Wrong diagnosis. Who pays?

fabfor

The water on my combi boiler was running hot and cold so I called in a  heating engineer who came highly recommended on a local forum. 

He diagnosed a fault with the heat exchanger and quoted me £425.00, which I accepted. 

However, the fault was still there after he'd replaced the part and he then said the problem must be with the diverter valve, which he duly replaced and charged another £65 plus parts. 

I requested a refund but he refused saying that he couldn't be expected to work for nothing and he refused even a partial refund. I kept my cool. 

I've since checked on YouTube and there are videos explaining that the problem could be caused by the diverter so it's a commonly known fault. 

I would like to claim for a full refund of the £425.00. Where do I stand legally and how best to pursue this? Thanks

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Hello OP

Services must be carried out with due care and skill, which includes someone performing a diagnosis.

With a claim such as this burden of proof falls upon yourself so you would typically need the opinion of an expert to say that the diagnosis should have lead to the diverter rather than the heat exchanger and thus wasn't carried out with due care and skill. 

TELLIT01

Diagnosis isn't always straightforward.  We had a problem with our boiler some years ago.  One fault was diagnosed (correctly) and a part replaced.  That in turn revealed another problem which couldn't have been identified until the first problem was addressed.  In total the engineer said about £800 in parts had been replaced, including the main circuit board.  Thankfully we had a maintenance contract on it.

Mr.Generous

Sometimes a fault can have several possible causes - I had a cheap old boiler in a rental (there whan I bought the place) with the same fault - hot water worked but went on and off. Heating engineer said he could keep changing stuff until he cured it, and there were some things more likely to cause the fault - but he said he didn't really want to do it because I could end up paying nearly the cost of a new boiler and have tenant complaing repeatedly. A new boiler was £1200 fitted so I went with that. A year or so earlear the same boiler was £900 fitted, hopoefully I won't be finding out how much they cost now.

fabfor

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

Hello OP

Services must be carried out with due care and skill, which includes someone performing a diagnosis.

With a claim such as this burden of proof falls upon yourself so you would typically need the opinion of an expert to say that the diagnosis should have lead to the diverter rather than the heat exchanger and thus wasn't carried out with due care and skill. 

The thing is the diverter wasn't even considered. There was no mention of it. Had there been, I would obviously have asked for that (the much cheaper option) to be tried before agreeing to fork out £425. He only figured out it was the diverter after I pressed him for an alternative cause. I'm a retired electronics technician and can't imagine replacing a TV tube/display in error and charging the customer for it.

mcplumb

Running hot then cold would normally suggest a plate heat exchanger, especially if the flow temp is going high then dropping out then cycling on off.

A diverter issue would usually create cooler water if its passing to heating.

I'm assuming you mean the plate heat exchanger which at £425 (depending which boiler) sounds steep, although probably a fair diagnosis for the symptoms.

What boiler is it?

fabfor

mcplumb said:

Running hot then cold would normally suggest a plate heat exchanger, especially if the flow temp is going high then dropping out then cycling on off.

A diverter issue would usually create cooler water if its passing to heating.

I'm assuming you mean the plate heat exchanger which at £425 (depending which boiler) sounds steep, although probably a fair diagnosis for the symptoms.

What boiler is it?

It's a Worcester Bosch Greenstar. Yes, cooler when passing through to heating then back to warm. He hadn't checked the temperature of the heating output pipe before deciding it was the plate heat exchanger. In fact, he didn't think of doing that until I pointed out that it must be something other than the heat exchanger.

fabfor

@mcplumb. Shouldn't he have checked out the diverter option?

Undervalued

fabfor said:

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

Hello OP

Services must be carried out with due care and skill, which includes someone performing a diagnosis.

With a claim such as this burden of proof falls upon yourself so you would typically need the opinion of an expert to say that the diagnosis should have lead to the diverter rather than the heat exchanger and thus wasn't carried out with due care and skill. 

The thing is the diverter wasn't even considered. There was no mention of it. Had there been, I would obviously have asked for that (the much cheaper option) to be tried before agreeing to fork out £425. He only figured out it was the diverter after I pressed him for an alternative cause. I'm a retired electronics technician and can't imagine replacing a TV tube/display in error and charging the customer for it.

The problem is if, say, there is a 50% chance the fault is caused by a £425 component, a 30% chance it is a £200 component and a 20% chance it is a £100 component in what order do you proceed? Plus there is still the possibility that two items are contributing to the problem!

Hindsight never fails! Did your plumber make reasonable choice under the circumstances? Anybody answering that now has the benefit of knowing that the £425 job didn't fix the problem. Would they have picked the right choice at the beginning?

born_again

fabfor said:

The water on my combi boiler was running hot and cold so I called in a  heating engineer who came highly recommended on a local forum. 

He diagnosed a fault with the heat exchanger and quoted me £425.00, which I accepted. 

However, the fault was still there after he'd replaced the part and he then said the problem must be with the diverter valve, which he duly replaced and charged another £65 plus parts. 

I requested a refund but he refused saying that he couldn't be expected to work for nothing and he refused even a partial refund. I kept my cool. 

I've since checked on YouTube and there are videos explaining that the problem could be caused by the diverter so it's a commonly known fault. 

I would like to claim for a full refund of the £425.00. Where do I stand legally and how best to pursue this? Thanks

Danger is he puts the old bit back & even after diverter fitted it still does it. or even refunds & removes new part & walks away 🤷‍♀️

Not doing that leaves you in a better place than you were before. Which I think is covered in regulations?

fabfor

Undervalued said:

fabfor said:

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

Hello OP

Services must be carried out with due care and skill, which includes someone performing a diagnosis.

With a claim such as this burden of proof falls upon yourself so you would typically need the opinion of an expert to say that the diagnosis should have lead to the diverter rather than the heat exchanger and thus wasn't carried out with due care and skill. 

The thing is the diverter wasn't even considered. There was no mention of it. Had there been, I would obviously have asked for that (the much cheaper option) to be tried before agreeing to fork out £425. He only figured out it was the diverter after I pressed him for an alternative cause. I'm a retired electronics technician and can't imagine replacing a TV tube/display in error and charging the customer for it.

The problem is if, say, there is a 50% chance the fault is caused by a £425 component, a 30% chance it is a £200 component and a 20% chance it is a £100 component in what order do you proceed? Plus there is still the possibility that two items are contributing to the problem!

Hindsight never fails! Did your plumber make reasonable choice under the circumstances? Anybody answering that now has the benefit of knowing that the £425 job didn't fix the problem. Would they have picked the right choice at the beginning?

The point is he was convinced it was the heat exchanger and didn't even consider the diverter until he'd changed the heat exchanger. Even then he was stuck for an answer and it was only my saying out loud that it must be something else that he ran the hot water and felt the heating pipe to test for the diverter. Isn't that incompetence? 
I take your points about percentages and hindsight but they don't apply in this case because firstly, no other option was mentioned (so 100% heat exchanger). And even if the diverter option had been mentioned, which would you have opted for... The £100 try-out or the £425 one. 
Of course, if he'd even thought about the diverter option then he would have carried out the simple test and known that it was malfunctioning - 100%.
Hope you understand my reasoning.