HELP - NEED A NEW BOILER

[corgiman]

I thought the OP had not had the PCB changed at all, didn't he have to pay the Agent a nifty for a "no fault found"?

I would read it again but you know just how fat and lazy I am

you are right I do see "its the PCB guv" when the chap has not got a clue

But I stand by what I said about homeserve they are trying to give the OP a reasonable service

shame they are beong let down (mebbe) by the engineer

 

[Soggy_weetabix]

I work in MK and could have a look.

David

 

[Soggy_weetabix]

They do however visit the council tidy tip a lot and pick up old thrown out TV's, DVD players, computers, laptops etc bring them home and plugging them in. Do you think this could be the cause.

It is a probable cause and in my view it would be worth the investment for a bit of surge protection. Its better than fitting a new boiler only to find you have the same problem.
It crossed my mind earlier that some of this could be a scam to avoid paying rent. The idea of your tenants playing about with the boiler for personal gain is getting a little stronger now. As you know your tenants, do you think they are capable of it?

Im having the same issues with a system at the moment.

Im not an electrician, so its taken me weeks to get to the route of the fault (and many new parts to the system).

Blowm m/vlv...pump...gas vlv...programmer, tele (not my remit).

But, the leccy board have admitted a 'surge' may have caused it, and it still blows fuses but only of you turn the programmer from 'constant' to 'timed'. Im at my wits end with it.

My last resort was to replace the backplate of the programmer (what goods that gonna do?) but no fuses blown since.

Would appreciate any comments from experts in electrics

 

[Agile]

The circuit board on his boiler has a 6.8 mH inductance on each leg of the mains supply followed by a .01 uF capacitor and a 275v surge supressor on the input so its not affected by any mains surges.

Be aware the OP has not told us the whole story in this case.

I can get to MK as well and we have all the spare parts in stock but you will see he has gone very quiet and has not answered my questions about the alleged 45 day outage during December or why he called Homeserve when it was under warranty and has not told the truth about getting no reply to his letter to the company!

Things are not all that they seem!

Tony

 

[snes]

Awww c'mon Tony, don't leave it there!!

We're all dying to know what you've found out.

What a tease!

 

[fed_up]

Hello - Sorry I was away over the weekend.

To the gentleman who asked about the time estimate homeserve gave to repair this, Can I confirm I spoke to them twice. The first time I called they told me they didnt know when they will be able to get the part in. The second time I called, I spoke to someone else and was advised it will take approx 10 working days.

Please if someone can have a look at the boiler that will be great. please drop me an Email Thank you.

I can confirm that it was installed by a Corgi registered engineer. I do not wish to mention the guys name in this forum however I do have his details and no he is not a relative, friend ect. I found his details in the yellow pages and he was the only one out of the 6 engineers I called who could fit the boiler that week.

I put the boiler under warranty whilst it was still under manufactures warranty because;

1. The boiler broke down in the first week it was installed and Biasi fleeced £50 off me and didnt I feel I could trust them not to do this again if the boiler broke down.

2. Homeserve cover the whole central heating system whilst Biasi would have only covered the boiler.

 

[fed_up]

I have just read a few more posts.............

We seem to be missing the point here. What I am looking for is a solution to the problem. My initial post was to ask if anyone could help suggest a reliable boiler to replace the boiler I am having problems with.

Some people seem to be bent on picking holes with my story. The truth of the matter remains I have had exceptionally high boiler breakdowns on what in a relatively new boiler........ and whether it remained broken for a total of 40 days or 4 days; the boiler has broken down more than 4 times in its short life.

Homeserve definitely have accepted some responsibility in that they have paid back out of pocket expenses of £390. Something is wrong somewhere!

Homeserve as a company have tried their best to resolve this & their customer service is great but at the end of the day they are at the mercy of their engineers.

If anyone out there is prepared to help, then please do so rather than playing detective columbo.

A lot of people have offered very good advice. If there is a corgi registered engineer out there with the part needed and has time to repair this boiler please contact me. My tenants are freezing.

Thank you very much.

 

[Agile]

I can confirm that it was installed by a Corgi registered engineer.

I put the boiler under warranty whilst it was still under manufactures warranty because;

1. The boiler broke down in the first week it was installed and Biasi fleeced £50 off me and didnt I feel I could trust them not to do this again if the boiler broke down.

The CORGI registered installer did not comply with the Building Regulations and did not fit a room stat, auto bypass or TRVs on all the radiators. He has done a cheap job without treating the water, filling in the Benchmark or notifying CORGI !!!

I do think that you are not giving a very fair view of the situation when the boiler broke down in the first week. The manufacturer sent an engineer but when he arrived the boiler was working OK and so the call was chargeable.

It failed later and they sent their local engineer ( dont you remember John M ? ) and he changed parts to sort it out. As a gesture of goodwill the manufacturers agreed to extend the warranty for you.

When the boiler apparently failed again instead of calling the manufacturers engineer who was familiar with the boiler and had spares you chose to call Homeserve instead. To keep their costs down they use contractors. As they are doing the work at a competitive cost they cannot afford to employ the best engineers and some of them will struggle. Its still not clear what the problem was then.

You have still not explained about the alleged 45 day failure to repair by Homeserve. Its normal for most insurance firms if they cannot fix the problem to engage the manufacturer to sort it out. It seems they have now agreed that you can get it fixed so they have in my opinion done the right thing.

Tony

 

[fed_up]

The plot thickens.............. You seem to have more information that I the landlord and owner of the boiler have!!

