Best Advise

[Doodlebug]

You go to service a customers boiler, its a Glowworm Spacesaver. the manufacture stopped producing this boiler back in 1988 and some parts are now unavailable or difficult to obtain. The efficiency of this boiler is around 60% to 65% which is pretty low compared to a modern condensing boiler which is around 90% to 96% efficient. This boiler is in good condition and still going strong.
I get a lot of customers who believe, if it ain't broke don't fix it.
What are your views on this as engineers? Do you agree with the customer or do you give your customers best advise?




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[Destroyer2813]

If it still works I tell em to keep going with it till it brakes, but also advise do mention if they don't make parts maybe think of swapping if they can afford or maybe see if they can start saving towards a new one

 

[mountainman]

Depends on your slant on this IMO.

BG lean heavily on the 'best advice' angle which would recommend a new energy efficient boiler coupled with trv's etc.

This could be the 'best advice' but if the customer was 85 years old, would it still be the 'best advice'

 

[TBServices]

I'd advise to keep the super reliable beast till its no longer repairable, but make sure it's serviced every year


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[diamondgas]

Why have they stuck with it so long when they'd have been advised for years to get it replaced? Most likely because they can afford the bills, it just keeps on chugging along and causes no grief! May well have heard of others that have had a modern boiler fitted getting nothing but bother?

If the custard has lived with it since new and had little bother then live with it! It all depends on the customer and what their needs/fears are? Efficiency is a very small part of the equation, when it's come to replacement, I've generally found! However as the price of gas has risen there have been a lot more interested 🙂

 

[tamz]

Spacesaver. It certainly was. Basically a floor standing boiler with a wall bracket!
I'd tell them to leave it. They were hard enough to get on the wall 30 years ago but they are even harder to get off at my age without giving myself a hernia:lol:

 

[Doodlebug]

Depends on your slant on this IMO.

BG lean heavily on the 'best advice' angle which would recommend a new energy efficient boiler coupled with trv's etc.

This could be the 'best advice' but if the customer was 85 years old, would it still be the 'best advice'

Imagine this scenario
mrs Jones - "do you think I should replace this boiler"
The gas man - "No Mrs Jones, stick with it, it's working fine so no problems"
Fast forward 6months, two foot of snow on the ground, phone rings and its Mrs Jones,
"Hi the boilers gone off, can you fix it"
You arrive and on inspection of the boiler, you find it's had it, absolutely no chance of fixing it. "Sorry Mrs Jones, you need a new boiler" (Oh Dear!)
Busiest time of the year and poor old Mrs Jones (who is 85 years young by the way) now faces a long period of time without heating. How do you feel?
The advise I would have given would be, "mrs Jones, you boiler is very old and there are some parts you can't get, it's a very good boiler and its in very good condition so you could possibly get another 10 years out of it but in saying that you may only get 10 months, its a gamble, I could not stand here and advise you to keep it as you are paying us (BG) to fix a boiler that we may not always be able to do so. The best advise I could give you would be to at least find out what it would cost and what's involved in replacing the boiler so you are better prepared if the worst does happen, you don't have to purchase a boiler from us (BG), but at least think about replacing it"

Its now up to Mrs Jones what she does with my advise, no pressure, just good sensible advise. If she now phones me in the winter and I can't fix her boiler, at least I know I did my best with the advise I gave. Believe me when I say, I've cut a lot of boilers off in the winter and its not nice.
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[mountainman]

Easier to get off the wall than it was to get them on it though 😉

 

[Doodlebug]

If it still works I tell em to keep going with it till it brakes, but also advise do mention if they don't make parts maybe think of swapping if they can afford or maybe see if they can start saving towards a new one

Good advise mate.


