Are british gas trying to rip me off?

[zit]

Excuse my lack of technical terms here, Ill try and explain as best I can!

I have 7 radiators in the house and the cupboard with the pump and tank are on the landing, with a header tank in the loft. Downstairs I have 3 rads, 1 hall, 1 dining room and 1 living room.

Last week the radiators downstairs stopped getting hot. We did the usual and bled the system but it didnt make a difference so we called British gas under our celcia cover. The guy came and replaced the pump. He turned off all the upstairs rads "to force the water down" and lo and behold I had heat downstairs. Until he left. Then it went cold.

7am next morning the pump was screaming so we called BG again. The 2nd guy bled all the rads and again forced heat down and it worked. Until he left. Then it went cold.

This afternoon was number 3's turn. He was the first to go into the loft and confirmed the tank was ok. He then opened the Y valve (?) and replaced a small rubber ball on a brass plate which was fractionally enlarged. He put a magnet on the pipe that led downstairs and demonstrated that it stuck so "It must be blocked". He then went downstairs and attatched a pipe to the hall radiator and led it out the front door into the guttering (our door is a floor up, we have a garage underneath us with guuttering around it).

At this point I went to move my car and I noticed what was coming out of the pipe, pure clean water.

After much to ing and fro ing he turned on the heating again. Withing 10 minutes the pump was "screaming" and the dining room and living room radiators were tepid. He said that we had a blockage and the whole pipe needed cutting away where the magnet had stuck and the entire system power flushing. The cost £635.

I said I needed to speak to my husband and as he was going I touched the hall radiator.....it was burning hot. I enquired as to how if we had a blockage this radiator was hot but he rattled on about valves and left.

I spoke to my other half who spoke to a plumber friend. He told me to take another water sample from the hall rad because if we indeed had a block it would be murky. I have done that and its crystal clear.

So, now Im in a quandry. If celcia do it its going to cost me an arm and a leg but the guy said if they dont it may affect the terms of our cover. Im not sure I believe this guy at all.
Any input would be greatly appreciated!
Jane
x

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

just a footnote.....wouldnt a magnet stick to a pipe anyway????????

A very similar thing happened to me but it cost me £460 to fix

 

[ChrisR]

Sandwell:

PEDANTICVINDICTIVEMAN
You ought to be careful really, that post of yours could be considered libellous

It isn't libel if it's true. British Gas engineers do, sometimes, rip people off. We've all seen examples. That doesn't mean they all do it all the time, and their "proper" prices are often so high as to be difficult to believe!

 

[namsag]

All depends how you define ripping off as in a company that has preset high prices or If you mean a work force who is actively encouraged to sell as opposed to repair by paying them a commision on each sale and if they come top of internal league tables get free trips to france/silverstone /horse racing etc etc. A lot of the the time it is not the engineers fault as BG`s training is not as good as it once was and the engineer genuinely does not know how to fix it so sells a new appliance or upgrade. AGILE there is no such grade as senior technician in BG there is a lead engineer to approx every 20 guys and the only difference between him and a normal guy is he is given more time to work on a job .And the way it works is if a guy took his job seriously by repairing everything he would soon be in for a little chat as his sales figures would be down.... Original question it does sound if you have a blockage an power flush req or cut out pipework an trace it, air seperators are gettin a favorite

 

[PEDANTICVINDICTIVEMAN]

PEDANTICVINDICTIVEMAN

You ought to be careful really, that post of yours could be considered libellous.

All plumbers and heating engineers want to make money off you, that is the point of being in business. If they worked for nothing they could not exist.
But most of them make fair charges.

Yes making a fair charge to install a new system or repair a breakdown with enough to support running a business is one thing, but telling people they need a new system on the premise that spares are no longer available which isn't true and then charging over a £1000.00 more than anyone else to do the job and then using subcontracters and paying actors and shareholders is ripping people off.

 

[ollski]

PEDANTICVINDICTIVEMAN

You ought to be careful really, that post of yours could be considered libellous.

All plumbers and heating engineers want to make money off you, that is the point of being in business. If they worked for nothing they could not exist.
But most of them make fair charges.

Yes making a fair charge to install a new system or repair a breakdown with enough to support running a business is one thing, but telling people they need a new system on the premise that spares are no longer available which isn't true and then charging over a £1000.00 more than anyone else to do the job and then using subcontracters and paying actors and shareholders is ripping people off.

To be fair this is bull, you cannot force someone to have a new system only recommend it and if most spares aren't available then it is surely good practice to advise the customer although yes if you lie then you are definitely ripping someone off.

The cost is a fixed price quote, if the price is agreed that is not ripping someone off and for many the guarantee a BG installation carries is worth that extra. I know of a recent installation where the boiler has been changed 3 times with no extra cost(2 x glow-worm now potterton), there is no one man band who could offer that. Any business who do not look for sales opportunities are not going to make a very successful venture are they?

As far as advertising and shares are concerned, if you ever want to retire and claim a private pension, which I do, then don't knock it

 

[PEDANTICVINDICTIVEMAN]

Dont share your opinion, when a shareholder gets a pair of overalls on and helps fit someones heating system then they can claim the rewards, not ripping people off by doing NOTHING.

 

[sandwell]

But there are thousands of 'Sids' who do hold shares in British Gas. Shareholders are not necessarily wealthy people.

Many shareholders do wear overalls, and fit Central Heating Systems.

