they are serviced each year .. the issue is when the service engineer suggests a power flush and you effectively lose your service plan until you pay many hundreds for a a service you may or may not need .. i have never had one engineer suggest i should put a filter in
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- Thread starter selondonman
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Ring Pimlico Plumbers..and maybe half it ...Mr Mullins and his son are right on the button but expensive. centralheatking
checking for what .. had the boiler on a service plan since it was installed
i havent won the lottery to afford pimlico plumbers
i havent won the lottery to afford pimlico plumbers
I think the point still remains that they have been remiss in their duties by not informing you or by treating the system the way it should so I think you are perfectly within your rights to be going back to them looking for a solution
Charlie and Scott Mullins dont do the lottery ever but can be found at every race meeting around London most days...good luck to them. I posted get a quote and half it its obvious.
centralheatking
- May 23, 2015
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- Heating Engineer (Has GSR)
The cover you have isn’t a service it’s a safety check have they ever stripped the appliances down and serviced the internals
Not when it’s broken down either
Find most big companies offering payment plans don’t service them properly
Not when it’s broken down either
Find most big companies offering payment plans don’t service them properly
I had that with BG. We have their cover and on one service visit the engineer noted that the flue in the loft space was missing a flue bracket (new, latest regs) and so he was obliged to issue an ‘At risk’. It was a BG install some years ago. I raised merry hell with them about the report until they finally agreed to send out a fitter to fit a shiny new clamp (which he agreed was entirely unnecessary due to the very short run).
Yet they advertise it as a service.
And some if you want it serviced every 12 months you have to keep reminding them as they try to knock it back a couple of months each time so in effect you have a "service" every 14 months.
These contracts are used and run to stop people fixing expensive problems. All issues with Kestons are expensive. Im surprised he didn't order a main heat exchanger and get the boiler BER'd. You will not win a fight about the system being dirty. EVER. 🙂
Did you ask them how sludge could affect ignition/ flame rectification? If they refuse get someone independent to sort the problem and check the water quality.
I went out to someone 4/5 years ago british gas refused to do anything as "there was sludge in the system" so they got worcester out that replaced loads of parts then refused to do anymore until the system was power flushed as it was apparently checked up. I got the phone call and customer told me what the problem was I said it doesnt sound like a sludge issue so I will come out and diagnose. £110 later boiler working perfectly all radiators hot top to bottom.
The sludge thing gets used far too often to get out of insurances so question them about it as there are only a few that I can think of that would cause an ignition lockout
Sludge issues. ferric sludge is both a restriction to flow and also a bit like pumping liquid sandpaper round your system. Certain components are prone to premature wear. Diverter Valves, pumps, aav, heat ex. Most people change the oil in their car, if you dont like someone put toothpaste or brasso in their oil and see what happens. Ferric sludge black or worse the brown stuff does the same. centralheatking
Going solely on personal experience the attitude of a not insignificant number of trades people can be a little off putting.
Its not easy I guess working for a big firm who will expect you to be in, out and within an allotted time, the home owner doesn't have any form of relationship with these people and suddenly they’re saying they need to spend £500.
Its not just the time pressure. Effectively eg BG do not turn a profit from their annual servicing contracts it is expected that their engineers sell extras...co monitors, hive, full flush outs etc. whatever they are told to sell. Its the add ons which make money
centralheatking
I guess it's a loss leader to generate work for their over priced installations. It's an expensive hobby doing business legally/responsibly I can see why they don't make much from it.
The generally accepted cost for BG etc is £65 for one hour, two visits makes a servicing policy a loss maker. Hence pressure to succeed in one go, and sell an extra during the visit. centralheatking
Yet everytime they record record profits they always say that it is down to there service contracts and not down to energy sales.
I can only ever remember Centrica posting record losses not profits.
That was a one off due to the fall in wholesale gas prices being out of step with consumer contract terms.
They've lost about a million customers over the past three years, their share price has dropped from about 300p to 90p, they've shed about 10'000 staff, Ian Conn their COE has just resigned. Doesn't sound like they lost something like £2.2bn in 2017 and £300m this year. Doesn't really sound like a business that thriving.
The cap on energy prices has really hurt them.
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