Power cut broke our Central heating boiler

WhistleBlow

We recently had a power cut, this is not a rare happening and has become a regular event.

Not good, so we have a number of UPS's on the property, office and broadband to help compensate and protect Computer equipment.

It started on Friday 13th September at about 8am and as we work from home.

On this occasion the power returned, but the central heating clock did not give the correct time as it normally does. We tried to reset it and test heating/ hot water, but the Controller / Clock / Boiler would not fire up. We are fortunate to have a very local Boiler Service and called him, he talked me through a number of checks and resets.

But to no avail, he said he was just round the corner and would pop in, he tried all the usual stuff but found the Controller / clock to have been fried. We were fortunate as he carries a spare controller and fitted it and sure enough after clock / setting had been set the system fired up.

Boiler Engineer informed me that has the system was on at the time the electric came back on, his diagnosis that the surge had taken the controller out.

I was advised to send the invoice to electricity company.

My question is who is responsible and should receive the invoice for call out and part?

Ayr_Rage

It is not unusual for boiler control boards to fail when the power goes off and then on again, they seem very susceptible to this type of interruption.

Unless you can get the grid to admit there was an actual over voltage spike then you won't get any compensation.

If that had happened then you'd be looking at fried fridges, other mains devices and even your UPSs as they are not always immune to input spikes.

Ergates

Try your home insurance.

Jumblebumble

WhistleBlow said:

We recently had a power cut, this is not a rare happening and has become a regular event.

Not good, so we have a number of UPS's on the property, office and broadband to help compensate and protect Computer equipment.

It started on Friday 13th September at about 8am and as we work from home.

On this occasion the power returned, but the central heating clock did not give the correct time as it normally does. We tried to reset it and test heating/ hot water, but the Controller / Clock / Boiler would not fire up. We are fortunate to have a very local Boiler Service and called him, he talked me through a number of checks and resets.

But to no avail, he said he was just round the corner and would pop in, he tried all the usual stuff but found the Controller / clock to have been fried. We were fortunate as he carries a spare controller and fitted it and sure enough after clock / setting had been set the system fired up.

Boiler Engineer informed me that has the system was on at the time the electric came back on, his diagnosis that the surge had taken the controller out.

I was advised to send the invoice to electricity company.

My question is who is responsible and should receive the invoice for call out and part?

Your boiler engineer appears not to be very experienced
There is no way in my view that the Electricity company will be paying anything
As Ayr_Rage says they will simply say maintain that it  was an old board and the disconnecting and reconnecting of power was enough to kill it
I am not 100% convinced that surges from the grid are a thing nowadays in any event as the electricity companies will work to very tight tolerances

jefaz07

Jumblebumble said:

WhistleBlow said:

We recently had a power cut, this is not a rare happening and has become a regular event.

Not good, so we have a number of UPS's on the property, office and broadband to help compensate and protect Computer equipment.

It started on Friday 13th September at about 8am and as we work from home.

On this occasion the power returned, but the central heating clock did not give the correct time as it normally does. We tried to reset it and test heating/ hot water, but the Controller / Clock / Boiler would not fire up. We are fortunate to have a very local Boiler Service and called him, he talked me through a number of checks and resets.

But to no avail, he said he was just round the corner and would pop in, he tried all the usual stuff but found the Controller / clock to have been fried. We were fortunate as he carries a spare controller and fitted it and sure enough after clock / setting had been set the system fired up.

Boiler Engineer informed me that has the system was on at the time the electric came back on, his diagnosis that the surge had taken the controller out.

I was advised to send the invoice to electricity company.

My question is who is responsible and should receive the invoice for call out and part?

Your boiler engineer appears not to be very experienced
There is no way in my view that the Electricity company will be paying anything
As Ayr_Rage says they will simply say maintain that it  was an old board and the disconnecting and reconnecting of power was enough to kill it
I am not 100% convinced that surges from the grid are a thing nowadays in any event as the electricity companies will work to very tight tolerances

These kind of things happen. Today, whilst repairing a boiler I turned the power off at the fused spur to work on it. When I turned the power back on, the clock broke. Just like that. Unfortunate but happens. 

Aylesbury_Duck

I agree, sounds like one of those things.  Everything has a lifespan and something like an unexpected power cut can be enough to cause an ageing component to fail.

If there was an unusually strong power surge, it's likely that other appliances in your home and those of your neighbours (if this was a local power cut) would have problems. 

ComicGeek

Jumblebumble said:

WhistleBlow said:

We recently had a power cut, this is not a rare happening and has become a regular event.

Not good, so we have a number of UPS's on the property, office and broadband to help compensate and protect Computer equipment.

It started on Friday 13th September at about 8am and as we work from home.

On this occasion the power returned, but the central heating clock did not give the correct time as it normally does. We tried to reset it and test heating/ hot water, but the Controller / Clock / Boiler would not fire up. We are fortunate to have a very local Boiler Service and called him, he talked me through a number of checks and resets.

