OT - Gas boiler servicing

[subaqua]

My 5-y-o ferroli POS farted its last about a month ago- my nerves would take no more of it's 'willitwon'tit' operational policy so I sunk a chunk of cash on a worcester with a full 7 year parts and labour warranty. I hope it's worth it.

it will. they are one of the best. Baxi come a close 2nd . only 1 part needed replacing on our 105HE in 5 years and that was a weeping differential pressure valve. a service kit would have done it but the time to strip it down outweighed the cost of the new part.

 

[Spinney]

Balancing the system is only faffing with the radiators, should have no effect on the boiler function:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property...-improvements-What-is-radiator-balancing.html

(thanks to this thread! I think my radiators need balancing....)

Having had a new boiler fitted in previous house, and supervised new boiler fitted in OH's flat in the last few years, every gas fitter I have spoken to says BG is a total rip off, requiring replacements etc when a repair would do. It was too universal to just be an odd gripe from a little guy against a big firm.

If you are not going for a combi boiler, £2000 should cover a new condensing boiler. Instead of a system flush, they can fit a magnetic widget in the pipe work that collects sludge as it circulates (as it is mostly the iron radiators that produce the sludge, not the copper pipes).

 

[Crankarm]

Currently we have a contract to service our old boiler with British Gas. I know our boiler is not up to modern standards but actually it has had very little problems over the years and the sums of how much we would save (fairly low users of gas I think - Annual bill last year was £340) vs the price of a new boiler don't seem to add up. Added to which I'm not convinced about how long the modern boilers last before they break down.

So they are now saying that we need to replace our boiler (as yet they haven't quoted us the price for this), or have a system flush (apparently £600!!!), or else they will not replace anything the next time there is a problem (they had to replace a valve near the switch between Hot Water/Heating this time), normally they don't seem to do very much at all.

Am I wrong in thinking that modern boilers are more problematic, and that the electronics will need replacing after 5 years or so (at great expense), and is the suggested quote of £600 for the flush and a change of some pipework that needs balancing (they originally fitted the system in the first place so why didn't they balance it then!). The boiler is 20 years old.

Britsh Gas are having a laugh. They are crooks. Get a local independent gas engineer/heating engineer (Gas Safe) to inspect your boiler. I did this and was told my trusty old boiller still had many years of life left. It just needed a 2 yearly check over costing £40. I was told under no circumstances to sign up with British Gas as they would condemn it then charge me £4k to replace with a new bolier which would fail within 4 years and I would have to cough up another £4k.

£600 to flush the central heating system is taking the pi55.

 

[ASC1951]

Currently we have a contract to service our old boiler with British Gas......

So they are now saying that we need to replace our boiler .......

Am I wrong in thinking that modern boilers are more problematic, and that the electronics will need replacing after 5 years or so (at great expense), and is the suggested quote of £600 for the flush and a change of some pipework that needs balancing (they originally fitted the system in the first place so why didn't they balance it then!). ......

Anyone who offers you a long term maintenance contract will try to get you to replace it when it starts to get unreliable, but yes, new boilers are flimsier and IME won't run fault-free for more than four or five years. And I wouldn't call BG a 'rip off' - if a big brand and an A1 service with immediate response is crucial, use them. £600 isn't excessive for a proper power flush, either, where two blokes take all the radiators off, lug them outside and get black gunge everywhere, but that isn't usually necessary.

I'm in exactly the same position as you, with a 15+ year old Vaillant which has started to play up and with one clogged radiator. I'm getting a local gas engineer to replace two parts for about £50+ his labour, a non-power flush of the whole system and a de-clogging of that radiator. The downside of using a local lad is that it's taking him three days to get the part and the flushing will need two visits, one to stick the ingredient in and a second a week later after it has done it's work. Do get a recommendation for the gas engineer, because the last one I spent £100 on didn't solve the problem, so I suppose that has to be factored into the non-BG price as well.

 

[Crankarm]

Anyone who offers you a long term maintenance contract will try to get you to replace it when it starts to get unreliable, but yes, new boilers are flimsier and IME won't run fault-free for more than four or five years. And I wouldn't call BG a 'rip off' - if a big brand and an A1 service with immediate response is crucial, use them. £600 isn't excessive for a proper power flush, either, where two blokes take all the radiators off, lug them outside and get black gunge everywhere, but that isn't usually necessary.

I'm in exactly the same position as you, with a 15+ year old Vaillant which has started to play up and with one clogged radiator. I'm getting a local gas engineer to replace two parts for about £50+ his labour, a non-power flush of the whole system and a de-clogging of that radiator. The downside of using a local lad is that it's taking him three days to get the part and the flushing will need two visits, one to stick the ingredient in and a second a week later after it has done it's work. Do get a recommendation for the gas engineer, because the last one I spent £100 on didn't solve the problem, so I suppose that has to be factored into the non-BG price as well.

I would. My boiler is 30 years old and still going strong. It comes on and switches off when it should, keeps the house warm, it's reliable and bills are relatively low. BG would condemn it not because it is unsafe, which it is not, but so they could make a wad of cash out of me. And when the new replacement boiler failed after 4 years they would then want lots more cash to replace it. This seems like a nice earner if you can get it, a bit of a racket.

£600 to flush a central heating system is a rip off .............unless you lived in a stately home with 217 rooms.

