Am I being ripped off?

[roger3007]

I had a heating engineer and a couple of fitters come to my house today to install a couple of radiators and move a radiator on the middle floor of the house. I wanted the radiator moving about 50cm to the left. Not a big deal you would think. I got a call at lunchtime, could I go home as there was a problem. The engineer had detached the radiator, but he told me that I needed to replace all the central heating pipework in my house at a cost of around EUR 4000. Of course I don't want to pay this, so I asked him to just put the radiator back as it was, forget about moving it, and just install the other radiators as planned. But apparently he can neither put it back nor remove it for good as both of these options will involve potentially damaging the pipe which feeds the radiator (and the other radiators in the house). The radiator is fed off a vertical pipe that links to the boiler and the other floors through the chimney; the ' feeder pipe' is sort of bolted into the vertical pipe (i.e. there are bolts above and below it, connecting it to the pipe)

I don't know anything about central heating, but I'm sorry to say that I think that the reason he suggested changing the pipework is pure and simple because he has already damaged the pipework but doesn't want to admit it. He wants me to decide immediately to get the work done, and keeps pointing out that I'm already paying for his two fitters who have been sitting around all afternoon waiting to know whether or not I am going to replace the pipework.

Any views on this??? As I said, I know nothing about it, the guy could be totally honest, but I'm getting quite stressed!

Thanks in advance

 

[Nige F]

Sound like some sort of iron pipework like we use here on large systems, may even be a gravity circuit. My crystal ball is only getting radio Luxembourg...no pictures of your house Iron pipe is difficile to cut and join into

 

[roger3007]

Thanks Nige, at the risk of sounding hopelessly naive, the pipes are grey, not copper, so could be iron/lead? And the system is a pressurised closed-system with a couple of year old condenser boiler feeding it

 

[gazthepottertonengineer]

wont be gravity then i would say it was best to get someone else in for a second quote as eur 4000 sounds alot of money

 

[Paul Barker]

You need to get rid of him at all cost and never let him in to your house again.

Get estimates for the repipe job from people who don 't charge you for two layabouts.

 

[ChrisR]

They shouldn't have "damaged" the pipes - don't pay, tell em you'll sue. If they say they'll sue you, say that's OK, and that you'll get quotes from others to do the work - and assessments of whether it's needed or not. They contracted to do the work. If they can't, it's their problem. Debatable , but as they're obviously being stupid you have to adopt a "robust posture".
If they borrowed your keys, change the locks.

 

[PEDANTICVINDICTIVEMAN]

Order them out of your property it's your house, sound like rip off merchants to me, get 3 quotes from elswhere before proceeding.
Who put the condensers in ?

 

[roger3007]

Thanks for the advice, they still have the keys but I shall certainly get some more quotes, and an assessment of whether the work really needs doing or not.

The boiler was installed by the previous occupants of the house (I bought the house about a year ago).

 

[ChrisR]

they still have the keys

Be careful. Assume they've got copies. Dishonest people have dishonest friends.

 

[PEDANTICVINDICTIVEMAN]

These sort of cowboys really P*** me off, I have worked hard to get a good reputation, a lot of my customers give me keys and money before work done and go off for two weeks holiday, these sort of t***s ruin it for the decent tradesmen and make it hard to get new customers to trust you

 

[kevplumb]

shurrup or ill post a pic of your horse

 

[oilman]

You'll need to be sober to perform a task that complex. Anyway what are you doing replying to an original post that's over a month old? Check the rules, or a mod will censure you

 

[kevplumb]

1 i aint
2 i do have a pic of peds oss (lovley looking animal)
3
ill getya yer sod i have your e mail adress

 

[PEDANTICVINDICTIVEMAN]

My horse is rather gorgeous, I did actually ride to a customers house to pick some money up as they wern't in when I did the work, looked really funny tied up the gatepost while I rang the doorbell, felt like a real cowboy

 

[roger3007]

Thanks for all the replies. Having inspected the work, I noticed that, presumably while chipping away the cement around the pipes, the fitter has managed to put a large hole in the pipe that takes hot water to the bathroom, but that the radiator loop itself looks OK. So I presume that his insistence that the radiator pipework needs to be changed may have been driven by the fact that he's going to need to fix the damaged hot water pipe. Anyway, he's accepted that I can't afford to pay to replace the pipes in my house, and is going to try to put the radiator back as it was.

However, he did say that sooner or later the pipes will need changing. This is apparently because at the moment some sections of the pipe are surrounded by concrete/plaster and are not clad. He says that the concrete/plaster will eventually 'eat' the copper pipework. He pointed out that the pipes have gone a dark grey colour (on first sight I thought they were iron or lead pipes due to the colour). Is it true that concrete degrades pipes? If so, should I try to resolve the problem by chipping away the plaster/concrete, cladding the pipes, and re-plastering over the cladding? I realise that cladding the pipes would be sensible since it would be more heat-efficient, but will the increased efficiency be worth the work?

Thanks a lot