Radiator Sludge

[Harry Bloomfield]

The British Gas service guy has not mentioned lack of filter, and they know the boiler was installed in 2024, after the regulations were apparently changed on 15 June 2022.

A boiler service, only includes the absolute basics (if you are lucky), of checking the boiler is doing what it should safely. They will not care about a filter, inhibitor, or any leaks on your system, etc..

1. Clean: carry out a system clean and flush
2. Filter: fit an in-line filter
3. Inhibit: add scale and corrosion inhibitor to the heating system, low temperature systems must also include a biocide
4. Maintain: at every annual boiler service they must also clean and service the filter and check the levels of inhibitor in the system water.

The only certain way, to enure you get everything you want done, is to specify the work, know what they are doing, and watch that they do it..

 

[RainTown]

A boiler service, only includes the absolute basics (if you are lucky), of checking the boiler is doing what it should safely. They will not care about a filter, inhibitor, or any leaks on your system, etc..



The only certain way, to enure you get everything you want done, is to specify the work, know what they are doing, and watch that they do it..

Based on my experience here I agree. If competent work by a qualified professional depends on the customer acquiring near-professional knowledge, drafting detailed specifications, and supervising execution, it's a pretty bleak world - we are talking here about installing a boiler, not building a bridge over the English Channel or sending a rocket to Mars!

In my experience in IT, problems are rarely caused by customers knowing too little, but by professionals assuming too much - particularly about the existence and quality of testing, and especially testing that resembles the real world rather than an optimistic version of it.

 

[dilalio]

In my experience in IT

This is the crux of your issues.
You are trying to compare and resolve two completely different worlds... And worlds apart they are.
Thank fook IIMBSB

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

If competent work by a qualified professional depends on the customer acquiring near-professional knowledge, drafting detailed specifications, and supervising execution, it's a pretty bleak world - we are talking here about installing a boiler, not building a bridge over the English Channel or sending a rocket to Mars!

It's rather like, going to a garage, and asking them to change the engine oil. They do as you ask, but would you also expect them to check the water, the wheels, and the tyres - maybe give the car a full service, when all you had ordered was an oil change?

You invite BG to do an annual boiler service, that what you get - the very basics, of an operational and safety check.

 

[Mister Banks]

A boiler service, only includes the absolute basics (if you are lucky), of checking the boiler is doing what it should safely. They will not care about a filter, inhibitor, or any leaks on your system, etc..

You are of course correct but if you look in the boiler manuals there is usually a section that states what the manufacturer expects a service to be but IME with my boiler this never happens therefore the boiler warranty is actually voided by the person doing the basic service. Luckily I doubt a manufacturer could prove this though.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Luckily I doubt a manufacturer could prove this though.

Which is what those claiming to have done a service, rely upon.

 

[RainTown]

It's rather like, going to a garage, and asking them to change the engine oil. They do as you ask, but would you also expect them to check the water, the wheels, and the tyres - maybe give the car a full service, when all you had ordered was an oil change?

Recapping a bit, I bought a new Baxi boiler, to replace an old Vokera boiler. The installer had visited and seen the property / setup in advance, and quoted for Baxi supply and installation, relocating the boiler approx 60cm to the left within the same room, and adding some Hive TRVs to the setup.

Summarizing some of the discoveries in the thread and things I knew already before starting the thread:

The installer spent basically no time checking anything, once last pipe was connected, they were off.
Note they did not complete a commissioning checklist.
The heating did not, post install, work as well as it had before.
That caused me to complain to the installer.
They ignored my complaint.
As I had no confidence the install was done correctly, I telephoned Gas Safe for advice, who sent an inspector
The boiler installation failed the Gas Safe inspection, 12 different defects
We now discover the Flow/Return had been swapped around, probably inadvertently (I dont suggest it was deliberate)
In all TBOE connected cases, the Flow is now at the bottom and the Return is now at the top.
There was no filter installed, which you insist is a requirement.
The installer says, this very week, contrary to multiple posts in this thread, and Baxi support, that Flow/Return cant be wrong way round, as it does not matter at all which way around it is now, or ever was. I think direct quote is "it can't matter mate, it's just a loop".