 

[e-rider]

if by 'flushing' the system you mean draining it, putting some chemicals in and then filling it back up; then that should no way cost £600, however, there are plenty of other plumbing companies that would charge a similar amount, quite simply because they are all a complete rip-off! That's about 1-2 hours work, for £600!
For some reason plumbing services in the UK are just crazy expensive.
And, we have a new combi boiler and are already having trouble with it after just 5 years, and it was serviced each year too.

 

[beanzontoast]

We chose to use a local firm to supply and install our new gas boiler, based on recommendation by neighbours who had used them and who even showed us the work they'd done.

We get it serviced by our local plumber who also came to us through recommendation. Having the same person come to you each time builds up a bit of a relationship. In our case - where the person is a plumber first and foremost - you get to trust them with other jobs too. Personally, I'd rather do this than have a British Gas person I didn't know doing the work.

 

[Arsen Gere]

We had electrical problems on a Baxi Duotec HE 28. The errors reported are crap. The errors we had were pointing to the circuit board. The plumber changed it a couple of months later it faulted again. So I took it a part and put a circuit board in myself. It was ok for a little while and faulted again. So I started from the beginning and worked through what it could be.
I looked at the manual and checked the spark gap's inside the the boiler, the bit that does the ignition and it was wrong. I set it to the recommended settings and the circuit board fault went away and it's been fine for a couple of years.

I think it comes down to bad error reporting from the circuit board and incorrect setup. So a lot of electrical faults are not really electrical but bad software.

BTW if you want to find out how good baxi are at support try sending a mail to their "contact us" address http://www.baxi.co.uk/contact.htm . I've never had a reply. So I suppose a lot of these gas fitters are guessing what is wrong because the boards lie and the support is crap.

 

[Hicky]

I know three people that have had the contract for a couple of years then pressured into a replace the boiler or we terminate the contract ......your house is gonna blowup, the sky will rain fire threats.

I service ours, Hoover out, grease contacts(microswitches), clean flue, check spark gap and clean(scotch bright).......reminds me, I have to pressurise the expansion vessel(or it's knackered d'oh!).

 

[Arsen Gere]

I service ours, Hoover out, grease contacts(microswitches), clean flue, check spark gap and clean(scotch bright).......reminds me, I have to pressurise the expansion vessel(or it's knackered d'oh!).

Is that the scotch bright stainless steel cleaner or some other product ?

 

[Hicky]

The kitchen scrubber(normally green).....or emery cloth type.....no chemicals, sorry if I gave the impression I used autosol or something similar!

 

[Fnaar]

Grr British Gas Grrr Grrr Grrr...
It was along time ago, in a different house, but I haven't forgotten or forgiven... I (naively) signed up with them for a service agreement. A week before Christmas. Bloke comes round, been there 2 minutes, slaps some stripey tape on it and says it's illegal to use and needs replacing . Cost me a fortune, just before Christmas. A friend of a friend (heating engineer) subsequently told me they do it all the time, often for small and easily rectifiable 'faults' in the hope of charging you a feckin fortune for them to do the work. It worked on me, as I had little other choice, and I panicked a bit... small kids at the time, Christmas coming up, Mrs F in a flap, I just got them to do it. But ...grr....grrr.....grr....

 

[goo_mason]

BG are the most expensive company in the world when it comes to installation and servicing, and they might even sub the work out. Get a local bunch in and save some cash.

I'd agree with that. My boiler's on a service contract with a local company (whose service contract is much cheaper & more extensive than British Gas). When it got to the point that the boiler needed replaced, I got quotes from British Gas and from them. BG sent a guy round, who spend 3 hrs measuring, sitting on a laptop, talking to me and telling me of the various discounts I'd be entitled to. They quoted £3.5K for a new boiler, but said they'd have to rip up my hall floor and my tiled bathroom floor, both if which I'd have to put back myself afterwards at my own expense. Local Co who do my servicing popped round, did some checks & measures in 15 minutes and quoted £1.5K less than BG, with no floors needing ripped up. Guess who I went with?

I spoke to several people afterwards, who'd all had quotes from BG for the same amount (£3.5K), despite all having different requirements and boiler types from me. It seems £3.5K was the price BG quoted everyone.

Go local.

 

[summerdays]

To be fair to BG - they have been servicing the boiler for years (OK getting nice money for it), and haven't mentioned replacing the boiler before. Either it is just a matter of luck as to which engineers you get or they the boiler may be about to get expensive. My main problem with this is that it isn't actually the boiler that has gone wrong - it's been the switch/valve (which BG have now replaced so that's not going to be a problem).

The balance thing is something to do with two pipes at different pressure causing the system to suck in air. Apparently badly set up (I wonder who actually installed said system).

Still not decided what to do in the long run (other than saying bye bye British Gas), as I'm still not convinced we will save much/any buying a new boiler which would have to save £300 a year if it was to be worth it for a £3000 install over 10 years. Given our annual bill that will be impossible. So I suspect I will end up getting someone new in to look at it in future.

 

[Hotblack Desiato]

Got the whole system re-jigged 2 years ago. Had 3 or 4 quotes and BG were far and away the priciest (and they wanted us to take out a loan package we didn't need). What's more, it was a tricky re-jig that meant it needed a real expert to design new routing for some of the pipe work without structural work. BG said it couldn't be done but a local sefl-employed fitter did it with a very neat solution. He charged nearly half what BG wanted and has since done more work for us very competently at a good rate. And no, we don't pay cash.