Has this been powerflushed?

[wookeywarn]

Hi,
i'm new and a girl, so please be gentle with me!


Long story short -

• British Gas installed new boiler in 2005
• About 2 years ago i noticed my boiler was hardly ever reaching thermostat temperature & was on all the time. I got window people in to refit all my windows & doors as put it down to draught. Did not improve.
• Jan this year i had no hot water and heating in 1 or 2 radiators (i have 14)
• Called out Corgi Homecare. After a lot of frustrating investigation he cut the pipes to the boiler and found what you see in my photo.
• Needed new heat exchanger (as completely blocked) and he also fitted a Magna filter which i initially had to clean twice a day.
• BG were not interested in fixing so i had to pay over £1100

I paid for BG to do a Powerflush upon installation and they say it was done. My question is simple - is this what you expect to see after 5 years from a system that was powerflushed? My plumber says definately not and i should persue BG for the costs.

Opinions please?

Thanks

Steph

 

[PlumbingSucks]

They may of powerflushed it but not put inhibitor in it to stop it corroding again. You can get test kits to see if there is inhibitor in the water.

 

[Gray0689]

They may of powerflushed it but not put inhibitor in it to stop it corroding again. You can get test kits to see if there is inhibitor in the water.

Should not be doing that even if no inhibitor on a sealed system they didn't do it right either way

 

[pobsdad]

Always gentle with girls,at first anyway!If the system is open vented and pumping over,or leaking,that would explain the magnetite,but would BG be expected to notice this during the boiler change,and investigate?If you remove a boiler to replace,and find it full of sludge.wouldn't you start looking for a cause?If the old boiler and system were clean during the change,then something was done which caused the problem.If it's a sealed system,there must be a leak,so the pressure would be dropping all the time.

 

[RoryD]

Hi,
i'm new and a girl, so please be gentle with me!


Long story short -

• British Gas installed new boiler in 2005
• About 2 years ago i noticed my boiler was hardly ever reaching thermostat temperature & was on all the time. I got window people in to refit all my windows & doors as put it down to draught. Did not improve.
• Jan this year i had no hot water and heating in 1 or 2 radiators (i have 14)
• Called out Corgi Homecare. After a lot of frustrating investigation he cut the pipes to the boiler and found what you see in my photo.
• Needed new heat exchanger (as completely blocked) and he also fitted a Magna filter which i initially had to clean twice a day.
• BG were not interested in fixing so i had to pay over £1100

I paid for BG to do a Powerflush upon installation and they say it was done. My question is simple - is this what you expect to see after 5 years from a system that was powerflushed? My plumber says definately not and i should persue BG for the costs.

Opinions please?

Thanks

Steph

View attachment 2405

As a BG Engineer, I would say definitely not! This hasn't been flushed to the standard expected, certainly it would have cost you a small fortune. Why did you come off contract with BG, because you are covered for life of the system (guaranteed in other words) as long as you STAY on contract and it would've been flushed for free. Installers do a powerCleanse as opposed to a powerFlush unless requested. This merely short circuits and satisfies installation requirements. If I were called out to this I would immediately arrange a reflush. Seems someone somewhere has fouled up, and dim view would be taken of such inadeqate work. Sorry hun.

 

[wookeywarn]

Due to the lapsed time, i do not have the paperwork but when i called BG to give them the opportunity to resolve, they confirmed that a powerflush was paid for and carried out - and yes, i do recall it cost a bomb. I dont recall it taking 8 or so hours to do, as the plumber who visited me said it should have taken?

I came off maintenance with BG because i couldnt afford to continue it at the time (they kept hiking the renewal price), but i shouldnt have to stay on contract just in case they didnt install properly in the first place, should i?

Cant be sure but think it was contractors to BG who did the work. Also aware that when things go wrong contractors always get the blame!

Also worth mentioning that since it was fixed, it has never worked better - i hate to think how much extra fuel it's been costing me! The filter needed cleaning twice a day for a week or so, now, 6 weeks on, there's nothing in the filter at all.

I'm glad a dim view would be taken - you obviously have much higher standards than the crew who visited me! 🙂

 

[gaspastemania]

Just out of curiousity were you not there when the supposed power flush had taken place?
Its not as if you wouldnt notice the kit big bin with hoses everywhere,.

 

[unguided1]

I apologise to all the genuine hard working BG engineers and subbies in advance, but once again I ask is there a Minority of BG engineers running some sort of scam, when it comes to flushing?

