in march i decided to have a radiator put in the conservatory running a pipe from the utility room 7 meters away ducking and diving around corners and units ( you get the picture ) so after i phoned 3 plumbers at witch non of them go back to me so i opened the local paper but on the same day the neighbour was having a plum job also so asked him both turned up the next day giving me the same price £150 so i went for the young lad thinking he could do with the cash ,one week later he turned up i thought great ,i told him to be careful when pulling out the dishwasher ( the pipe was going behind the dishwasher ) anyways he done the job and left CHAMPION i could of done the job myself but looking after a 2 year old i can do a bit of plumbing ,any way i was having trouble with boiler that is insured and was a problem before thre new radiator so when the engineer turned ip i asked him why my new radiator was'nt getting as hot as the others straight away he replied he has only put a 10mm pipe when you should really have used 15mm so i phoned him the same day and asked him to replace the pipe and he said there was nothing wrong with it and would'nt replace the pipe so put the phone down plotting my revenge a week later i found the dishwasher not working so i pulled it out and found he had accidently pulled the cable from underneath the dishwasher and a blown the pcb (dishwasher knackerd not worth having repaired ) was told by a engineer for £25 mate it's f****d ,so i purchased all the new 15mm pipe and elbows at about £50 and done job myself then bought a second hand dishwasher then installed it but being a semi intergrated d,washer i had to cut a piece of trim wher the old cupboard had a small gap compaired to the new cupboard door then it happened i hacked of my finger tip BLOODY HURTS ASWELL so i have lost all confidence in so called tradesmen coming into my house ....sorry it's a long one but i had get it off my chest ..will
disaster or a soap it's a long one
- Thread starter willbailey
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tosser
J
johnheritage
You really wouldn't believe the story if I told you about the last "professional" plumber I had round.
He entirely disappeared, randomly, in the middle of a very poor job - a flexible hose, for instance, was kinked 180 degrees back on it's self and almost shut. I'm assuming he was too embarrassed to come back, because he started accusing me of stealing his tools and asking ME, the paying customer, helping him, to bring them round to his house. Then I found out he was going through more than he could afford in coke, that he'd done a "hit and run" on a trade account at a plumbing store, that he was bankrolling, then he started telling me how he'd "sort me out" if I said anything and ended with me at a house with a kitchen knife trying to give someone back £10 for cough medicine someone I knew had bought for my throat; thinking he'd try some other weird stuff if he was around.
That's just the beginning of it, the list goes on and the money versus effort involved is really unbelievable. And this guy was recommended by a trusted neighbour. The difference being, the level of complexity involved in the job - e.g. a drop in versus a change over.
My brother also paid a plumber, through his landlord, £800 to fix a pump. That's almost a new boiler. I've had our Vaillent in bits numerous times.
It's not that darn hard. If you don't know anything about gas, don't touch the gas lines. The rest can be pretty simple. E.g. a new diaphragm valve was over £100 for ours at the time, and I fixed it, knowing nothing about them, for £10 by just following the guide that came with it. Similarly, a new PCB, over £100. They told me this was the only way to fix the PCB. The new switch, a few pounds.
In both instances, I had the boiler back on and functioning perfectly within a day or two at 10x less cost and without compromising safety.
You have to teach yourself to know when you're getting BS'ed. And, by then, you'll probably end up doing it yourself.
He entirely disappeared, randomly, in the middle of a very poor job - a flexible hose, for instance, was kinked 180 degrees back on it's self and almost shut. I'm assuming he was too embarrassed to come back, because he started accusing me of stealing his tools and asking ME, the paying customer, helping him, to bring them round to his house. Then I found out he was going through more than he could afford in coke, that he'd done a "hit and run" on a trade account at a plumbing store, that he was bankrolling, then he started telling me how he'd "sort me out" if I said anything and ended with me at a house with a kitchen knife trying to give someone back £10 for cough medicine someone I knew had bought for my throat; thinking he'd try some other weird stuff if he was around.
