Baxi 105 - are we being taken for a ride?

[steamboiled]

Hello all. I'm looking for insight into the debacle surrounding our baxi Combi 105e boiler.

We called out the firm who fitted it 5 years ago after the pilot light/boiler kept going out. Additionally the water would not get warm, whether or not the relevant LEDs were lit.

The engineer gave the boiler a 'full service' and left.

The problem persisted.

We called engineer back.

Despite having just received a 'full service' the engineer claimed that the NTC sensors were 'sludged up'. He cleaned them and left, without raising a bill.

The problem persisted (boiler going out - no hot water).

We called the engineer out again.

This time, despite having had a 'full service' and NTC sensor clean only weeks earlier, now we are told the NTC sensors are faulty. The engineer changed them and left. Cost - £140. This price allegedly included the time taken to clean the NTC sensors on the previous visit.

The problem persisted. Boiler cutting out 2 - 3 times a week, no hot water.

We called the engineer out again. This time we are told the plate-to-plate heat exchanger is faulty. The engineer replaces it. The water is still not getting hot before he leaves. He tests the gas pressure - it is very low. He tells us the gas meter may be faulty (governor) and instructs us to 'get it looked at', after which he will return.

I phoned Transco and they hit the roof. They told me the engineer should have turned the gas off and contacted them himself, rather than leave the ssite havingtold us to contact them. The Transco guy found a faulty governor and fixed it, suddenly we have hot water again!

The engineer has just billed us for the rreplacementof the plate-to-plate heat exchanger - £257. I have only just received this bill and am not sure whether I should protest it. The timescale here is from November 2007, when we first called them out, to present date. What do people think?

- Should the 'full service' (£56) have identified problems with the components the engineer later replaced as 'faulty'? (NTC sensors & plate-to-plate exchanger)

- Should the engineer have contacted Transco? When I put this to them, they told me Transco 'Didn't know what they were talking about', and vehemently denied it was the responsibility of their engineer to contact Transco.

- Should the engineer have been able to recognise a fault at the meter from the symptoms? They tell me it was a feat of outstanding detective work that the engineer located the problem on 'external equipment', i.e., the meter, are they taking the p*?

Any advice welcome. I am unhappy that we have incurrred all these bills AFTER a full service, and, in the end, it was Transco who fixed the original problem, not the engineers.

Ta

 

[tonybhoy]

Guy should have checked the gas pressure on the first visit.

Nothing to do with us (RGIs) if incoming pressure is fecked unless it is really dangerous to operate the appliance ,an open flued appliance under gassed for example in which case the appliance should have been turned off subject to the owners permission of course.

All we can do is advise the customer to contact the gas transporter to fix the problem however the gas transporter is only legally obliged to provide 12 MB to a domestic property so they get a bit ****ed of at RGIs constantly telling customers there is a problem with gas pressure which there is if there isn't 21MB working pressure at the meter.

Transco talk pish sometimes.

 

[namsag]

Should have been able to tell by sight that pressure was down as this is very easy on a 105e (and to physically checck takes about 1 minute) and YES he should have informed transco although there is minimum pressure that transco can supply if this leaves the boiler in a potentionally dangerous situation then it is up to him to report.
Sensors cost aroun £10 each and both can be changed in less than 5 mins one is in a dry pocket so there is no way it could be cruded up and the other one in wet pocket only needs the cold under boiler turning off to change.
Plate is approx £80 and is held in place with 2 screws and can be changed in ten minutes .
So on the whole tell him to fek off and stop taking you for a mug.
This is down top his inability to diagnos and repair.

But in his defence service would not include cleanin or touching sensors.. But if you said there was a fault and thats why you wanted it serviced then he should have been looking in more depth rather than doing the pretend cleaning bit

 

[ChrisR]

Pressure MUST be checked on a service. It's law - part 26.9 of the Gas Safety (Installation and use) Regulations.
Then you find out why - and if the regulator's faulty it's Immediately Dangerous then the supply has to be capped (with permission) and Transco (or whoever it is in your area) called. They'd only take an hour to come, max.
If you complain to Corgi that an engineer left a house supply on, with a faulty regulator, they'd take it seriously.

The guy's not just incompetent, he's dangerous.

To spell it out, if a regulator/governor is faulty, you might turn a hob on, then the boiler comes on and starves the hob which goes out, then the boiler goes off, and the hob pours unlit gas into the kitchen. Bang.