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[tamz]

Imagine this scenario
mrs Jones - "do you think I should replace this boiler"
The gas man - "No Mrs Jones, stick with it, it's working fine so no problems"
Fast forward 6months, two foot of snow on the ground, phone rings and its Mrs Jones,
"Hi the boilers gone off, can you fix it"
You arrive and on inspection of the boiler, you

say. Its a good job i have an old maclaren valve sitting in my garage :lol:

 

[Leo21]

say. Its a good job i have an old maclaren valve sitting in my garage :lol:

Can you still get conversion kits for the mclaren valve. Anyway I'd give the same advise as doodlebug, good reliable boiler but could fail at any time. Ten days or ten years who knows. If you fit something like a Baxi and it breaks down in the middle of winter, you've probably got no chance of getting that fixed quickly either!

 

[diamondgas]

Imagine this scenario
mrs Jones - "do you think I should replace this boiler"
The gas man - "No Mrs Jones, stick with it, it's working fine so no problems"
Fast forward 6months, two foot of snow on the ground, phone rings and its Mrs Jones,
"Hi the boilers gone off, can you fix it"
You arrive and on inspection of the boiler, you find it's had it, absolutely no chance of fixing it. "Sorry Mrs Jones, you need a new boiler" (Oh Dear!)
Busiest time of the year and poor old Mrs Jones (who is 85 years young by the way) now faces a long period of time without heating. How do you feel?
The advise I would have given would be, "mrs Jones, you boiler is very old and there are some parts you can't get, it's a very good boiler and its in very good condition so you could possibly get another 10 years out of it but in saying that you may only get 10 months, its a gamble, I could not stand here and advise you to keep it as you are paying us (BG) to fix a boiler that we may not always be able to do so. The best advise I could give you would be to at least find out what it would cost and what's involved in replacing the boiler so you are better prepared if the worst does happen, you don't have to purchase a boiler from us (BG), but at least think about replacing it"

Its now up to Mrs Jones what she does with my advise, no pressure, just good sensible advise. If she now phones me in the winter and I can't fix her boiler, at least I know I did my best with the advise I gave. Believe me when I say, I've cut a lot of boilers off in the winter and its not nice.
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Eventually when enough 'significant others' tell you the same thing over and over again you tend to believe it! ... I spent 25yrs with the said company doodlebug, I sang from the same hymn sheet ... Sad to see that even though i've been left 8yrs now their ethics sound very much the same!!! *sigh*

Scare tactics around worst case scenario's are some of the aforementioned companies ethos I remember well. I also advocated the advice you give and pressed colleagues, with my elevated position as '2nd in command', to sell the benefits of new appliances for the Qdos!!! Is that still going also?

Nothing wrong with honest advice but it's also a healthy thing to question one's self on the source of our advice. In my experience, appliance reliability is paramount! What more could someone ask for than something that doesn't break down.....Rarely if ever as memory serves you?

 

[tamz]

Can you still get conversion kits for the mclaren valve. Anyway I'd give the same advise as doodlebug, good reliable boiler but could fail at any time. Ten days or ten years who knows. If you fit something like a Baxi and it breaks down in the middle of winter, you've probably got no chance of getting that fixed quickly either!

I don't think so. The valves are obsolete too afaik. I started stripping them off and keeping them after a mate asked if i had any. I had a look but i had none so said try looking on ebay. He said you look and see what you think
Glowworm SpaceSaver Maclaren 3/4" ITT Gas Valve UK48 UK48RFB07 | eBay
Worth collecting :lol:

 

[Doodlebug]

Eventually when enough 'significant others' tell you the same thing over and over again you tend to believe it! ... I spent 25yrs with the said company doodlebug, I sang from the same hymn sheet ... Sad to see that even though i've been left 8yrs now their ethics sound very much the same!!! *sigh*

Scare tactics around worst case scenario's are some of the aforementioned companies ethos I remember well. I also advocated the advice you give and pressed colleagues, with my elevated position as '2nd in command', to sell the benefits of new appliances for the Qdos!!! Is that still going also?

Nothing wrong with honest advice but it's also a healthy thing to question one's self on the source of our advice. In my experience, appliance reliability is paramount! What more could someone ask for than something that doesn't break down.....Rarely if ever as memory serves you?