That's just the beginning of it, the list goes on and the money versus effort involved is really unbelievable. And this guy was recommended by a trusted neighbour. The difference being, the level of complexity involved in the job - e.g. a drop in versus a change over.
My brother also paid a plumber, through his landlord, £800 to fix a pump. That's almost a new boiler. I've had our Vaillent in bits numerous times.
It's not that darn hard. If you don't know anything about gas, don't touch the gas lines. The rest can be pretty simple. E.g. a new diaphragm valve was over £100 for ours at the time, and I fixed it, knowing nothing about them, for £10 by just following the guide that came with it. Similarly, a new PCB, over £100. They told me this was the only way to fix the PCB. The new switch, a few pounds.
In both instances, I had the boiler back on and functioning perfectly within a day or two at 10x less cost and without compromising safety.
You have to teach yourself to know when you're getting BS'ed. And, by then, you'll probably end up doing it yourself.
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Well what has that taught you two guys? F**K all! that is all apart from loosing trust for an entire industry.
Get z germans in, or the poles
I canne really say much else apart from what more do you expect giving it to the young lad?
He has probably never seen a copper pipe since his collage days, seeing as how near enough everything now'a'days is plastic push and fit
Did i ever tell any of you guys about the new wonders of plastic push and fit bolliiiiiox, I had to reconstruct an entire school's floor because over the 6 week break the ?couplar? made from plastic, that is meant to last at least 50 years completely blew at the mains attachment. (plumbing not so good)
I would of thought with such high pressure...yano :S
Get z germans in, or the poles
I canne really say much else apart from what more do you expect giving it to the young lad?
He has probably never seen a copper pipe since his collage days, seeing as how near enough everything now'a'days is plastic push and fit
Did i ever tell any of you guys about the new wonders of plastic push and fit bolliiiiiox, I had to reconstruct an entire school's floor because over the 6 week break the ?couplar? made from plastic, that is meant to last at least 50 years completely blew at the mains attachment. (plumbing not so good)
I would of thought with such high pressure...yano :S
M
Mickymoody
My diaphramn valve is faulty, the actual diaphramn has been taken out as it has melted, so the entire valve is now deemed faulty. Any tips? Apparently £150 for the part and £150 for fitting, your just down the road from me...it's a Ravenheat LS80 boiler.
J
johnheritage
#
Check out keeptheheaton.com or it might be co.uk
They carry stuff Vallient themselves don't seem to, sell it at a reasonable price and get it delivered really quickly; the next day in my experience. I was quite happy to put the free sticker they included on the boiler, with their number on it.
Find the replacement diagphragm, then take the valve apart and swap em over.
If you have the technical manual for the boiler, or can get a copy from Ravenheat or on line, there'll probably be a troubleshooting guide in there that tells you how to do it. The builders, plumbers and electricians I've seen usually just open the guide and follow that. The one for even our really old combi walked me through things in a "does this happen? yes / no, then do this ----->" tree fashion.
Taking the valve apart isn't hard, but you may have to disconnect some other junk in the way before getting to it. Mine was one of the first combi's and it was buried behind the pump and a fair bit of pipework. Just unbolt it all, get to the sucker, then put it all back.
Before starting, identify the gas line and don't touch it. You can either do that from the outside and follow it in (e.g. the pipe that isn't hot or cold) or from the inside, the pipe that goes into the burner. It'll be in the technical guide too. I'd recommend you do all three. You don't want to unbolt that by mistake, obviously. Particularly if you smoke. Once you've found it, colour the pipework connected to it in with a marker pen if you want to be sure you don't mix them up whilst unbolting things. If the gas line is opened, you have the immediate fire risk, but you also need to do a pressure test on the mains after putting one back together, to check it's not leaking at a very slow rate.
I just had a look on EZparts.co.uk (ezyparts?) and they seem to have the replacement for £14 (first price I found).
If you take a photo of the boiler with the cover off, I may be able to point to what is what and what needs to happen.
The diaphragm goes on these things, combi's, a lot of the time. Particularly the older ones. They just wear out from the heat and constant bending. Some newer ideas use different types of sensors.
