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Sludge builds up over a period of years. Turning the boiler off probably did cause the failure by allowing the sludge in the badly maintained system to settle, it was a failure waiting to happen. Leaving it off for a few days should not have caused the failure, an extended period maybe but not a few days.
As for the invoice. If a powerflush was required it was because the system was dirty not because of the failure. A powerflush is usually several hundred pounds so the LL is getting his dirty system maintained at no cost to himself.0 -
Just wondering here as I really know nothing about such things, but my boiler often doesn't come on for weeks in summer. Does that mean, that because I don't turn my thermostat up to 25 deg & force it to come on, that it is at risk?0
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A firmware program that triggers an event once a week is more likely to fail than one triggering every day? Are you serious?
A boiler's control logic has far more complex things to worry about in comparison to remembering to do something once a week... that is a trivial function to implement.
Anyone involved with complicated Building Management Systems for large heating, ventilation and air conditioning will absolutely know this - and domestic boilers are really basic in comparison, they don't have the ability to do things one a week, or once a month.
My understanding from working on the 42CDi before is that the time control for the pump antiseize does not have an 7 day timeclock controlling it, or any other calendar function. The plug and play controls are optional extras, and therefore the antiseize operation cannot rely on these being present. It just counts on 24 hrs from when it was first switched on, this is pretty much the same on all modern system boilers with integral pumps - my Vaillant boiler started doing it at 5am the other week because of a power cut the night before, so I had to reset the boiler to prevent it waking me up every day at 5am...
Now just because it is set up to run every 24 hrs doesn't mean that it will cause problems if it actually ran less frequently - that daily run of 5 secs was just a simple control strategy agreed by the boiler designers within the limits of its time keeping abilities.
The OP states a possible 5 days from moving out to end of tenancy, so if it actually has seized due to build of crap in the system this probably would have happened at some point soon anyway, regardless whether the OP turned off the boiler or not.0 -
Sludge builds up over a period of years. Turning the boiler off probably did cause the failure by allowing the sludge in the badly maintained system to settle, it was a failure waiting to happen. Leaving it off for a few days should not have caused the failure, an extended period maybe but not a few days.
As for the invoice. If a powerflush was required it was because the system was dirty not because of the failure. A powerflush is usually several hundred pounds so the LL is getting his dirty system maintained at no cost to himself.
Absolutely agree with this, spot on.0 -
A seized pump, fair enough. All of that work... is taking the proverbial!
I wouldn't even accept a bill for a seized pump. It's purely due to build up of crap in the system - assumingly at some point the landlord fitted a new boiler and did it on the cheap without power flushing the system. Now that's come back to bite them. Nothing to do with the OP, and nothing to do with turning the boiler off.0 -
Some more modern boilers switch themselves on for a short period once a day, irrespective of any call for heat, just to keep them from seizing. If your boiler is not designed to do this then it is not a problem turning it off.Just wondering here as I really know nothing about such things, but my boiler often doesn't come on for weeks in summer. Does that mean, that because I don't turn my thermostat up to 25 deg & force it to come on, that it is at risk?0 -
Thanks all. At the very least we will be arguing against the amount...0
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Hopetobedebtfree wrote: »At the very least we will be arguing against the amount...
You should be able to do a lot better than that. With this kind of thing you need to take a step-by-step approach.
The first step is whether the claim is plausible. On the basis of a seized pump alone then it was, but with all the work detailed on the invoice then as molerat says, the LL has well and truly shot themselves in the foot. It could be argued that switching the boiler off allowed the sludge in the system to settle, but it would only be a (small) contributing factor to the outcome - the real issue is the state of the heating system overall.
So you might have some liability, but only a small contribution.
The second step is whether you have responsibility - the instruction manual may not be helpful to you, but as the one I saw online doesn't specifically warn you not to turn the power off and if the LL or agent didn't give you this instruction, then it would come down to whether someone could be reasonably expected to know not to do something. That could go either way - turning the boiler off in winter and causing pipes to burst might be something you'd be expected to know. But turning off the boiler and having sludge settle causing damage?
If he tried taking you to court I think the LL would have a very hard time proving you should have known not to turn the boiler off. The invoice which covers work you can really have no liability for (which he expected you to pay in full?) would also work against him.
So the LL would be rather unwise to take this to court - but you need to have a think about the risks and effects of refusing to pay anything and whether that makes sense for you."In the future, everyone will be rich for 15 minutes"0 -
Thanks each penny. I'd hope that deposit scheme dispute would be the way this goes rather than court.0
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Hopetobedebtfree wrote: »Thanks each penny. I'd hope that deposit scheme dispute would be the way this goes rather than court.
Exacly. Do not deal directly with the landlord. Claim the deposit back through the deposit scheme and dispute any deduction.
There is no way you should be held responsible for this - what would happen if there was a power cut for example. It is not unreasonable to remove power from a boiler. In any case the quoted sludge build up would not happen over night - it takes years. In fact it more likely points to a lack of maintenance over time.0
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