 

[steamboiled]

Thanks to everyone who's taken the time to reply. I'm just trying to build up as complete a picture as possible, the question being whether the engineer could reasonably have been expected to diagnose a poblem with the gas meter, from symptoms at the boiler. If a TV picture intermittently cuts out, I'd check the plug before I replaced the tube, if you know what I mean. The chief honcho at the company involved maintains that the problem with the governor was intermittent, and that it was only by sheer chance that when their engineer was taking the pressure on his last visit it dropped and was noticed.

Now it is true that the boiler did cut out very intermittently, but when it did, it would do so 3 or 4 times a day. It would do this about twice a month. The tepid hot water was a constant issue, even though the radiators never malfunctioned in any way.

So if the pressure was fluctuating intermittently then I can accept that you would have to be in the right place at the right time to catch it, but it was a reported symptom, along with the tepid water. Were there sufficient clues there to implicate an intermittently faulty governor?

ChrisR is right, Transco did come out within an hour of being called, if I'd known to call them out in the first place, I would have had the prob fixed for free within an hour!

Luckily we cook with electricity... hopefully that's why the guy didn't phone Transco himself? He said to get Transco out and call him back if necessary after. The exchanger I can view as a maintenance cost, I guess. Not happy about the NTC sensors warranting £140 bill tho.

Thanks again for the responses.

 

[Agile]

The engineer gave the boiler a 'full service' and left.

The problem persisted.

Ta

My view is that whilst your engineer may have been far from perfect, you are not a perfect customer either!

There is a massive difference been a routine service and a fault repair.

It seems you opted for a service although you knew the boiler was not functioning but chose not to explain your concerns.

Many firms employ the less able on servicing and the switched on to do repairs.

Dodgy customers have forced us to adopt a delay before we do a service to ensure that its not really a repair which is required. Since we charge 50% more for a repair and come the same day thats an important difference!

In spite of your less than correct dealings with that firm, they are clearly not very competent and overcharge for much of they work.

If we discovered a faulty meter or regulator we leave it switched off and advise the customer to call National Grid Gas and after they have sorted it out to call us back to check the operation of the boiler!

Tony

 

[steamboiled]

Tony wrote "It seems you opted for a service although you knew the boiler was not functioning but chose not to explain your concerns".

When I first called the boiler engineers out, the fault I reported was that there was no hot water and the boiler intermittently cut out.

On his very first visit the engineer came out and did a full service, that was his response to the situation, not my request.

If the engineers choice to carry out a service in response to the problem I had called them out with makes me an awkward customer, then thank the heavens I didn't use your firm either.

 

[Agile]

If the engineers choice to carry out a service in response to the problem I had called them out with makes me an awkward customer, then thank the heavens I didn't use your firm either.

As I said, their engineer seems to have been far from perfect! Doing a service when there is a fault is not the way to find or fix a fault. A normal service would have identifies the faulty gas supply.

If you had been lucky enough to have called us then we would have come the same day and correctly identified the fault and fixed it in one go!!!

Tony

 

[gas4you]

I certainly wouldn't pay anything other than the initial sevice cost.

Ask for a refund. I always check working pressure at the meter on every service. The guy's an idiot

 

[steamboiled]

I'd like to wind this one up.

What I most want to know is this - given that the boiler intermittently cutting out, and the tepid hot water, were the symptoms given to the engineer on the first call out, could that engineer have worked out that it was the gas meter which was faulty?

I spoke to the company's head honcho and he refuses to accept that his engineer is in any way accountable for anything other than excellent work. The gas meter fault was intermittent, he insists, no engineer would have been able to detect the low pressure. In systematically working his way through components to change, the engineer was being "thorough" and employing "detective work". I'm supposed to be grateful that he was able to find a fault on 'external equipment'. I do not agree. Had he not discovered the low pressure, he was already saying "it must be the motherboard" and asking if he should order one.

So, in summary - given that the reported symptoms were that it intermittently cut out, and the hot water never got past tepid, should that engineer have worked out that it was the gas meter which was faulty?

 

[namsag]

Ignoring the intermitent cutting out, tepid hot water should have had him thinking plate or pressure , baxi is peice of cake to check pressure and would have shown up straight away , A kaput meter governor does not usually work then not it usually stays not working (except when they stick on low light up which was not your problem.