I dont want to translate that into a specific car problem, but "the job", for which I paid 3500 UKP, isn't really equivalent to an oil change, is it?

I certainly 100% agree that I didn’t know enough at the start of the process to be able to “ensure you get everything you want done: specify the work, know what they are doing, and watch that they do it”. That said, if that is the expected baseline, IMHO it paints a rather bleak picture of what should be a professional standard for accredited tradesmen. This is certainly not your fault, or anyone on the thread, and I do appreciate your and others candor and directness. That said, as I mentioned earlier in the thread — perhaps because this is a DIY forum, and DIYers surely know more than average about the stuff they DIY — there is a hint of victim-blaming here, which I find a little but jarring.

dilalio​

I mentioned IT not as a direct comparison - setting up say a LAMP stack, is a very different task to installing a boiler, fitting a kitchen, or changing a gearbox, which are all different from each other as well. But maybe, and maybe not, some human factors do translate - over-confidence, rushing things, not properly testing? I had to look up IIMBSB and did get a truly definitive answer, but seems close to SNAFU - situation normal, all f*****d up ?

 

[denso13]

The installer says, this very week, contrary to multiple posts in this thread, and Baxi support, that Flow/Return cant be wrong way round, as it does not matter at all which way around it is now, or ever was. I think direct quote is "it can't matter mate, it's just a loop".

It doesn't matter except for TBOE connections. Look it up.

 

[RainTown]

Luckily I doubt a manufacturer could prove this though.

Luckily for who? This is the bleak part that I am discovering, little more than theatre, a sham - poorly regulated, patchy (at best) enforcement, and in practice a consumer has very little redress.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

That said, as I mentioned earlier in the thread — perhaps because this is a DIY forum, and DIYers surely know more than average about the stuff they DIY — there is a hint of victim-blaming here, which I find a little but jarring.

No one is victim blaming, I am simply stating the way things are these days, for many, though there are some good guys on here, freely devoting their time, trying to help. Maximum profit, minimum work for the money, is the norm.

 

[RainTown]

It doesn't matter except for TBOE connections. Look it up.

I had 5 radiators TBOE connected though, which the installer knew and knows, as he reconnected all of them after removing them all from the property and emptying them down the nearest drain. And he was told again this week, and still maintains, as insistently as you do here, that it does not matter. And at least 2 others have told me the same, while trying to push me to agree to a powerflush.

I dont need further convincing he's wrong on this, I've read enough on it now. I make the point essentially to show that several Gas Safe registered boiler installers claim differently. So Harry's "The only certain way, to enure you get everything you want done, is to specify the work, know what they are doing, and watch that they do it" indeed does appear to apply fairly strictly. Which I find quite bleak and depressing. It's not that I was unlucky - rather I would need to be pretty lucky to have had the system installed correctly.

 

[denso13]

Good luck with it anyway.

 

[JohnD]

I had 5 radiators TBOE connected though, which the installer knew and knows, as he reconnected all of them after removing them all from the property and emptying them down the nearest drain. And he was told again this week, and still maintains, as insistently as you do here, that it does not matter. And at least 2 others have told me the same, while trying to push me to agree to a powerflush.

I dont need further convincing he's wrong on this, I've read enough on it now. I make the point essentially to show that several Gas Safe registered boiler installers claim differently. So Harry's "The only certain way, to enure you get everything you want done, is to specify the work, know what they are doing, and watch that they do it" indeed does appear to apply fairly strictly. Which I find quite bleak and depressing. It's not that I was unlucky - rather I would need to be pretty lucky to have had the system installed correctly.

TBOE is not wrong, provided the flow goes in the top, and the return comes out the bottom.

In some countries it is the required method of connection since it is slightly more efficient.

BBOE is fine whichever side flow and return are.