If I worked for myself I would give exactly the same advise. Best advise is only good advise if its based on facts and I deal with facts. Yes Qdos is a nice little bonus but its not based on sales, its based on advise being accepted, ie: customer agrees to have further advise on cost of new boiler. A lot of customers take my advise and when I revisit them the next year, guess what, they have a nice new boiler. 7 times out of 10 they have had the boiler replaced by a local engineer out of the yellow pages or such like. They usually say we were too expensive, so imagine it, we quote say £3000 for instance and you then call and quote £2000, who do you think will get the job? Were not just generating work for us but if you look at the bigger picture, were putting work your way too. There will always be some customers who will only have BG no matter what the price, that will never change.

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[diamondgas]

If I worked for myself I would give exactly the same advise. Best advise is only good advise if its based on facts and I deal with facts. Yes Qdos is a nice little bonus but its not based on sales, its based on advise being accepted, ie: customer agrees to have further advise on cost of new boiler. A lot of customers take my advise and when I revisit them the next year, guess what, they have a nice new boiler. 7 times out of 10 they have had the boiler replaced by a local engineer out of the yellow pages or such like. They usually say we were too expensive, so imagine it, we quote say £3000 for instance and you then call and quote £2000, who do you think will get the job? Were not just generating work for us but if you look at the bigger picture, were putting work your way too. There will always be some customers who will only have BG no matter what the price, that will never change.

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Without a doubt the seed is laid when the likes of a "professional" advises a none-professional. We all rely on it when it comes to things we know nothing about!

How that seed grows depends on the motives behind the end product!

I have nothing against giving honest opinion, drawn from my experience, when asked for. Personally i weigh up each job individually, at BG you have the advantage of case history which can determine, most times, best advice given to a customer when they ask!

Big sales tactic however is too subliminally infer the 'ask'! We were 'taught' well how to do that!!! 😀 Apprentices indoctrinated!!! lol

Not knocking a company trying to prove a worthy commodity to invest in on the stock market doodlebug ...That is what the BG I worked for were about! Little to do with grass roots though IMHO 🙂

 

[Leo21]

If I worked for myself I would give exactly the same advise. Best advise is only good advise if its based on facts and I deal with facts. Yes Qdos is a nice little bonus but its not based on sales, its based on advise being accepted, ie: customer agrees to have further advise on cost of new boiler. A lot of customers take my advise and when I revisit them the next year, guess what, they have a nice new boiler. 7 times out of 10 they have had the boiler replaced by a local engineer out of the yellow pages or such like. They usually say we were too expensive, so imagine it, we quote say £3000 for instance and you then call and quote £2000, who do you think will get the job? Were not just generating work for us but if you look at the bigger picture, were putting work your way too. There will always be some customers who will only have BG no matter what the price, that will never change.

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Thanks doodlebug.

 

[Doodlebug]

Thanks doodlebug.

That's ok mate, don't mention it. Lol

 

[Destroyer2813]

I don't think so. The valves are obsolete too afaik. I started stripping them off and keeping them after a mate asked if i had any. I had a look but i had none so said try looking on ebay. He said you look and see what you think
Glowworm SpaceSaver Maclaren 3/4" ITT Gas Valve UK48 UK48RFB07 | eBay
Worth collecting :lol:

At that price id want it delivered and fitted, but i have a customer who kept thiers going a couple years ago paying something like that

 

[Destroyer2813]

You after commision Doodlebug :teeth_smile:

 

[tamz]

At that price id want it delivered and fitted, but i have a customer who kept thiers going a couple years ago paying something like that

Thats why i save a few now. Only really for a couple of old dears i do stuff for. I even have all the parts for a 1970's J&S warm air unit that a friend of my ma won't get rid of!

 

[Doodlebug]

You after commision Doodlebug :teeth_smile:

Thanks for the offer mate, I will stick with my Qdos. Lol

 

[Destroyer2813]

All ya gotta do is slip us the info of were you"ve been and had a new boiler quoted for and we"ll send you a few pennies in the post as a thanks :smile: