A number of issues have been raised from a boiler replacement.
Boiler not operating and with no pressure.
Tile damage
Sprawling pipe layout in kitchen
(Retrospective view of alternate option when it was found that promise of removing pipes from airing cupboard could not be fulfilled).
Battery operated thermostat
Wires left terminate but visibly hanging a little above eye level on an inside wall
Air space between external gas pipework and outside wall reaching 67mm
exterior holes made and widened including vent hole are not made good with brick and with colour mismatched concrete sometimes scraped over existing brick
I got in contact with an, I think, large boiler replacement company requesting a quote for boiler replacement which they based on my description of the house and them viewing the google image of the property. I looked up the proposed boiler according to the description and front view picture that I found of the boiler showing the flue going directly up. All boilers that I've previously had including my previous boiler here have had the flue pipe going directly out the back. While getting ready to write an email one of the sales guys phoned to politely phone. I said that I was concerned that the boiler proposed had a verticle flue which was unsuitable and I wanted a flue that could go straight out of the back.
Following our conversation, I then felt comfortable to send this shorter than planned email in which I stated that I wanted to check "the compatibility of boilers to the existing layout of the bungalow" and I attached internal and external photos as shown.
I then got a phone call to, among other things, notify me of a plan to put a gas pipe on the (nine-meter horizontal length) of the front and entrance sides of our bungalow. I said that what I had agreed to was a replacement of the boiler and hadn't agreed to this and, in any case, there was a loft space immediately above ready for use and I was told that this was fine.
The following picture shows the current state of the installation and gives an idea of what went on previously.
Four rows of the mosaic tiles had been pulled from the wall which broke several of them, the boiler had been placed in a lower position so that its base was just above the electrical fittings, the sockets (which we use for things like the fridge) had been replaced with a blank plate, a network of pipes had been placed in front and down to the level of the countertop inhibiting cleaning and access to the electrical tittings and an additional hole had been drilled through the external wall for an unwanted external run of the gas supply.
The agreed boiler exchange was to swap a system boiler and (leaking) water tank for a combi boiler and the company had agreed to remove water pipes from the water tank containing cupboard and this was in line with our stated plan to knock out the wall between the cupboard and our bathroom to make one larger room. Without notification this plan was dropped by the engineer due to the house water supply entering the building at this point and, while some of our neat vertical pipework was certainly removed, some clearly off vertical and off horizontal pipework was added as well.
After the first day of installation I emailed the company specifying problems as mentioned
and I also phoned leaving a message, knowing that the engineer might better be able to work elsewhere rather than come down with inappropriate parts supplied, in hope that the message might be passed through in time.
Anyway, the engineer came, I explained the problem, I also showed him the neat installation of the boiler as fitted in the kitchen of my neighbour next door and then, told that the engineer would liaise with the company, we waited. Late in the day I was told that they offered to run the gas pipes in the above roof space as requested but that the boiler would stay and I was left needing to assert that this was not what I wanted. Even later on the idea was presented to send the flue up through the roof an idea to which I readily agreed. An alternate option, which came open since the linen cupboard pipes were not being removed, would have been to place the boiler in there, but this wasn't offered.
As per the below the boiler picture, pipes have been directed up through the countertop, not even in line with the boiler but to the right of it and these pipes. I asked for these pipes to be repositioned into the kitchen cupboard space that seems to have been allocated for pipe runs and plumbing. I was told along the lines of that there had already been enough difficulty installing the boiler system's magnetic water cleaner (dirty snowstorm device as I call it, slightly out of the following picture and installed at a diagonal) and that the pipes wouldn't be redirected as requested.
On review of the work, I'm also unhappy with the slanted installation of the plastic pipe and its unneccesary vertical joint and that the flexible metal mesh pipe system hadn't been installed below the countertop.
Ideally, all the pipework would be boxed in or at least in a condition from which boxing in could be practicable.
Whereas our previous thermostat had been wired in so that it required no batteries, the new thermostat, the programmer will now require batteries into the indefinite future.
Wires have also been left visibly hanging from an inside wall.
I was told that the cable (with three cores with black, red and no insulation) were part of a previous install and needed to be checked out by an electrician and removed. I don't know what the wires might have been used for. I think that up to now the bungalow has always had the same heating system arrangement with a boiler in the same position as our previous (probably as old as the house) Ideal boiler, with water tank and cylinder, thermostat and separate programmer and, while there were previous marks in the plaster to show where the wires went behind the boiler, there were no marks to indicate where anything else had been filled in.
The hole where the gas supply pipe comes down was only filled when I requested it and this has been done roughly so that the several bumps are very apparent when lit by the kitchen light.
I am pleased that the gas pipes have been run in the loft as required though, even though the run is shorter than for a supply for a neighbour to an identical boiler, the run is placed at a diagonal above the joists and the outside pipework has been installed like this.
The pipework comes out of the eves with a 50mm gap between the pipe and the wall, it then comes down by about 240mm to leave a 67mm gap between the pipe and the wall (that's three pipe diameters) and then it bends in a bit to leave a 27mm gap between the pipe and the wall. Our only neighbouring building, with external gas pipes coming down to their meter cupboard, has gas pipes that hug to 10mm from the wall. Our pipe enters the meter box from the side through a sleave of putty rather than from below as is done on our neighbour's house similar guage pipe also to a Worcester Bosche boiler with similar appearance to ours. Our run on the gas pipe runs for about 10 meters (about 200mm up from the top of the meter to the new new hole in the meter cupboard, just over 800mm from the meter cupboard to the eves, about 7.8 meters in the loft mostly at a diagonal and about a meter down to the connection on the boiler).
The outside of our house has not been made good and our previously beautiful brickwork has been left looking like this.
There's an additional pipe in there that has been added to the outside of the house even though this is not used with any of my neighbour's boilers, a hole for the unwanted external gas pipe run has been added, an enlarged hole has grown where the previous flue had run and holes have been filled with concrete, not of matching colour, which has also been scraped over the bricks.
The pipe going to the outside, while unwanted and added without consent, has been left with a significant air gap unfilled.
Whereas we previously had a wired-in programmer and thermostat, without notification or consent for change to a wireless system, we now have a battery dependent programmer, thermostat. I was shown these controls to the extent of pressing the top button to make the house hotter and the bottom button to make it colder and yet, at some time following the engineer leaving, the heat didn't come on at all.
There's no water that I could find leaking from any of the hot water piping but neither is there any pressure in the boiler.
The boiler would warm up moderately toward the top but without any of the pipes receiving any of the heat. Concerned with possible heat damage in the boiler I later cut power to the system from the fused spur.
I live in as a carer for my Mum (born in 1936 and now living with mobility difficulties and dementia). We still have hot water as supplied through a power shower and have a small electrically powered radiator but I'd like to get our main heating and hot water sorted well and soon.
Thoughts and advice would be appreciated.
It took a day for the company to decide that the same engineer should come back to work out rectifications and he took another day to just now phone to say he's coming around to look at the heating. The job started last Thursday.
Thanks
Boiler not operating and with no pressure.
Tile damage
Sprawling pipe layout in kitchen
(Retrospective view of alternate option when it was found that promise of removing pipes from airing cupboard could not be fulfilled).
Battery operated thermostat
Wires left terminate but visibly hanging a little above eye level on an inside wall
Air space between external gas pipework and outside wall reaching 67mm
exterior holes made and widened including vent hole are not made good with brick and with colour mismatched concrete sometimes scraped over existing brick
I got in contact with an, I think, large boiler replacement company requesting a quote for boiler replacement which they based on my description of the house and them viewing the google image of the property. I looked up the proposed boiler according to the description and front view picture that I found of the boiler showing the flue going directly up. All boilers that I've previously had including my previous boiler here have had the flue pipe going directly out the back. While getting ready to write an email one of the sales guys phoned to politely phone. I said that I was concerned that the boiler proposed had a verticle flue which was unsuitable and I wanted a flue that could go straight out of the back.
Following our conversation, I then felt comfortable to send this shorter than planned email in which I stated that I wanted to check "the compatibility of boilers to the existing layout of the bungalow" and I attached internal and external photos as shown.
I then got a phone call to, among other things, notify me of a plan to put a gas pipe on the (nine-meter horizontal length) of the front and entrance sides of our bungalow. I said that what I had agreed to was a replacement of the boiler and hadn't agreed to this and, in any case, there was a loft space immediately above ready for use and I was told that this was fine.
The following picture shows the current state of the installation and gives an idea of what went on previously.
Four rows of the mosaic tiles had been pulled from the wall which broke several of them, the boiler had been placed in a lower position so that its base was just above the electrical fittings, the sockets (which we use for things like the fridge) had been replaced with a blank plate, a network of pipes had been placed in front and down to the level of the countertop inhibiting cleaning and access to the electrical tittings and an additional hole had been drilled through the external wall for an unwanted external run of the gas supply.
The agreed boiler exchange was to swap a system boiler and (leaking) water tank for a combi boiler and the company had agreed to remove water pipes from the water tank containing cupboard and this was in line with our stated plan to knock out the wall between the cupboard and our bathroom to make one larger room. Without notification this plan was dropped by the engineer due to the house water supply entering the building at this point and, while some of our neat vertical pipework was certainly removed, some clearly off vertical and off horizontal pipework was added as well.
After the first day of installation I emailed the company specifying problems as mentioned
and I also phoned leaving a message, knowing that the engineer might better be able to work elsewhere rather than come down with inappropriate parts supplied, in hope that the message might be passed through in time.
Anyway, the engineer came, I explained the problem, I also showed him the neat installation of the boiler as fitted in the kitchen of my neighbour next door and then, told that the engineer would liaise with the company, we waited. Late in the day I was told that they offered to run the gas pipes in the above roof space as requested but that the boiler would stay and I was left needing to assert that this was not what I wanted. Even later on the idea was presented to send the flue up through the roof an idea to which I readily agreed. An alternate option, which came open since the linen cupboard pipes were not being removed, would have been to place the boiler in there, but this wasn't offered.
As per the below the boiler picture, pipes have been directed up through the countertop, not even in line with the boiler but to the right of it and these pipes. I asked for these pipes to be repositioned into the kitchen cupboard space that seems to have been allocated for pipe runs and plumbing. I was told along the lines of that there had already been enough difficulty installing the boiler system's magnetic water cleaner (dirty snowstorm device as I call it, slightly out of the following picture and installed at a diagonal) and that the pipes wouldn't be redirected as requested.
On review of the work, I'm also unhappy with the slanted installation of the plastic pipe and its unneccesary vertical joint and that the flexible metal mesh pipe system hadn't been installed below the countertop.
Ideally, all the pipework would be boxed in or at least in a condition from which boxing in could be practicable.
Whereas our previous thermostat had been wired in so that it required no batteries, the new thermostat, the programmer will now require batteries into the indefinite future.
Wires have also been left visibly hanging from an inside wall.
I was told that the cable (with three cores with black, red and no insulation) were part of a previous install and needed to be checked out by an electrician and removed. I don't know what the wires might have been used for. I think that up to now the bungalow has always had the same heating system arrangement with a boiler in the same position as our previous (probably as old as the house) Ideal boiler, with water tank and cylinder, thermostat and separate programmer and, while there were previous marks in the plaster to show where the wires went behind the boiler, there were no marks to indicate where anything else had been filled in.
The hole where the gas supply pipe comes down was only filled when I requested it and this has been done roughly so that the several bumps are very apparent when lit by the kitchen light.
I am pleased that the gas pipes have been run in the loft as required though, even though the run is shorter than for a supply for a neighbour to an identical boiler, the run is placed at a diagonal above the joists and the outside pipework has been installed like this.
The pipework comes out of the eves with a 50mm gap between the pipe and the wall, it then comes down by about 240mm to leave a 67mm gap between the pipe and the wall (that's three pipe diameters) and then it bends in a bit to leave a 27mm gap between the pipe and the wall. Our only neighbouring building, with external gas pipes coming down to their meter cupboard, has gas pipes that hug to 10mm from the wall. Our pipe enters the meter box from the side through a sleave of putty rather than from below as is done on our neighbour's house similar guage pipe also to a Worcester Bosche boiler with similar appearance to ours. Our run on the gas pipe runs for about 10 meters (about 200mm up from the top of the meter to the new new hole in the meter cupboard, just over 800mm from the meter cupboard to the eves, about 7.8 meters in the loft mostly at a diagonal and about a meter down to the connection on the boiler).
The outside of our house has not been made good and our previously beautiful brickwork has been left looking like this.
There's an additional pipe in there that has been added to the outside of the house even though this is not used with any of my neighbour's boilers, a hole for the unwanted external gas pipe run has been added, an enlarged hole has grown where the previous flue had run and holes have been filled with concrete, not of matching colour, which has also been scraped over the bricks.
The pipe going to the outside, while unwanted and added without consent, has been left with a significant air gap unfilled.
Whereas we previously had a wired-in programmer and thermostat, without notification or consent for change to a wireless system, we now have a battery dependent programmer, thermostat. I was shown these controls to the extent of pressing the top button to make the house hotter and the bottom button to make it colder and yet, at some time following the engineer leaving, the heat didn't come on at all.
There's no water that I could find leaking from any of the hot water piping but neither is there any pressure in the boiler.
The boiler would warm up moderately toward the top but without any of the pipes receiving any of the heat. Concerned with possible heat damage in the boiler I later cut power to the system from the fused spur.
I live in as a carer for my Mum (born in 1936 and now living with mobility difficulties and dementia). We still have hot water as supplied through a power shower and have a small electrically powered radiator but I'd like to get our main heating and hot water sorted well and soon.
Thoughts and advice would be appreciated.
It took a day for the company to decide that the same engineer should come back to work out rectifications and he took another day to just now phone to say he's coming around to look at the heating. The job started last Thursday.
Thanks
