Boiler failed what are your rights advice please.

user1900

Our combination boiler is under a ten year warranty which includes repairs and callouts direct from the manufacturers. 

It's failed for the first time today. You are required to phone the manufacturer for them to arrange a repair. After an hour on the phone, we were told it would be next week before anyone could come out, so Tuesday morning, engineer visit next Monday, hopefully. 

We are over 70, with disabilities, this isn't a rented house. 

The boiler is pouring a steady stream of water from the casing, the telephone operative advised how to turn the water off to the boiler. We did that, it is still leaking. 

So to cut this short, we have no heating, no hot water and now we are faced with turning off the main house water supply as well. We don't have anywhere we could go meantime. 

The boiler company have expressed the engineers visit to sometime this Thursday. We did ask them for their advice as to where we could go for help, they couldn't offer any advice. 

Is it legal for them to leave vulnerable people without heat, hot water and now no water to a house for two days? When the boiler is under repair warranty? 

thanks for any advice you can offer. 

ArbitraryRandom

I can't help with the no hot water etc question, but I would suggest you check your home insurance - if you contact them it might be they'll pay for you to stay in a local budget hotel for a couple of days (given the forecast low temps and no water)? 

Brie

Are they aware that it is leaking?  If so and they're still saying next week point out that this isn't workable and ask if they will be rehousing you for the interim.  If they say no (most likely) ask if you can get someone local to come have a look to do a (possibly) temporary fix at their expense.  If none of this is helping then you might try contacting your building insurance to see what solutions they can offer as the boiler company's delays will mean that you will need to continue to have a water supply so the leak will likely cause damage.

user1900

Thanks ArbitaryRandom, I never thought of contacting the house insurance company. I'm currently trying to arrange for an emergency plumber that we are paying for, waiting to hear back if they can make it out today. I'm shocked with the response we had from the boiler company to be honest. Ended up chatting via live chat, it was more like we were talking to a chat bot. 

eskbanker

user1900 said:

Is it legal for them to leave vulnerable people without heat, hot water and now no water to a house for two days? When the boiler is under repair warranty?

What do the terms of the warranty say?

A manufacturer warranty will typically be accepting the financial impact of repairs but I'd have thought it would be unusual for it to commit to a service level that guaranteed a fix (or even attendance) within n hours/days/weeks, so you might need some sort of enhanced service if temporary boiler failure is problematic.

user1900

Brie said:

Are they aware that it is leaking?  If so and they're still saying next week point out that this isn't workable and ask if they will be rehousing you for the interim.  If they say no (most likely) ask if you can get someone local to come have a look to do a (possibly) temporary fix at their expense.  If none of this is helping then you might try contacting your building insurance to see what solutions they can offer as the boiler company's delays will mean that you will need to continue to have a water supply so the leak will likely cause damage.

Yes, they know it's leaking, they actually asked my Husband to go into the boiler housing and turn the water off, even without them knowing what the issue was. We were initially told someone would ring us back within a few minutes, but when they did call back a couple of hours later, they phoned the wrong number, so we had to get hold of them again. 

They know that their suggestion to turn off the water didn't work, they also know we don't have any other form of heating, no electric heaters, no hot water and no mains water to the house, if we turn that off. Plus they know we don't have any other family members we can ask for help. When we asked what we should do we were told, sorry for any inconvenience caused. 

greyteam1959

My elderly ( very ) parents had a similar situation with a fridge freezer in one of the very hot summers a few years ago.
Been paying a fortune every year for breakdown insurance for the product.
It stopped working & they were told it would be 10 days before an engineer could visit.
Ridiculous situation.

user1900

eskbanker said:

user1900 said:

Is it legal for them to leave vulnerable people without heat, hot water and now no water to a house for two days? When the boiler is under repair warranty?

What do the terms of the warranty say?

A manufacturer warranty will typically be accepting the financial impact of repairs but I'd have thought it would be unusual for it to commit to a service level that guaranteed a fix (or even attendance) within n hours/days/weeks, so you might need some sort of enhanced service if temporary boiler failure is problematic.

The warranty is only valid on the boiler if you have repairs fixed by the boiler company. When we had the boiler fitted the company that fitted it told us not to purchase extra boiler cover, they said it was covered by the manufacture and they were good, they'd come straight out. 

user1900

My Husband has just told me he's read the instructions booklet, the man from the boiler company telephone line had told him to turn the wrong shut offs, they were for the heating side. That didn't stop the water, so my Husband told the Ideal Boilers telephone operative it didn't work, he was told the water would eventually run through and stop. It hasn't, this is several hours later. 

user1900

My Husband has just told me he's read the instructions booklet, the man from the boiler company telephone line had told him to turn the wrong shut offs, they were for the heating side. That didn't stop the water, so my Husband told the Ideal Boilers telephone operative it didn't work, he was told the water would eventually run through and stop. It hasn't, this is several hours later. 

user1900

greyteam1959 said:

My elderly ( very ) parents had a similar situation with a fridge freezer in one of the very hot summers a few years ago.
Been paying a fortune every year for breakdown insurance for the product.
It stopped working & they were told it would be 10 days before an engineer could visit.
Ridiculous situation.

It's worrying how things are going isn't it. I hope they managed to get it sorted in the end.