condemning a boiler

You should have or be able to find her Gas Reg number.

The last time I looked they were up to 506,000 !

If her number is over 400,000 then she has probably been registered for less that one year.

In spite of what customers may think any engineer expects to be reimbursed for ALL costs involved in obtaining spare parts.

What she has done wrong, and we dont know why, is to order the wrong part, probably due to her lack of experience. For her mistake you should not have to pay for either the wrong part or its carriage.

In view of her probable inexperience, she may well have wrongly diagnosed any problem with your boiler.

Interesting thought if you claimed in a court for the cost of the new boiler installation from her because she had diagnosed your boiler as unsafe when it could easily be repaired or maybe was never unsafe anyway!

Tony
 
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Yea but dont forget we in the trade have had rammed down our throats and had to do an Efficiency exam that older boilers are the Devils spawn in in ineffiency, and that the Sky will fall in if we dont fit 98% efficient Condensers.

If the boiler was more than 5 minutes old it would have been an environmental disasterous installation that would "have" to be condemed for that reason alone, obviously one of the new breed of 6 week course I'm a plumber gas fitter experts, so she must be good at her job.
 
The need to do the efficiency course seems to have evaporated.

I am not quite sure why as it was "essential" to have done it if installing new boilers and CORGI included it on our ID cards.

Nobody bothers any more about it now!

Tony
 
A complete waste of time & money Tony, believe me you could teach them a thing or two.

I've not spoken to any installer that has found it of any value!!
 
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Yea another waste of a day and MY money, all that *******s sizing rads and house, and then laddo down the road goes in with his Screwfix or Wickes catalogue and puts one that "looks" about the right size, so guess what I do now instead of wasting my time, custlers have allready been on the net to get their own rads anyway, so whats the point, this trade has turned to shiitte now.
 
The only comment I want to add is "You can buy one hell of a gas control valve for £300!! if boiler failrly old gas valve £120 MAX!!! :confused:
 
The only comment I want to add is "You can buy one hell of a gas control valve for £300!! if boiler failrly old gas valve £120 MAX!!! :confused:

So it's ok for banks MP's lawyers solicters oil companies ect ect to make vast profits, but not plumbers and gas fitters, comes across as a bit prejudice, whats good for the goose.........
Lets look at things a bit, you go to a whacking big house, with swimming pool 3 new expensive cars ect ect, and your supposed to repair their boiler for £15.00 an hour, yea right, there is only 24 hours in a day and 7 of them, if they worked 24/7 they still couldn't earn enough money to fund all that, so the only way they got it was either a lottery win or ripping off there customers or others in their particular line of business.
BP is going to fund £20billion, yes not million, fekkin "BILLION", I wonder where that comes from, oh yes, US, you and me, sooooooo, buying a gas valve at £65.00 and charging £300.0 for it seems good business, Sir Alan would be proud, he isn't short, good business man or rip of merchant, when he makes a buck, he's a bussiness man, when I make a buck I'm a rip off merchant.
Leave off with the "oh it should only have cost xx amount" crrapp, this trade is crippled enough allready, £1650.00 for 5 rads and a combi *******s, and then they wonder why no Benchmark numerous gas regs broken no Notification and bag of shiite boiler no rust inhibitor and no one for dust when it's packed up 6 months later, this society is rapidly getting what it deserves, cheap crap materials and cheap crap fitters.
Why has profit become a dirty word in our industry ???????????
 
The figure fo a gas control I quoted will make me a decent margin I can assure you! and No I dont go around fixing boilers for £15 per hr youhave to more than double that figure, HOWEVER where we completly f**k up I dont think I would leave a bill!! ;)
 
When I go to repair a boiler at our fixed fee price my aim is to rapidly identify the fault and tell the customer the cost of the parts to fix it.

If I were to wrongly identify the cause of the problem then I would NEVER charge the customer extra for any mis diagnosis on my part.

In this case the lady seems to be just starting on her career with a cowboy attitude!

Charging £300 for a gas valve which probably cost about £86! I agree that good gas engineers should be well paid because they have special skills but there is a limit and £172 should be the maximum to be charged to the customer in that case. ( I said maximum ! )

Tony
 
Perhaps there should be a limit to how much oil companies charge us for fuel then, or maybe how much profits supermarkets make while paying their staff minimum wage, or the legal proffesion, what is it, nearly £200million for the Bloody sunday report.

Milking money from peoples misery, as I said before, whats good for the goose.........maybe people should look around before saying how much another should charge and for what.
 
I now see my previous post could be interpreted differently.

I was only saying £172 as the maximum charge for the gas valve if it cost the engineer £86.

In addition there would be a reasonable diagnostic fee ( we would have charged £84 ) but that should NOT have been increased if she got it wrong at first.

I do have to say that if I had missed something which could have been reasonably predicted to make the boiler unsafe then I would not have charged anything.

The boiler is probably an open flue. The flue performance has to be tested before leaving the boiler working.

Although flue tests still have to be done on the working boiler, its possible to do a flue flow test when the boiler is not working. If it passes that test then its most likely to pass the working test for spillage.

If that was the cause of the safety issue ( most likely ) then it was her fault not to have tested the flue BEFORE she repaired the boiler.

Tony
 
Far too much speculation on this post, in the light of little hard facts.

The OP has proved to be an unreliable witness and Agile has claimed to be more honest, learned and cheaper than everyone else.

Typical outcome, you could cynically say.
 
An unreliable witness??
The plumber can't seem to make her mind up about what she has/ has not put in the boiler. That's the only reason I wasn't clear to start with. She changes her mind with every email sent to us. Other than that i have been very clear as to what she has/hasn't done. I have not spoken to her in person, but my partner has, and i have all the emails sent.

I was simply wanting clarification as to what steps a plumber has to take when condemning a boiler.
Thank you to everyone for their information/ advice.
 
What seems certain is that the original plumber condemned a boiler without issuing the paperwork required by law. If they then start shouting the odds, then indeed I'd be inclined to talk to Gas Safe. I've not seen a £300 gas valve on a domestic boiler, so she's over egging that, but she won't get her money back if she returns it as as soon as its opened the supplying merchants will not accept it back unless she is a VERY good customer.

Its standard practice to explain to a customer why you are taking any action. Its polite and the right thing to do, and can help gain their confidence.

Sometimes you have to service a boiler..then condemn it..unless the fault is obvious the moment you walk in.

I suppose my message to the OP is that if they feel the plumber did a reasonable job then they ought to pay her at least for her time. If however they feel completely let down and suspect they were being fleeced then I'd not pay and say why....pointing out the lack of legal paperwork..which is a bit of a show stopper really.

Alfredo
 
I might be wrong ?? but I do not believe it is a legal requirement to leave warning notice's ?? it would be advisable & sensible but a legal requirement ?????
 

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