I was thinking about the landlord bashing that went on in another thread re. the fact that the landlord had never had his boiler actually serviced.
It occurred to me that I am similarly guilty. I still haven't found a house I wish to buy in Wales and my house in Essex is therefore rented out (usually) and I rent over here. Inconvenient, but that's how it seems to work right now.
Over the years, even while living in Essex, I NEVER had my Potterton Netaheat Profile properly serviced because attitude of gas installers seems to be that the old boilers aren't really worth servicing - 'you just end up shifting the dirt around' - so, while the casing comes off annually for the GSR guy to have a look at it, nothing gets done unless something goes wrong. Worse, one CORGI guy (as it was then - he was later struck off the CORGI register) used to run a wire bottle brush thing around the heat exchanger and then leave the dirt inside the casing!
I would love for someone to clean everything properly as per Potterton's recommendations, but when you have someone you trust and you ask him to service the appliance and he tells you not to bother, what would you do? At least the guy I use at the moment I can trust not to break the boiler - which is more than I can say about some of the gas installers I have met over the years.
Some Landlords ARE cheapskates, but ultimately we have to be able to trust the GSR people to provide good advice (and I wonder if that was what happened to the other person who came on this forum moaning about the silicone seal on the Vaillant). For me, I'm not cheap - I was one of the first landlords to fit a CO alarm, before it was even a recommendation, and the house has interlinked smoke/heat alarms, fitted well before smoke alrams became compulsary, but short of cleaning out the boiler myself... but, of course, I'm not competent to do that.
Would people on here disagree that a Netaheat Profile ain't worth servicing? For what it's worth, the house is currently empty, so no one is at risk.
It occurred to me that I am similarly guilty. I still haven't found a house I wish to buy in Wales and my house in Essex is therefore rented out (usually) and I rent over here. Inconvenient, but that's how it seems to work right now.
Over the years, even while living in Essex, I NEVER had my Potterton Netaheat Profile properly serviced because attitude of gas installers seems to be that the old boilers aren't really worth servicing - 'you just end up shifting the dirt around' - so, while the casing comes off annually for the GSR guy to have a look at it, nothing gets done unless something goes wrong. Worse, one CORGI guy (as it was then - he was later struck off the CORGI register) used to run a wire bottle brush thing around the heat exchanger and then leave the dirt inside the casing!
I would love for someone to clean everything properly as per Potterton's recommendations, but when you have someone you trust and you ask him to service the appliance and he tells you not to bother, what would you do? At least the guy I use at the moment I can trust not to break the boiler - which is more than I can say about some of the gas installers I have met over the years.
Some Landlords ARE cheapskates, but ultimately we have to be able to trust the GSR people to provide good advice (and I wonder if that was what happened to the other person who came on this forum moaning about the silicone seal on the Vaillant). For me, I'm not cheap - I was one of the first landlords to fit a CO alarm, before it was even a recommendation, and the house has interlinked smoke/heat alarms, fitted well before smoke alrams became compulsary, but short of cleaning out the boiler myself... but, of course, I'm not competent to do that.
Would people on here disagree that a Netaheat Profile ain't worth servicing? For what it's worth, the house is currently empty, so no one is at risk.