Please can you advise on when the manufacturers warranty was extended because I wasn't advised of this. I did write them a letter asking for the warranty to be extended as well as my £50 refunded but like I said earlier no one bothered to get back to me!!! I also asked in the same letter that if the boiler broke down one more time within its warranty period for them to replace the whole boiler...........NO RESPONSE!

The corgi engineer did infact charge me I believe an extra £50 for treating the water and as a customer I was not to know all the things you mentioned needed doing as part of the install so that isnt really my fault. I was given a quote and the work commenced. I TRUSTED HIM TO DO A GOOD JOB. I picked him out of the yellow pages.

The name John does ring a bell but to be honest I have never met any of the engineers both Biasi and Homeserve. I have spoken to one or 2 on the phone though. I believe John was the engineer who fixed the problem in January or are we referring to another John here? when the boiler broke down again last week I asked homeserve to send me the same engineer but the tenants told me a different engineer turned up.

I honestly swear on my life that I was not aware of the "As a gesture of goodwill the manufacturers agreed the extend the warranty for you. I thought we only had the 1 year warranty. Why would I go to Homeserve if the manufacturers can fix it?

As you seem to know more than I do about my boiler do you mind telling me when the manufactures warranty expires because I will be on the phone to them to get them to repair it now its broken down again

Re the 45 days - This is the calculation the tenants gave me. They knew precisely when the boiler broke down and finally stated working again and told me it took 45 days end to end.

Hope that clears up the questions you have for me. I really don't know what you are trying to prove but what I do know is I have and continue to try my best to be a responsible landlord and try to resolve and get to the bottom of the heating problems my tenants continue to face and rather than trying to prove a non existent crime please help if you can.

.......Firstly you accused me of not being able to provide you with the serial number which I did now its an extended warranty I wasn't aware of. I feel like I am on crimewatch here!

.......Sounds like you work for Biasi...........well if you do I am happy to pay youor another Biasi engineer you can recommend to sort out this boiler once and for all if you don't mind.

 

[Agile]

If the boiler breaks down soon after installation its normal to call the Installer ! However, he did a cheap job without powerflushing and I suspect he would not come out again. Faulty installation is not covered by the manufacturers.

You seem to think that if you tell someone they will do what you tell them. When you buy something complicated like a car or boiler the manufacturer repairs it under the warranty if it breaks down but does not replace it!

Your boiler was apparently installed during October 2005 and is no longer covered by the manufacturer's guarantee so you should take steps to get it repaired by a competent engineer if Homeserve cannot do it for you.

I am still left wondering what was going on during these 45 days or even what the problem was or how it was fixed.

Tony

 

[fed_up]

As a gesture of goodwill the manufacturers agreed to extend the warranty for you

.

I thought you said it was extended.........Boiler was installed in October 2005. It had a one year manufacturers warranty which will bring it up to October 2006. we are now in March 2007 (6 months out of the manufacturers warranty) so if it was extended what was it extended to and for how long?

As far as I know, when the boiler broke down in Decemeber a Homeserve engineer came out, tried to fix it but couldn't get it to work, so ordered new parts but homeserve couldn't get the parts. We all waited on parts over christmas, then engineer came back in January, Fitted the parts but boiler still wouldnt work so he went off and ordered more parts, came back fitted the parts and boiler worked.

About a week later boiler broke down again. Engineer called out again more parts ordered and boiler finally fixed.

Now in March the boiler has broken down again with 2 more visits by different engineers.

 

[fed_up]

If the boiler breaks down soon after installation its normal to call the Installer ! However, he did a cheap job without powerflushing and I suspect he would not come out again. Faulty installation is not covered by the manufacturers.

Sorry forgot to mention we did call out the installer when the boiler broke down a few days after it was installed and he came out twice but blamed the board. it was at that point we called the manufacturer.

We also called Corgi because we thought it was a dodgy install but like i mentioned in my previous posts Biasi fixed the boiler before Corgi came round and tennants were out when corgi came along and as a result we didnt pursue it any further.

 

[kevplumb]

my2p fwiw the boiler is cheap but fairly good

4 boards in this space of time smells funny

and its got sod all to do with powerflushing

methinks we are not getting the full story

 

[MarkBarl]

My tenants have stopped paying rent and are taking their case to the citizens advice bureau - Can I blame them? I guess not.

Yes you can. They are in breach of their tenancy agreement. They would be perfectly entitled to come to some arrangement with you to get a part refund on their rent, either by private agreement or even through the small claims court. However, as soon as they stop paying their rent without an agreement from you they are in breach.

On a less sure note, I believe that given the appropriate notice, they have a responsibility to be in or make arrangements to give access for the landlord to perform maintanence, which would include getting Corgi to check the installation.

 

[Agile]

That was six months ago.

Just to clarify the outcome, I did offer to go and repair the boiler as we have all the spares and can fix any boiler.

He was reluctant to agree to pay us the diagnostic fee before we started. This is something we have to do because we often get landlords try to avoid paying and give false details and names. He eventually agreed and we were all set to come but, at the last moment, he cancelled saying he had got someone else or Homeserve to come.

There is clear evidence that Homeserve regularly wrongly diagnosed the fault and then weeks later when parts arrived found they did not fix it.

Correctly, the manufacturer's engineer charged for his visit because the boiler was working on arrival and no one had called to cancel. The manufacturers extended the warranty for a further three months as a gesture of goodwill and advised him by email although he does not admit to receiving this.

Tony