 

[wookeywarn]

Just out of curiousity were you not there when the supposed power flush had taken place?
Its not as if you wouldnt notice the kit big bin with hoses everywhere,.

yes i was here during the installation as i work from home. I dont recall the set up you describe but i was working and left them alone. But, the salesman didnt describe the process and as a lay, non-plumber (!), i didnt know what was involved in a powerflush - and didnt until it ground to a halt in January.

When you pay someone like BG, you expect them to do what you pay them for - or i did. Trust and all that!

 

[gaspastemania]

Of course you expect the job done for what you pay ,plus BG are not cheap .
I was thinking maybe the plumber did attempt a flush but not for long enough, so are BG not accepting responsibilty of this situation??

 

[wookeywarn]

Of course you expect the job done for what you pay ,plus BG are not cheap .
I was thinking maybe the plumber did attempt a flush but not for long enough, so are BG not accepting responsibilty of this situation??

i called them before i had the work done and they said i should 'write' (not email) them and they would consider my complaint. My plumber on site also spoke to them and described the problem - they werent interested as i didnt have a contract with them anymore (despite this being an installation problem). With 2 small children in January, no hot water and precarious heating, i took legal advice - who advised not to wait for BG to 'consider' my complaint and to pay for the repair and pursue BG later.

This is what i have done. 6 weeks and still waiting. I have chased them this week.

I am fully expecting to have to go to court - hence my posting on this site of the wise plumbing community! I currently only have the word of BG against the plumber who visited me. One says it was done to standard and one says it was not.

 

[gaspastemania]

I think you will find your on a bit of a loser with BG massive company that from what i hear hardly ever lose these sort of cases , they nearly burnt my frioends house down few years ago after a service they had done on a boiler and when they complained it was quickly shoved aside . even when i go to re do my gas assesments and bg come up in convo i hear the same stories and yet still get away with it

good luck tho in trying

 

[Blackcatgas]

Hello Wookey, is it a combi boiler?, do you regulary have to top it up? if so how regulary do you have to top it up.

 

[wookeywarn]

Hello Wookey, is it a combi boiler?, do you regulary have to top it up? if so how regulary do you have to top it up.

yes, it is a combi - Worcester Bosch

Before this winter we only ever topped it up if we took off a radiator for painting, so hardly at all. Before xmas we were topping it up every day or so as the pressure valve kept blowing - presumably because the HE had no capacity for water?!

Now, it's fixed, we only had to top it up once the work was finished and all the air was making it's way out of the system.

Steph

 

[Blackcatgas]

Did you just have a combi boiler put in to replace an old boiler on an old existing system or was the system you had installed a completely new one (new radiators and pipe work etc from scratch?).

 

[wookeywarn]

Did you just have a combi boiler put in to replace an old boiler on an old existing system or was the system you had installed a completely new one (new radiators and pipe work etc from scratch?).

No just the boiler replaced on an existing system (also relocated from boiler on the floor of the kitchen to the upstairs airing cupboard). They also put thermostat valves on all the radiators.

 

[Blackcatgas]

If the system was flushed 6 years ago,inhibiter added on completion (and everytime it was drained down and refilled to replace a rad after decorating) and hasnt needed tobe topped up regulary then the pipes shouldnt of looked like that.Even if you didnt add inhibiter everytime you drained down after decorating a couple of times then I still wouldnt of expected that amount of sludge in the pipes, It probably wasnt flushed, you know that, I know that, prooving it though would be near impossible after this length of time.

 

[scotengineerlad]

Hi, I will begin by saying I was a british gas technician for 12 years and follow this by, I have just set up my own company because of the frustration regarding silly time allowed to do jobs properly. That said, your system should not under any circumstance look like this after 5 years if properly installed and commissioned in the first place, the powerflush comes with a lifetime warranty ie if you have cover without break since install your system is covered for re-flush,blockage removal , design problems e.t.c . The hard and fast rule on that is if done by installs and not service and repair guys you don't get life warranty, the actual rule for the company is , if the customer digs in hard enough,they will get what ever they want. I hope this helps, and if I fitted this I would be ashamed of myself.

 

[paulnwales]

well i think you already know it was not powerflushed, thats why your on here asking.. i doubt very much that it was flushed. it seems that most big firms are to busy sending bills out to actually check there lads work. I would be very suprised if bg will help you out. They can make all the excuses in the world but at the end of the day they did not do it... well not correctly anyway.

 

[thereisawizza]

I have been out to a few like this now where installation sub-contractors have done a 16 rad powerflush and blr swap with controls, finished by 1500hrs and back off home..... May have had a "cursory" powerflush!