A LL cert costs around £50 in my area for 2 appliances.
I find that I am really struggling to complete it in an hour to make it worthwhile for me.
At the same time, I don't want to be cutting corners like those charging £30 and in and out in 15 min.
I just did one recently that took me 2 hours - only boiler, hob and oven.
Gas meter was fitted deep in a corner cupboard in the kitchen, with the test point just behind the middle shelf.
Of course, the cupboard was packed full; nobody had thought of emptying it beforehand.
Boiler had a cupboard built around it and part of it had to be removed to be able to remove the boiler cover.
I had to park far away and then come back to get my step ladder.
All the previous gas engineers apparently missed the air vent that was too close to the flue outside. They probably didn't have time to step outside.
Looking through the window, I could see that the neighbour's flue was even closer to their own air vent and the flue looked more like a bird perch.
No isolation valve to hob and didn't see this mentioned on previous certs. Probably no one bothered to remove the oven in front.
Then spent more time trying to find the boiler manual online. Boiler was only 4 years old but it was too much to keep the manual lying around.
Add having to follow safe electrical isolation procedure every time, testing multimeter (not even allowed to be used) before and after, locking the FCU if beyond 1m (?) away...
I tried the digital cert to save time but it takes even longer to fill on a phone than old-fashioned pen and paper, so I quickly dropped that.
I had to AR the boiler but didn't want to leave them without heating so agreed that I wasn't given permission to isolate it and filled in the forms accordingly.
This is another negative aspect of doing LL certs. If you go around capping appliances, customers are not happy at all that you are literally saving their lives.
Whereas if you fit or repair a boiler, they are well pleased.
I don't do many LL certs to start with as I'm not the £30 guy but I'm considering increasing my fee even more to make it worthwhile and if it prices me out of the market, then no big loss for me.
How much do you guys charge and how long do you take? Do you do everything by the book? I doubt anyone will admit getting it done in 30 min?
I find that I am really struggling to complete it in an hour to make it worthwhile for me.
At the same time, I don't want to be cutting corners like those charging £30 and in and out in 15 min.
I just did one recently that took me 2 hours - only boiler, hob and oven.
Gas meter was fitted deep in a corner cupboard in the kitchen, with the test point just behind the middle shelf.
Of course, the cupboard was packed full; nobody had thought of emptying it beforehand.
Boiler had a cupboard built around it and part of it had to be removed to be able to remove the boiler cover.
I had to park far away and then come back to get my step ladder.
All the previous gas engineers apparently missed the air vent that was too close to the flue outside. They probably didn't have time to step outside.
Looking through the window, I could see that the neighbour's flue was even closer to their own air vent and the flue looked more like a bird perch.
No isolation valve to hob and didn't see this mentioned on previous certs. Probably no one bothered to remove the oven in front.
Then spent more time trying to find the boiler manual online. Boiler was only 4 years old but it was too much to keep the manual lying around.
Add having to follow safe electrical isolation procedure every time, testing multimeter (not even allowed to be used) before and after, locking the FCU if beyond 1m (?) away...
I tried the digital cert to save time but it takes even longer to fill on a phone than old-fashioned pen and paper, so I quickly dropped that.
I had to AR the boiler but didn't want to leave them without heating so agreed that I wasn't given permission to isolate it and filled in the forms accordingly.
This is another negative aspect of doing LL certs. If you go around capping appliances, customers are not happy at all that you are literally saving their lives.
Whereas if you fit or repair a boiler, they are well pleased.
I don't do many LL certs to start with as I'm not the £30 guy but I'm considering increasing my fee even more to make it worthwhile and if it prices me out of the market, then no big loss for me.
How much do you guys charge and how long do you take? Do you do everything by the book? I doubt anyone will admit getting it done in 30 min?
