Lack of Knowledge or Trying to Rip off?

[arran197]

My fiance's grandpa had a local guy to service his Vaillant EcoMax 824/2E a couple of weeks ago. About a week later he was having to top the pressure up on a regular basis. He called him to have a look. In the mean time, her uncle came home from a work trip. The guy re-pressurised the vessel (apparently he didn't drain the water out the boiler when he did this), but said it needed a new expansion vessel and a new PRV. He quoted £480 to do the work, but her uncle was far from impressed so he dropped it to £380.

£150 for the vessel and £80 for the PRV, the rest labour.
Parts Center quoted me £106 for the vessel and £30 for the PRV including VAT.

Before going ahead, they called me and asked me if I thought that was ok. I offered to go round and have a look. They are nice people and don't like troubling me, so didn't ask me in the first place, but didn't want to agree the work if I thought it was over priced etc. Her Grandpa doesn't like putting on people and didn't expect me to do the work just because we're family and I am a gas engineer.

I popped round and had a look. I checked the vessel valve had no water in it, drained the boiler and the vessel had no charge in it. I re-charged it, filled the boiler up and tested it. It worked fine. The PRV hasn't been passing by the looks of it and since I went 5 days ago the pressure gauge hasn't moved.

So the vessel and the PRV were both not required to be replaced. But more shockingly, the boiler hadn't had the heat exchanger door seal changed and this boiler was only serviced a few weeks ago.

I've been back today and replaced the door seal, which was totally shot. There was some scorch marks on the heat exchanger, I wouldn't have given it long before something serious would have happened and the boiler destroyed itself. The condense trap was full of debris and the heat exchanger dirty.

So has this guy got a lack of knowledge, is he lazy or just trying to rip my fiance's Grandpa off? Total cost so far is just the heat exchanger door seal.

 

[stoker122]

Could be any of them or all three.
If the boiler was left in a dangerous condition after the service, the customer can report it to GSR.

 

[arran197]

It wasn't particularly dangerous as was, but could have become a situation because of the seal not being changed. I suppose it's At Risk because of the known issues related to the silicon seals on these boilers and the fact they should be replaced.

 

[stoker122]

The MI's say the silicone gaskets should be replaced when the module is refitted.
As you say this could easily become dangerous.

 

[lame plumber]

if he hadnt bothered to clean condensate siphon and spot a leaking burner seal he is either learning the trade or lazy. Its easy enough to follow the mfis if you dont know what your doing, so no excuse in my opinion, and as for not depressurising and filling the exp first before going for a replacement, thats just incompetant as its always a first option as far as I'm concerned.

 

[julesverne]

think its the installer trying to make money. there's plenty of em about.

the amount of times ive been to a boiler with a faulty expansion vessel that just needed charging to be told last gsr who visited said whole boiler needs replacing.

 

[arran197]

TBH I think with the price he quoted, the best option would be to get a new combi and swap them over. Baxi are doing a 10 year warranty on the Platinum, if a customer hears that they'll be going with the slightly dearer option to save money in the long run.

I've been round tonight and it's been working perfectly. So total cost is £0.00 as I got the seal free and I spent about 90 lazy minutes there doing the job in total, including drinking coffee.