I've just been asked to leave a women's house...

[Dotty]

Hopefully you went home feeling smug Lee, and I mean that in a good way, you know?

 

[SimonG]

I hear the words "You're the first one ever to do that" and "The last bloke never did that" so often, it makes me wonder if there are any competent gas engineers out there. Had a call from a chap who's CO alarm had gone off a couple of times. He'd phoned Transco and they just capped off the meter (only a BBU and fire in the house). Uncapped, did a TT and lit the BBU. Flame picture was shocking so started to strip for a service. Took the burner out, removed the gauze and was totally blocked with lint and dust, brushed out the heat exchanger and got half a carrier bag of debris out. Did all the required tests, rebuilt and all now ok. Did a room CO test for half an hour with the analyser with it all on full whack - zero ppm. Was talking to customer while testing and he'd had the fire/BBu "serviced" just over a year ago and the bloke never even removed the fire, just shoved the hoover where it would fit and never even spilled it. I told him to thank God he had a CO alarm and took notice when it went off or he could have been another story in the papers along with his toddler and baby. His face went as white as a ghost and I got a £20 tip.

It's the same on the oil, you start taking the baffles out and the customers there saying they've never seen that done before.

 

[Best]

It's the same on the oil, you start taking the baffles out and the customers there saying they've never seen that done before.

I get that. They say the previous guys never use a cleaner or any test equipment. Some say they get their boilers serviced in 10min. Even if you rushed it, how could you clean an oil boiler, new nozzle & test it hot in 10min.
The worst I had was an old lady with an Aga that she said was serviced yearly always in 20min. She asked me to do it & I took 2hrs to thoroughly clean & check it plus fit new wicks. It had been neglected I thought & wicks were ancient. Despite doing it cheap, she told me later that it had taken me ages at it & said I didn't know what I was doing!

 

[DirksPlumbing]

I will just join the line here. As I get it on oil as on gas. A famous one as well is the expansion vessel. And to best that I had been asked to do the FGA "service" type myself by my previous company. I refused as they were not willing to continue my payment should I lose my gas license on that type of shoddy work.

The reason for that was simply: "The others do it too. We are not competitive."

 

[Mike Jackson]

I'm always getting the "No one else has ever done that" comments as well. The other favourite is when you condemn an appliance for insufficient ventilation and get told that no one else has ever said anything about it.

Some years ago I was doing a landlords check on a void property with a WAU and the sparky saw me doing the flue flow test and remarked that he had never seen anyone else do one. He was particularly surprised when I went in the attic to check the flue. On that one estate I had to shut off 4 units on my first annual check because the connecting bolts on the ridge terminals had rotted off. I also surprised the tenants when I took the fans out to clean and check the HE. No one else had done this apparently. On one property the pipework from the circulator ran up in front of the fan and you couldn't get the fan out. These units were around 15 years old so in that property at least no one had checked the HE for 15 years.

 

[leelister6]

Hopefully you went home feeling smug Lee, and I mean that in a good way, you know?

Mebbe not smug but it felt good to do a proper job and save the chap some money (and probably his kid's lives). People trust us to know what we're doing and it's dicks like whoever left it in that state that give us all a bad name (and that Matt Alwright and his ilk!) I suppose I could have condemned it and got a boiler swap but I tend to try and treat customers fairly

 

[DaveTidy]

Some good comments here where engineers have clearly not done what they should have done the previous year.

I must admit, I can think of one time the woman said the fire wasn't removed the previous year and I know it was cause I serviced it and she wasn't even there, it was her husband.

Problem with this is it tarnishes your reputation but is just conversation to them! I used to tie labels in the roof space on the flue and tanks so I could sign it every year in case anyone queried it!!