Author Topic: Foc u font of plumbing knowledge please! (Read 4124 times)

Tori · « **on:** 06 July 2012, 09:20:57 pm »

To supply and fit:
New gas valve, harness and new fan.

£434.10

Sound reasonable or not please?

Thanks.

mcyoungy · « **Reply #1 on:** 06 July 2012, 10:08:58 pm »

ouch! that's not from BG is it?

if it's a baxi or potterton then they'll do a fixed price repair for about £300ish.

Tori · « **Reply #2 on:** 06 July 2012, 10:56:22 pm »

I think it's a Worcester.

AdieR · « **Reply #3 on:** 06 July 2012, 10:58:44 pm »

Same rule as applies to insurance - shop around for prices, although I doubt you'll get it significantly cheaper. Anything to do with boilers / central heating / gas seems to be stupidly priced.

Do, however, speak to people to see who they recommend; I lived in a council flat years ago, and the council commissioned a contractor to install new central heating and the installation was a f*** up from beginning to end (plumber drilled through a live cable, radiator leaked, system was over-filled with water, there was no instructions / user guides left for tenants, and to top it off the bloody things failed its first gas safety test at 10 months old {new system ventilated by old flues}).

Tori · « **Reply #4 on:** 06 July 2012, 11:39:03 pm »

The job ahs already been done. The problem is, it took him three attempts to find what was wrong, three visits, and now this bill which seems excessive.

cable tie · « **Reply #5 on:** 07 July 2012, 12:58:06 am »

3 visits and 3 items replaced obviously the fault was only one of the 3 items ! But no doubt due to his incompetience he's charging you for 3 items !! Fooking brill.

FAULT FINDING: If I ever do a job and I replace more than one item to try to eliminate where the problem is, I always retrace my actions so that I end up only replacing the 1 item if it is only 1 item and therefore keeping the cost down for the customer after all what's the point paying for 3 items if only 1 was faulty.

Also I always show/leave the old parts with the customer to show exactly what I've changed.

dazza · « **Reply #6 on:** 07 July 2012, 05:28:37 am »

As in all fault finding it's always a process of elimination but remember your rights as a consumer....Why should you have to pay for something that didn't need replacing. I have had this happen to me several times when getting my oil boiler repaired and after standing over them watching what they do I ended up thinking ....I could do that.... make a semi educated guess at what you think is wrong, source the parts and fit them and save the labour charge which is what I do nowadays. The downside is that I still don't really know what I'm doing but the upside is I now have loads of spare parts.

cable tie · « **Reply #7 on:** 07 July 2012, 08:30:35 am »

Dazza the only problem taking the approach of doing the job yourself is your putting yours and ya family's life at risk if your not trained, modern boilers are very easy to work on nowadays but I would not advise anyone to do the job them-self, the outcome if something went wrong and caused a fire or other damage out ways paying for the right man to do the job, imagine making claim on your insurance only to be told its void as you tampered with it and your not qualified ?

Tori · « **Reply #8 on:** 07 July 2012, 09:26:19 am »

Apparently, as the boiler hadn't been serviced for a couple of years, it needed all three parts, just the first two didn't cure the problem! Have no issues paying for the three parts, just need to know if the price is fair, as I have a feeling it's a bit on the steep side

mcyoungy · « **Reply #9 on:** 07 July 2012, 10:20:17 am »

you could google parts prices for make and model, see what the labour content is.

bruno · « **Reply #10 on:** 07 July 2012, 10:36:56 am »

Depending on which Worcester boiler you have, if it's a combi boiler you are looking at about £230 worth of parts, so going by that, charges for three callouts is going to be about right.

Tori · « **Reply #11 on:** 07 July 2012, 12:46:15 pm »

Ok thanks

dazza · « **Reply #12 on:** 07 July 2012, 07:23:31 pm »

Point taken cable tie but I'm not trained to remove and replace the wheels or brakes off my bike but I do. A machine capable of 160 mph. We all place our lives in our ability to do things thouroughly and to the best of our ability. My comment about still not knowing what I was doing was a little tongue in cheek. My boiler runs on kerosene not gas so the only real danger is carbon monoxide which is why I ensure my flue is never blocked, my pumps running ok and have invested in a professional carbon monoxide detector probe. Despite all of that your advice is still very wise and should be heeded.

VNA - BMW Wank · « **Reply #13 on:** 07 July 2012, 09:26:35 pm »

Quote

but I would not advise anyone to do the job them-self, the outcome if something went wrong and caused a fire or other damage out ways paying for the right man to do the job

It was seeing a couple of em looking at the boiler in my old place, telling me they couldn't fix it, that encouraged me to have a go myself.

They'd have sold me a new boiler, I fixed it for the price of a few phone calls to Italy (to get the parts they said I'd never be able to get) and the price of a couple of temp cut out switches and a pilot light capillary.

There's good gas fitters out there and many do a great job, but there's also a shower of useless bastards I wouldn't want touching my boiler thanks.

I have limited knowledge of gas boilers, but if it breaks down and I can fix it, I fix it.

pitternator · « **Reply #14 on:** 19 July 2012, 08:24:51 am »

KABOOM !!!!!!!!

dazza · « **Reply #15 on:** 31 July 2012, 06:37:11 pm »

Quote from: pitternator on 19 July 2012, 08:24:51 am

KABOOM !!!!!!!!
[ /quote]

dolau · « **Reply #16 on:** 31 July 2012, 08:55:42 pm »

Best advice is never touch anything to do with Gas unless you are a qualified gas safe engineer!

Second best advice- get the annual service and system covered by British Gas for about £15-20 a month and that covers parts and labour when the snow is outside and the boiler isnt working and all the shops are shut!

but their van stock is overflowing

Think on to that row of houses that disappeared one sunny afternoon in middle England about a month ago- werent some children killed and the father badly burnt and arrested and his neighbours now refugees

slappy · « **Reply #17 on:** 31 July 2012, 09:07:45 pm »

the problem with British Gas is when they are busy they still won`t come when they should and sometimes use sub contractors who are useless as I found out the hard way.The guy was meant to put a new pump in and I had to tell him twice that that it was leaking water.When I complained about him I never got any answer back from British Gas.

cable tie · « **Reply #18 on:** 31 July 2012, 09:16:58 pm »

Even gas safe plumbers get it wrong sometimes !! Many moons ago I worked for a large local reputable company they carried out all the council work regarding boiler servicing and plumbing refits, on this one occasion the plumber/corgi qualified than as we all was caused a leak and left the property without knowing several hrs later massive explosion demolished the house, lucky there was no one in, but they had to knock down the 2 adjacent houses and the company was fined big time they went to town on em, there still in business servicing 2 local council authorities and still employ igiots that have not got a clue.

dolau · « **Reply #19 on:** 31 July 2012, 10:27:13 pm »

There can always be an amongst the nuggets- we had one service engineer servicing our school boilers who ended up causing more faults than he fixed- he didnt last long but at least a gas safe registered engineer has a head start on gas safety- he should know how to do it and generally they are concientious about their work