If someone has identified that the diaphragm has melted and is then suggesting you pay £150 for a new one, you're probably dealing with;
1.) Someone who doesn't realize they can buy a new diaphragm and it'll work fine again
2.) Someone who does realize that, but knows they can get away with charging you £150 and pocketing the other £140, because if you tell another plumber "the diaphragm valve broke", they won't know if you mean the whole valve it's self or the bit of rubber.
There is a very strong possibility of one of those being correct.
The price for the actual work, that depends on how well buried it is and how tricky it'll be. But £150 is about what my brother earns per day (maybe more), working for big law firm in the middle of London on IP rights for Boeing, Durex, Mars, Nike, Adidas (footy shirts) and others like that. So that plumber better get it done and fixed so it'll work for a few years at that price - especially since he probably isn't paying any tax on it. And since I managed to do it in a day having never touched a boiler before.
If they're doing any gas work, try asking them about Corgi and see how they react.
Our plumber assured us his training was up to date. I'm now almost sure he didn't have a card.
The cost of a new valve is due to all the machining involved (the brass is about £5-10 in scrap I think). But it's not that bit that breaks, it's the bit of cheapo rubber inside.
So, it's quite possible you could have this fixed in a few hours for literally 20x less money.
Plumbers and roofers love scrap. Quite often when they fit a new boiler, they can rebuild or straight up reuse the functioning parts from the old boiler. E.g. drop in a diaphragm from another they just scrapped and charge you the full price. The lead from a roof and water mains swap is worth about £150-200 in scrap. And all the copper / stainless / brass in a boiler is worth a fair bit more than broken bricks and bits of timber.
I saw a funny little sh1t on Rogue Traders who'd do things like, tell people they needed a new fan (when the pressure switch had just been disconnected), take it out, go outside, then bring the same one back in, refit it and charge £400. They knew it was the same one, because they watched him do it on tape and had written on it with a UV marker pen.
Setting up the gears on a racer so they don't chatter is harder than doing the diaphragm on a boiler. I tried doing the grip shifts on my brother's fancy racer and it was a god damn joke they were that tiny, complex and tricky to get together. The diaphragm isn't.
J
johnheritage
Get z germans in, or the poles
If a German's touched it, it's probably been done properly yes.
Plastic isn't that bad, but you definitely need some level of care still.
I know a guy who owns a darn big plumbing company that does work for people like Alton Towers and other multimillion pound companies.
One of his plumbers managed to put together the system in a jewelers and then not push the connections in fully. He then switched it all back on at the end and went home. The place had flooded by the morning.
I bet anyone who's used plastic enough has had one connection not fully seated or tightened, the same being true with copper.
The difference is, you probably weren't billing yourself a fortune, telling yourself you're a genius plumber and you probably watched over the plumbing prior to assuming it was okay.
Rather than, saying you're a genius, billing someone, then hitting the water and leaving for the night in someone else's property.
If not for the insurance hit they will have taken, that'd be embarrassing enough for me to do some really thorough checking.
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Nothing wrong with 10mm pipe as long as its balanced properly.
J
johnheritage
Yeah, I have one in the kitchen that's on 10mm and it gets white hot fine when everything else is on 15mm.
Other possibilities are, something is clogged in the pipe to that specific radiator or the valve is jammed in some way.
Or it's been plumbed in some odd way that means it's sitting out of the loop. But it's not just going to be the 10mm.
I actually used a lot of 25mm blue pipe for the cold. I figured, it's half the price and wider than normal copper. If I can find places to conceal it's bright blue colour scheme, better flows for far less money. I'm in an even luckier position as we had a big garage built on the side of the house, and all the wet fittings inside happen to be within the area of the side covered by the garage, so I can run it up in the garage and poke it through right where it's needed. Obviously, doesn't work with the hot and it needs swapping back to standard 15 / 22 as it touches the fittings, but you can do that EASY. Toolstation carry BSP adaptors for the 25mm MDPE, so I can run the tails for taps straight off it. Sweet!
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