they work with for a 15% discount quoted by phone around £2300+ for an average boiler, to be confirmed by home visit.
I ordered a Worcester (normally +300) for just under £2000 with Warmzilla.com online, fixed price installation and they came and fitted the next working day.

So, with my Boiler Insurance - Do I have any recourse?
IN my view it was OK maybe after the first visit to declare it uneconomic to repair, but after the second you would think they would be committed to resolve the situation and certainly not to make it worse?

I put it out there on TrustPilot and was called back within 1/2 day. Should I accept their offer of £50 compensation - or challenge this - and how to go about that?  

another_casualty

Not sure about the initial question regarding the £50 etc. maybe depends on age of boiler .
What I would advise though, is to get your boiler serviced annually by a Worcester Bosch engineer. It will be more expensive , but at least you would have a record on the guarantee and if problems arise in the future WB can't blame engineers from another company .
That's what I've done ..

Bendy_House

It's a toughie, Sigreen. You are largely at their mercy; unless you are informed enough to challenge what they say, then you have to take them at their word. Or, you could get another independent plumber out to investigate. Is it worth it?

(I had a similar situation a few years back. My quite-old (13 years) GlowWorm developed a leak in a split Hydrobloc, and I happened at that time to have a contract with Dom&Gen (or possibly Homserve, can't recall). The guy who came out was good; he started to tally up all the bits he'd need to replace, and my initial alarm was tempered with "If they want to, get on with it...!" Apparently their policy is to replace ALL dodgy parts whilst they are there, so they absolutely do not need to come out again for at LEAST 3 months. Not sure why, but that's what they say.

"New pump... because it has had water sprayed on it." "Um, are you sure? The pump was actually replaced only 5 years back!"

"New P2P exchanger..." "Eh? Why?!"

"Flow switch..." and so it went on.

He then went, "Uh-oh - the total is too high for this age of boiler - it's BER." "Ok, knock the pump or P2P off, then - I know they're fine!" "Soz - can't do that; I've entered it into the laptop."

Now, I don't know to this day if I've been 'played' and that was the guy's intention all along, but he seemed genuine, and seemed truly 'oops' when the 'computer said no'.

And I was charged £95 for the pleasure - the standard call-out even if condemned. That annoyed me. I had a couple of polite-but-firm email exchanges with the company, and told them they couldn't possibly value MY boiler accurately as it has had a new MAIN exchanger, P2P, pump, diverter valve - way more than half of it was less than 7 years old. I also asked for their valuation for all the bits they were intending to replace.

They refunded the £95, and I replaced the leaking Hydrobloc myself...)

So, if you can demonstrate in some way that their BER claim can be challenged, then it's worth trying. But it won't be easy...