GasSafe certificates

[nightnurse]

My father in law, who is in his mid-80's, recently had a problem with his central heating boiler, which turned out to be a failed thermomcouple.

The heating engineer that carried out the repair charged £140 for the work (which took less than 1 hour to complete) and then issued a Landlords gas safety record certificate at a charge of £16. My father-in-law is not a landlord and the work was carried out in his own home.

It is my belief that there was no need for this certificate to be issued, particularly as the engineer has carried out work on this system before and has never previously certificated it.

I would welcome some clarification about when such certificates should be provided and to whom, as I had an identical problem with my own boiler last year and was only charged £81, including parts and boiler service. No certificate was issued.

Thanks.

 

[lightning]

My father in law, who is in his mid-80's, recently had a problem with his central heating boiler, which turned out to be a failed thermomcouple.

The heating engineer that carried out the repair charged £140 for the work (which took less than 1 hour to complete) and then issued a Landlords gas safety record certificate at a charge of £16. My father-in-law is not a landlord and the work was carried out in his own home.

It is my belief that there was no need for this certificate to be issued, particularly as the engineer has carried out work on this system before and has never previously certificated it.

I would welcome some clarification about when such certificates should be provided and to whom, as I had an identical problem with my own boiler last year and was only charged £81, including parts and boiler service. No certificate was issued.

Thanks.

No need to give a certificate and £140 very dear

 

[expertgasman]

, recently had a problem with his central heating boiler, which turned out to be a failed thermomcouple.

The heating engineer that carried out the repair charged £140 for the work (which took less than 1 hour to complete) and then issued a Landlords gas safety record certificate at a charge of £16. My father-in-law is not a landlord and the work was carried out in his own home.

It is my belief that there was no need for this certificate to be issued,

Some t/c's are considerably more expensive than others, some faults are more difficult to diagnose and location of adrees cann be significant.

Is your father a tenant?. this might explain the LL cert, but then, why would he be paying?

It does sound expensive, although you haven't said whether this was a daytime scheduled job, or an emergency bank holiday call out, or some point between.

i would certainly be asking why a LL cert was issued and why it was charged at £16!

It would be useful / interesting to have a little more background info.

 

[Boilerman2]

Travel & first hour on site £76 , (NOT Central London!)
Typical THermocouple would RETAIL £8-00 ish
All Plus VAT so average bill to replace T/Couple about £100 all in
Bit Cheeky charging £16 for an un-necessary CP12 though!!

 

[Agile]

Yoiu have not said if this was a weekday 9-5 job or out of hours.

We would have charged £84 plus £8 in out local area so a total of £92 during the weekdays.

More at evenings or weekends.

At busy times we sometimes charge a little more to compensate for coming on the same day when others are quoting visits in 3-4 days.

Tony

 

[Agile]

With all due respect to old people letting a 80+ year old manage his own affairs is playing into the hands of cowboys.

This is hardly a serious ripoff. But if he was competent to deal with his own affairs then he should have questioned the bill before paying for it or not.

Customers always seem to me to be surprisingly unconcerned about their own affairs. A 50 y.o. had not realised the gas pipe had been cut and capped although she had been given a warning notice about it.

I will not usually go to anyone who is apparently over 65 unless I am convinced they are well able to look after themselves and ask for a relative or social worker to be present. But then I am not out to rip anyone off.

Recent job was for a 93 y.o. but she is mentally fine and still goes out to play bridge!

Tony

 

[nightnurse]

Thank you for all of your replies. Just to clarify some of the points raised, this was a weekday daytime job and was not am emergency call-out - my in-laws have alternative heating sources, so they were not fazed by a boiler failure.

Secondly, they own their own home, so are not tenants; had they been, I might understand the issuing of a certificate, but that is clearly not the case here. Third - and Agile, you make a good point and I see and respect where you are coming from here - my father-in-law is as sharp as a pin and nothing usually gets past him. In this case he used a reputable (!?) local company (whom I shall not name here) who had done work for him before, and assumed this was the way things were now done.

I've had a chat with him in relation to the very helpful responses to my post. He is chalking this one up to experience and will use a different company next time. Guess we all live and learn.

 

[Agile]

He may seem as sharp as a pin but on that day he was as blunt as a rolling pin.

It was while the engineer was there that he should have questioned.

I have a strong suspicion that the engineer probably DID ask him along the lines of "shall I do a gas safety check while I am here as its only £16 extra".

He is far better staying with that firm as they did NOT rip him off. Another firm might!

Tony

 

[expertgasman]

He may seem as sharp as a pin but on that day he was as blunt as a rolling pin.

It was while the engineer was there that he should have questioned.

I have a strong suspicion that the engineer probably DID ask him along the lines of "shall I do a gas safety check while I am here as its only £16 extra".

He is far better staying with that firm as they did NOT rip him off. Another firm might!

I tink thats a bit harsh Tony, on the old guy. To not attend a job for over 65's is a little pathetic, after all, most people will be WORKING until at least 68 soon.

I know little about, and interested even less, cars and engines. I do wonder sometimes wether some garage work is overpriced, but I don't neccesarily quibble about it, but I might ask someone elses opinion afterwards. The truth is, most people have no concept of the cost of a call out, and while it would be a little strong to call this a rip off, it isn't entirely fair.

Most modern Tc's cost more than £8