Is this acceptable from a central heating company?

[faithlies]

Bit of a rant really and would be interested in comments on customer service!!!

Partner and I rent a house privately (I'm selling mine but don't live there, which is a good job as that has no heating at the moment!).

After being here a few weeks, we found the pipes were quite noisy at night and told the letting agent.

They sent their contractor round who reported to the landlord that the house needed a new boiler, they arranged with my partner to come round on a Wednesday.

They came round a day early before he could move some boxes of belongings (having just moved in and not unpacked) out of the garage to clear the way for them to get to the boiler.

Instead of moving the boxes, the "engineers" ripped the boiler off the wall by climbing over the stuff, dropped it on the boxes and damaged a lot of things which were broken or covered in sooty, dirty water.

OH was understandably mad. They came the next day and left a trail of destruction, flooded the kitchen, dirty marks all over walls and carpets, damaged paintwork, broke the toilet seat (standing on it), used the loo and didn't flush and left us with no heating, shower or hot water a catalogue of things really.

OH complained to the letting agent and the boss of the heating company agreed it wasn't acceptable, said he'd sacked the bloke responsible and would finish the job himself.

He did, but left a valve open on the system and flooded the garage, ruining lots of my partner's artwork and paintings (was dripping right on to them)

After they at first said they weren't responsible, we're now waiting for an £800 cheque from their insurer for the damage to belongings.

They didn't show us how the boiler worked at all, nothing about filling the system, faults, nothing.

When the heating packed up before Christmas (only been in three months) they took three days to come out, it was minus three most nights and it was freezing.

We've now lost hot water pressure (took half an hour to fill the bath tonight) but we're terrified of calling them out

Letting agent was no help, lied to us and said they'd sacked the company as contractors, but it was the same company who turned up to fix the heating when it broke before Christmas (faulty thermostat). To top it off, they haven't even told the owner of the house about any of this.

Just totally fed up with heating systems at the moment!!! Waiting for my uncle to fit a new heat exchanger on the one at my house

 

[gasisexpensive]

sorry this is is the uk.you get what you pay for.

 

[faithlies]

sorry this is is the uk.you get what you pay for

As tenants, we didn't pay for it!!!

 

[Gasguru]

Unfortunately most estate/letting agents are low life and will often use the cheapest labour they can in order to maximise their own markup on the job. I know many that use illegal unqualified labour. They gain several times over since the work has to be re-done often. Often the landlords are oblivious to the poor standard of work (some will not even care).

Have you seen any evidence to show the installers were corgi registered?

Have you seen the benchmark logbook and the building control notice?

Most agents can only authorise say £200 of work before contacting the landlord so they should be aware of the work. If the property is in good order (ie the landlord appears half decent) you could try and contact him through the land registery (very cheap). Some landlords would be horified at the sub-standard work I come across and don't realise they are being ripped off by the agents...just so the they can make their bit. It is not unknown for agents to stick 100% on the contractors invoice.

A few pictures of the installation would be useful since it's bound to be a bodge job. Were TRV's fitted, roomstat fitted, flue position correct, condense pipework correct. The vast majority of let boiler installations are illegal.

 

[faithlies]

Blerdy hell, Gasguru, despite everything I (foolishly) believed it would at least have been safe!!!

The landlord knows about the work obviously as they paid for it, but not about any of the problems/damage caused. Took us ages to get a letter from the letting agent to say they would take into consideration the damage caused to paintwork/bath panel by the engineers when we leave, as we were worried it would affect our £1,000 deposit.

We feel like sitting ducks really as we've never rented before and don't want to rock the boat, but from what you've said, I am going to take some pics on the weekend and post them on here to see what you folks think of the installation.

They did come and do an annual check a couple of weeks ago.

I feel confident enough to make a few checks of the boiler on the weekend regarding the hot water pressure.

We had another run in them just before Christmas, OH had bled the radiators and the pressure in the system had dropped. Never having had a combi boiler before, he didn't know about topping up the system (not at all technically minded!) and called the boss of the company who shouted and swore at him down the phone

Luckily when I got up (this was on a Sat morning) I got the manual out and worked out how to fill the system back up.

Nightmare really, can't wait to move

 

[Corgigrouch]

The first and last time I worked for a letting agency left me waiting for my money for six months.. The same agency has a guy who does Landlords certs for £30 a property, he can do up to ten properties a day Though I do some work for private land lords, and they always act upon my recommendations

 

[The Baker]

Time to name and shame?

Who is the letting agent?

Who is the contractor?

Tim

 

[faithlies]

I'd love to name and shame, just hope the central heating peeps don't post on here!!!

 

[Gasguru]

.............OH had bled the radiators and the pressure in the system had dropped. Never having had a combi boiler before, he didn't know about topping up the system (not at all technically minded!) and called the boss of the company who shouted and swore at him down the phone

Never ever bleed the radiators or try and repair the boiler. Without sufficient knowledge you could end up paying for a new boiler. Refer all problems back to the agent and give them hell if not resolved promptly. The presure dropped...some boilers will hapily self destruct. Just topping the pressure back up can introduce more problems due to a flat expansion vessel. It is not the responsibility of the tenant to maintain the heating system. I always instruct tenants to call the agent or even myself to bleed radiators etc.

 

[faithlies]

Fair enough Gasguru

The radiators were cold at the top after a week with no heating, bleeding seemed to put them right and I re-filled the system, pressure has been steady now since then (three months).

Looks like we'll be getting them out again to sort out the hot water pressure, just wondering how much verbal abuse we'll get over the phone this time

 

[Corgigrouch]

This is not acceptable.. sure you can expect some disruption and mess but not this.. If you have any doubts about them you can check to see if they are CORGI registered on line or you can phone CORGI

 

[leakydave]

No, in my opinion, definitely not acceptable. We all get leaks from time to time, but no full scale assault course over boxes etc in the garage. Get the work checked if you have any doubts, better check it that CO poisoning. I am amazed what some 'professionals' can get away with!

 

[ChrisR]

Nasty, unacceptable, unfortunate.

If we can find something moanworthy wrong with the system which is a breach of Corgi regs or Building regs, you should at least be able to get it sorted.
You can call Corgi and they'll send an inspector who can make trouble for the installer if there's anything wrong.
Did the installers also do the Landlord's Gas Record?
Those are almost never filled in correctly - can you scan or photo that?
Do you know who the installers were? You can look them up on the corgi website. If you can't find them by postcode, you can call Corgi with their name and they'll do a search.
Take pictures of all the gas pipe you can see, & flue position. Also the two pipes which come out of the boiler and go outside or to drains (one will be plastic)
Do you have thermostatic rad valves on at least the bedroom rads?
Do you have a room thermostat?

 

[faithlies]

Thanks Chris, OH is looking for the copy of the paperwork they left a few weeks ago after doing a check.

We had to weigh up whether we trusted them to be in the house while we weren't there, or be there and it being "difficult". We decided not to be there and it was done while we were out.

They are cowboys at best.

The letting agent is YourMove. I'm just checking if the installer is CORGI registered.

 

[faithlies]

Ok, just checked.

The boss's name comes up as Corgi registered, the name of the company the CORGI no. relates to is not the same name as the company who came to fit the boiler.

(ie, Alpha plumbing (not the real name) is the name on all the invoices and vans, but the CORGI registration no. is for Joe Bloggs (name of the boss who came and finished the installation and flooded the garage) is under ABC plumbing in yell.com.)

Dodgy?