But to no avail, he said he was just round the corner and would pop in, he tried all the usual stuff but found the Controller / clock to have been fried. We were fortunate as he carries a spare controller and fitted it and sure enough after clock / setting had been set the system fired up.

Boiler Engineer informed me that has the system was on at the time the electric came back on, his diagnosis that the surge had taken the controller out.

I was advised to send the invoice to electricity company.

My question is who is responsible and should receive the invoice for call out and part?

Your boiler engineer appears not to be very experienced
There is no way in my view that the Electricity company will be paying anything
As Ayr_Rage says they will simply say maintain that it  was an old board and the disconnecting and reconnecting of power was enough to kill it
I am not 100% convinced that surges from the grid are a thing nowadays in any event as the electricity companies will work to very tight tolerances

I've been monitoring our supply voltage at home for a few years, as it is regularly exceeding the maximum voltages allowed. I contact UKPN each time it exceeds 253V and they are good in investigating and dealing with it - but a few months later it starts to rise again. UKPN don't actually monitor it themselves on a local level, and not many people will be monitoring it themselves in their home - it's only because my home battery system logs the grid voltage that I'm able to identify it.

I've also had to replace 2 heating controllers after we had power surges and cuts every morning for 2 months before they found a fault on a local pole. I can't prove it's their fault, so won't be sending them the invoices for the parts, but it definitely happens. Modern boards have very little tolerance for surges.

PHK

Is that RMS voltage you are measuring? And of the mains supply. 

(As the voltage is subject to the load and wiring) 

WhistleBlow

Jumblebumble said:

WhistleBlow said:

We recently had a power cut, this is not a rare happening and has become a regular event.

Not good, so we have a number of UPS's on the property, office and broadband to help compensate and protect Computer equipment.

It started on Friday 13th September at about 8am and as we work from home.

On this occasion the power returned, but the central heating clock did not give the correct time as it normally does. We tried to reset it and test heating/ hot water, but the Controller / Clock / Boiler would not fire up. We are fortunate to have a very local Boiler Service and called him, he talked me through a number of checks and resets.

But to no avail, he said he was just round the corner and would pop in, he tried all the usual stuff but found the Controller / clock to have been fried. We were fortunate as he carries a spare controller and fitted it and sure enough after clock / setting had been set the system fired up.

Boiler Engineer informed me that has the system was on at the time the electric came back on, his diagnosis that the surge had taken the controller out.

I was advised to send the invoice to electricity company.

My question is who is responsible and should receive the invoice for call out and part?

Your boiler engineer appears not to be very experienced
There is no way in my view that the Electricity company will be paying anything
As Ayr_Rage says they will simply say maintain that it  was an old board and the disconnecting and reconnecting of power was enough to kill it
I am not 100% convinced that surges from the grid are a thing nowadays in any event as the electricity companies will work to very tight tolerances

Just been paid 80% of the Boiler damage bill. It possibly helped that a couple of other failures were also reported in the village. NG not accepting liability and this is a "good will payment".  And we are still progressing a Formal complaint, only they don't know their own complaints process, just waiting for deadlock letter to take it to Energy Ombudsman.

Jumblebumble

WhistleBlow said:

Jumblebumble said:

WhistleBlow said:

We recently had a power cut, this is not a rare happening and has become a regular event.

Not good, so we have a number of UPS's on the property, office and broadband to help compensate and protect Computer equipment.

It started on Friday 13th September at about 8am and as we work from home.

On this occasion the power returned, but the central heating clock did not give the correct time as it normally does. We tried to reset it and test heating/ hot water, but the Controller / Clock / Boiler would not fire up. We are fortunate to have a very local Boiler Service and called him, he talked me through a number of checks and resets.

But to no avail, he said he was just round the corner and would pop in, he tried all the usual stuff but found the Controller / clock to have been fried. We were fortunate as he carries a spare controller and fitted it and sure enough after clock / setting had been set the system fired up.

Boiler Engineer informed me that has the system was on at the time the electric came back on, his diagnosis that the surge had taken the controller out.

I was advised to send the invoice to electricity company.

My question is who is responsible and should receive the invoice for call out and part?

Your boiler engineer appears not to be very experienced
There is no way in my view that the Electricity company will be paying anything
As Ayr_Rage says they will simply say maintain that it  was an old board and the disconnecting and reconnecting of power was enough to kill it
I am not 100% convinced that surges from the grid are a thing nowadays in any event as the electricity companies will work to very tight tolerances

Just been paid 80% of the Boiler damage bill. It possibly helped that a couple of other failures were also reported in the village. NG not accepting liability and this is a "good will payment".  And we are still progressing a Formal complaint, only they don't know their own complaints process, just waiting for deadlock letter to take it to Energy Ombudsman.

Well I was wrong
Thats a great result

WhistleBlow

Energy Ombudsman was a waste of time.