B&Q BOILERS.

[Agile]

Heatline had all the covers on when I was at PHEX !

Neither of the two guys on the stand seemed to know much about boilers!

One told me to look on their web site for the manuals and the other said they were not on the web site but he would post one to me. Still waiting!!!

I have yet to see a boiler where I cannot get the AAV out but then I have not seen an installed Giannoni combustion chamber with a plastic case! Yet !!!

Tony

 

[Gasguru]

You should wait 'till the reps turn their heads and get your screwdrivers out Tony

The Keston rep wasn't too impressed when the heath robinson trap on their pre-production model fell off (I only touched it honest). He just made excuses for poor engineering

I spoke to Alpha about some of their system boilers having the drainage tray under the flue air inlet. Good idea, intelligent design...except the drain tube terminates within the combustion chamber. The rep admitted boilers had been sent out without the correct condensate traps and pipework to allow proper drainage of the tray.

Never heard so much bulls**t from manufacturers. So many excuses for ridiculous design and cost cutting.

Best excuse was on the Buderus stand on why the MI don't match the display on the 500 boiler. "We are not allowed to amend the manual".... I told him to just slip in a supplementary page for the UK market then...."It would just be too confusing"...what a joke.

 

[Agile]

Their display offered a mini football for anyone taking their boiler apart.

The Bunderous fellow had another excuse for not letting anyone actually have any of the 200 mini footballs "because they were inside the display" !

It embarasses me when bits of boilers fall off their display models. I rather go for the verbal "difficult questions".

On the Alpha stand the boiler had two positions for the ignition electrodes. It was fitted in the LOWER position so that it was not possible to see it sparking from the viewing window.

After a lot of telephone calls the best he could do was say that the upper position was used in a different power version of the boiler.

That was not very convincing as both positions were very similar.

Tony

 

[Gasguru]

Well the Alpha rep did phone up parts and have the modified trap sent to me (it has an extra connection for the tray drain tube).

However I'm sure the existing boiler drain tubing will be too short and I suspect there will not be a blanked out hole through the combustion box base to allow connection to the new trap.

Not due to re-visit the job for a while. The boiler is in a roof with the flue terminal at the highest point on the gable end - ie higher chance of water ingress (flue is set horizontal as per MI).. and the boiler is on the coast.

 

[mehran]

my earlier comment about biasi are a little unfair, biasi just have a bad name as they are a b&q boiler.

i must confess that i am service agent for biasi and was on a refresher course at biasi to day. currently the boilers are running at less then 1% failure rate. all the service agents where moaning that they were not getting any work of biasi

 

[ACOperson]

Just fitted a Heatline Band A Solaris boiler and ur spot on about the AAV, I couldn't even get my fingers in to ensure the cap was loose when filling the system! PRV is not much better, and the condensate trap was very hard to remove to fill up after installation.

The boiler itself looked good, and was easy to install & commission in comparison to other cheaper band A boilers eg Biasi, however according to the very poor installation manual it could only be range rated to 24kw or 30kw central heating, no less! Still, all of the above points pale in comparison to working on a dreaded Ideal Icos...

The controls etc on the heatline are all very 'customer friendly' though and for this reason I will probably reccommend them again in future.

 

[Agile]

i must confess that i am service agent for biasi and was on a refresher course at biasi to day. currently the boilers are running at less then 1% failure rate. all the service agents where moaning that they were not getting any work of biasi

Now that you have made this confession surely you should be promoting the reliability of their products and encouraging RGIs to fit them?

If you are not careful you will have the Hook Police looking for you!

Tony

 

[mehran]

Now that you have made this confession surely you should be promoting the reliability of their products and encouraging RGIs to fit them?

If you are not careful you will have the Hook Police looking for you!

Tony

i dont understand what you mean by the hook police. biasi don't pay me, i am not a sales rep but i can't lie and say biasi are crap boilers because they are not. i believe the failure rate is lower then any other maker at the moment. so i would by fit there boiler at the moment before they start ****ing around with the design!!

btw the m96(the b rated) is doing super well and is build like a tank

 

[Agile]

i dont understand what you mean by the hook police. biasi don't pay me,

If you are really a service agent then I would have thought that Biasi would pay you!

Are you an unpaid service agent for any other boilers?

Spend a little time thinking about the Hook Police!

Tony

 

[mehran]

yes biasi pay me, in the sense they pay me to repair the boiler. but they don't pay to push there boilers and i not going to tell anyone to fit them or tell people that they are the best thing since slice bread. they are still a budget boiler from b&q

i still don't understand the "hook police" part

 

[ACOperson]

The Biasi Band B condensing boiler is my current "most fitted" model. Its easy to commission, inexpensive, the design is familliar and they are easy to work on.

They do not have the excellent interface of the Vaillant ecotec series but I bet that a well installed yet rarely maintained one would outlast the Vaillant...

 

[mehran]

i am the service agent for hartlepool, was going around all the merchants asking if the sell many biasi. they are selling tons of them and i did not even know i get so few call outs and it is not because hartlepool is filled with amazing installers i can tell you now.

 

[Agile]

biasi for example are hated with passion, no b*****r wants to fix them. today had a chap on the phone with a biasi that he cant work out what to do with, already change the pcb and phone me in desperation. if your buying in to a B&Q boiler your are buying in to some heart trouble in the future.

Have you ever considered that all around you people might be fitting Biasi boilers and because they are so reliable you never realised so many were being sold???

They even heat swimming pools and koi ponds! Even ACOperson is fitting them!

 

[esra_ptrap]

A valid point from Tony.

We all have our favourite boilers more based on familiarity and experience than much else and there are many people around who fit and maintain to a high standard boilers which I wouldn't go near if people paid me ... Oh yes, people do pay me

I, for example, like Worcester boilers and disagree with some of the earlier comments about their products now being mediocre ... Expensive, yes, but you get what you pay for IMO.

Trawl all of the online forums to see how many issues are being reported about (for instance) the floor standing Greenstar 440 condensing boiler and you won't find many.

And don't let anyone tell you it's because they aren't being fitted because they are! A great combo for 4 bed 2 bath properties, easy installation, easy maintenance, reliable and looks great in the utility room next to the washing machine

I have a 440 in my home and I'm not on commission from Worcester

 

[corgiman]

I agree with tony

I always tell my client that if a boilerman says "oh no one of these" it usually means he doesnt lock horns with them very much so they must be a good boiler



little bit of philosphy al la CM