 

[PEDANTICVINDICTIVEMAN]

Funny, if I try to charge people BG rates and tell them they need a new boiler
when they dont or charge for a boiler service without actually doing it, or tell them spares are no longer available when they are I get accused of ripping people off, I didn't realise that if you had shareholders it made it all allright and you could take the piisss out of people without fear of repurcussions.

 

[PEDANTICVINDICTIVEMAN]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/3653839.stm

Obviously didnt' have advertising costs or shareholders to fund, mmmmmmmm, wonder how much an hour the judge earns or the barrister for that matter.

 

[namsag]

Ollski you have answered pendtics points why not mine or is it because i know exactly what gets said at team briefs or how you get *******ed at one to ones when sales targets not met.you say you cannot make a customer to have a new boiler only recommend it . The trouble is an awfull lot of people especially the elderly put their trust in companys like BG largely from the excellent service given to them in the past from guys who where engineers and not fitters and would only advise new boiler when absolutley necessary . In recent years more money was spent on sales training for existing engineers than was spent on appliance training why was that ?. Why where so many experience engineers allowed to leave with no real attempt to make them stay, simple more money can be made(training costs against future sales) by bringing in a new work force who are easily made to follow company policy.

 

[PEDANTICVINDICTIVEMAN]

Namsag has made a good point, some years back BG got rid of a lot of good experienced engineers selecting them by age and paying off them rather than getting rid of the craapp ones whatever the age, this left younger inexperienced and the dross who should have been fired, but like all big companys nobody dare sack anyone they just get shuffled around, "any firm is only as good as it's worst bloke" which one is coming to work at YOUR house.

 

[ollski]

Ollski you have answered pendtics points why not mine or is it because i know exactly what gets said at team briefs or how you get **** at one to ones when sales targets not met.you say you cannot make a customer to have a new boiler only recommend it . The trouble is an awfull lot of people especially the elderly put their trust in companys like BG largely from the excellent service given to them in the past from guys who where engineers and not fitters and would only advise new boiler when absolutley necessary . In recent years more money was spent on sales training for existing engineers than was spent on appliance training why was that ?. Why where so many experience engineers allowed to leave with no real attempt to make them stay, simple more money can be made(training costs against future sales) by bringing in a new work force who are easily made to follow company policy.

Its because pvm is slating the whole company with a sweeping generalization, wheras I don't really have any argument with your points. I would say though that being rewarded for sales is nothing new, except that for a BG bloke it may be 8 quid in a points scheme wheras a self employed guy selling a new boiler could probably pay for a decent holiday, I can't really see a problem. no bg engineer is going to go out of his way to recommend a new boiler where it isn't warrantied, it's just not worth it. It was a shame lots of experienced engineers left Bg at the last shake-up, but the majority went because the financial rewards made it worth it for them, not because they were forced.
I can't really comment on sales courses....I've never heard of one, but I would imagine it does happen and to be fair if you see 70 odd boilers a week and don't identify a single one that requires some sort of upgrade then really some sort of guidance is required.

 

[felix]

Back to the original problem --

I always get suspicious when I hear the words "power flush". Ellie 1997, did your downstairs radiators gradually fail or did it happen overnight? Let's assume the latter. Upstairs radiators can get hot on gravity flow alone but downstairs ones need a pump. The first engineer therefore went straight for the obvious and was quite possibly right.

When he left you had working radiators downstairs so there was no blockage. Moreover, there was no blockage before your trouble started. A screaming pump suggests that it's running dry and that means there's air in it. That kind of pump isn't designed to pump air so the air will stay there until somebody bleeds it out. Meanwhile your downstairs radiators will stay cold.

The draining off of a healthy flow of nice clean water from the hall radiator shows that (a) the downstairs pipework isn't full of sludge and (b) the feed/expansion pipe from your header tank isn't blocked.

Air locks in heating systems can be tricky things, especially if the pipe layout isn't well thought out. Is your pump sitting at the top of an inverted loop where air will naturally collect? If it is then you'll have to bleed it many times until all the air is out. It's not just forgotten air pockets that can cause trouble. When you put new water into the system it takes some time for all the dissolved air to work its way out.

Time's up -- I'll be watching this space.

 

[ChrisR]

no bg engineer is going to go out of his way to recommend a new boiler where it isn't warrantied

BUt it happens too frequently. BG are probably less prone to declare a boiler dead than yellow-pages emergence plumbers (pure prejudice on my part), but I come across boilers condemned for something silly, fairly often, with a proportion of those denouncements by BG. One was a middle aged GW which just needed an HT lead, another a Puma which needed a wax capsule inthe DV, and a Prima with the end corroded out of the flue(std easy fix) and one or two others, details I've forgotten.

BG guys may make very little from getting a new boiler in, but they know they are respected so, it would seem, sometimes they just try it on.

 

[namsag]

I am sure i put a reply to ollski yesterday on this subject but it seems to have disappeared.. ollski don`t wear blinkers ,defend the company when critsism is not justified . But by making comments such as no engineer would sell a boiler that is not needed you are either lying or very very niave. It may be a very small minority that do it regularly but every patch has someone who has done it . i even knew of certain engineeers who purposly damaged them. Trouble is put money in front of them as a reward and in some cases even for a small amount principals go straight out the window. And some of the practises of private heating firms and one man bands make anything BG do look like angels but yet again it is not everyone an what happens is everyone gets tarred with the same brush.