need some help - I'm cold!

[Allister]

Hello

We have an oil boiler Camry5 which supplies us with hot water and hot water for the rads.

A couple of weeks ago the heating system was running on overdrive, ie. the boiler wouldn't stop heating. The Shell Direct engineer was called in and he replaced the motor in the valve which controls the flow of hot water to the rads.

Every has been running fine since then until last Sunday pm. We noticed the house was cold when we came back from an afternoon out. So we did what we normally do and turn the thermostat up to fire the boiler. Nothing happened, so we sat and waited ... still nothing. Eventually the boiler kicked in and warmed the rads a little then turned off again.

It seems the boiler is warming and heating the rads and when the temperature gets to 16c the boiler shuts off. (I know this because I have a thermometer next to the thermostat). We called the engineer again yesterday and he diagnosed that there was something causing the valve to stick, and that by playing with it the heating had cleared itself - he didn't stick around to find out that the heating shuts down at certain temperature. I found this out again last night!

Got him out again this morning and his diagnosis is that everything was working, and said that the thermostat was broken ... trouble is he doesn't carry them as spares, so I went and bought one and have installed it but we still have the same problem, and I'm still cold!!

Could it be that the boiler has got overheated when the valve got bust and the stat in the boiler is causing the boiler to cut out?

I'd be very grateful for any pointers so that we can try and get Shell pointing in the right direction ...

 

[oilman]

I presume you have a contract with Shell Direct. If you have, you can either thump the table and tell them to honour their contract or you can suggest they do something biologically uncomfortable.

Now, if you haven't got a contract, I can assume you are a glutton for punishment.

Shell Direct claim to provide a professional service, so they can demonstrate their professionalism and fix your problem. They would be quite happy, no doubt, to slate cowboys (like me) who drive around in unmarked vans.

I expect to fix any heating problem presented to me, in fact, I guarantee I would fix it. (After all, if I don't, you might tell someone els I'm no good).

I would willing help YOU, but I have no intention of providing help to Shell Direct, or any other megalomaniac organisation who would like to take all the world's service work for themselves.

Where do you live?

 

[Allister]

Oh sorry, you are right of course, I hadn't thought too much the consequences of giving help to them ... I'm just a bit peeved a being cold for a whole week!

I would gladly ask anyone but them to come and have a look at the boiler, but it seems that our Landlord (who is a lovely man) has a maintenance contract with these fellas, but I'm not sure it covers getting them out to fix things like this as I noticed on yesterday's docket that it was a chargable call!

I will ring our landlord tommorrow and get him to thump the table, and get him to refund the 15 quid I spent on a new thermostat!

We live near Wallingford in Oxfordshire.

 

[Allister]

Hello there, just an update on this situation ...

After much mucking about and Shell being unable to attend to the problem yesterday, we found a local heating Engineer who has diagnosed, located and fixed the problem within an hour - fantastic!

So the moral of this story (if anyone is interested) NEVER employ Shell Direct ...