Customer last week. Jokers

[southcoastboile]

1st one, Worcester high flow, about 25 years old, customer phones me, I go out. Advise it's really old and I wouldn't spend to much on it if it were me but the fan has seized. Customer says "it's not that old and it's a good boiler" Quotes to replace, got the go ahead, return visit, replaced fan, all working fine.
another call, boiler loosing pressure, found vessel faulty, advised again new boiler but cust wants to repair. Waited 2 weeks for me to return with parts as I was on holiday. When I get back customer says that since I fitted fan the hot water is not getting very hot! replaced vessel/prv. Found diverter bypassing! Can of worms crappy old boiler. Advised calling Worcester for a fixed cost repair as it would be cheaper than I would charge to replace diverter.
then I get a text saying Worcester won't touch it so we are having a new boiler. We have taken all the parts you fitted off. Please can you come and collect!
That was so hard to send a polite text back refusing!

 

[Scott_D]

Are the not paying or do they want a refund?

 

[jtsplumbing]

May be they just want you to have them back ! who quoted for new boiler ? should have told them that you would replace boiler and knock price of parts off job, lol

 

[Thoggy]

Had a similar situation last week with 2 boilers I said I wasn't prepared to fix them and advised of a new boiler, quoted but never heard back.
i would rather do that than like you have experienced being blamed for a 15-20 year old combi not working properly, take it on the chin as an experience mate. Some customers are literally not worth working for.

 

[southcoastboile]

He wanted a full refund! Forgot to mention he actually text, "after changing the parts the boiler did not fire up" which is a complete lie.
Yeah by saying if it was me I wouldn't spend to much on this boiler and think about Mabey getting a new one i make it sound as though I'm not trying to get a boiler change out of them and if it does go **** up like this one I have covered myself and if they choose to repair it rather than replace then it's up to them and I have advised as best I can.
I wouldn't want to charge them for a diagnosis and then say I'm not prepared to fix it but I get were u r coming from. There's a few I would have preferred to walk away from.

 

[IDCHAPPY]

Same here, over 15 years i tend to recommend replacement these days and explain that things can go wrong when you start replacing stuck in parts, helps cover me bum.

 

[LPC]

I rarely undertake repairs on boiler +10 years old now, too many things to go wrong and customers just don't understand. If they don't want a replacement I walk away.

Funny thing is, a lot of the time they end up coming back to me 6 months later for a new boiler 🙂

 

[Millsy 82]

May be they just want you to have them back ! who quoted for new boiler ? should have told them that you would replace boiler and knock price of parts off job, lol

That's what I did with an isar that when I filled back up after replacing an AAV, insulation kit and dhw sensor the expansion vessel pinholed so I just gave them a price then knocked off the price of the parts (I did add the cost of the parts on to the install first lol)

 

[GasmanxxxR1]

Did you get paid southcoast?

 

[Millsy 82]

I rarely undertake repairs on boiler +10 years old now, too many things to go wrong and customers just don't understand. If they don't want a replacement I walk away.

Funny thing is, a lot of the time they end up coming back to me 6 months later for a new boiler 🙂

Some boilers over 10 years old are better built and will outlast new boilers. I repaired a 20 year old high flow the other day not a problem I did say it is getting on a bit and to start thinking about replacing but I will repair it if you want.

Some on the other hand I wouldn't repair, I just take it on the boiler itself not on the age.

 

[southcoastboile]

I has highflows there horrible to work on.

i checked the invoice for the fan. Was 28 days so chased up. Said he would pay but havnt checked my bank yet.

Also so I still need to get paid another invoice for the vessel and prv which is not yet overdue. I think it's around £400 altogether

 

[GasmanxxxR1]

I would get a grip of the situation before it is over due. Be up front with him. Tesco dont wait for payment, why should you?

 

[village idiot]

Quoted for a High Flow two weeks ago as told customer I wasn't prepared to bother about repairing it. Got a call from him last week saying he had bought a 440CDI, can I come and fit it please? So I did.
Another customer had just moved into new property, old boiler not working. I advised him to have it replaced. He retorted by saying: ''You'd say that because you are a Plumber''.
I got a call from him 5 days later saying bathroom needs redoing. When I got there, there was a new boiler on the wall. WTF. I informed him I was busy and it may be cost effective for him to get the chap who fitted his boiler to sort the bathroom. Jokers

 

[Millsy 82]

Just a thought. The diverters on these are fairly bombproof and I have only replaced one against the advice of worcester and the bloke said to me I will expect another phone call on this, he was right and it was a blocked filter on the top manifold. Sorted the problem easy.

 

[southcoastboile]

Never cleaned a filer on this boiler. Didn't know it had one to be honest, would probably have crumbled into 1000 pieces if I tried removing it anyway.
I replaced a diverter on one of these about 6 years ago and it cured it from bypassing up the heating flow

 

[Millsy 82]

It's on the top manifold there is a brass plug underneath that seems to do nothing but that is where the filter is and it will affect hot water.

Don't do what I did and strip the whole boiler to replace the plate and then find it.

 

[southcoastboile]

That's handy to know. I did a plate on one years ago. Horrible job. To be honest I would be happy if I never saw one of these boilers again.

 

[plumben]

I think the best thing you can do is make yourself a waver of sorts that when you replace parts on a boiler that is 5+ or what ever years old that there maybe other faults that may appear once one fault is rectified

 

[stevetheplumber]

the one i hate most is when called to a boiler with no hot water and you change the diaphram or flow switch and it fires but theres a plate full of crud so the hw is stilll carp but they cant see the difference and dont want to pay any more

 

[gasmanrob]

Worst plate heat exchanger I've ever had the displeasure of replacing screw rounded off and had to pull the entire thing apart to get a set of pliers on the screw head

 

[southcoastboile]

I got paid believe it or not. Didn't even get asked to quote for the boiler though. Not that I wanted it. 3rd floor vertical flue, would need a scissor lift or scaffold and even then would be really awkward.

My my job sheets have cancelation rights and a waver saying some faults may occur that cause same symptoms of other components failing that are unrelated and that the agree to pay hourly rate bla bla bla or something along those lines. Only thing is I always forget to get them to sign it.