Why is it so hard to find a reliable Plumber?

Why is it so hard to find a reliable Plumber?

8:55 AM, 1st March 2018, About 7 years ago 12

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We bought a house as an investment rental property in January 2016. A new boiler had been fitted in December 2015 so we were fairly confident that we would not be incurring expense on the boiler for a few years. We had used an agent for various activities on the marketing and letting process and their service had been good so we decided to use them for the gas safety check and boiler service which they carried out in Dec. 2016 and Dec.2017.

On Saturday the boiler failed completely the main heat exchanger badly corroded together with the secondary heat exchanger . The plumber confirmed that the filling loop had been installed incorrectly so mains water had been entering the whole system for 2 years . Other installation errors were also apparent albeit they would not have caused the boiler to fail.

He removed the magnetic plug and said it was full of debris from corrosion and probably because the system had probably not been power flushed on installation. It was the worst he had seen in 21 years .We now face a bill of £3451 to replace the boiler and rectify the faults. The boiler manufacturer’s engineer came out a year ago to change a faulty gas valve. So 2 services and a manufacturers engineer attend to the boiler and none of them check the magnetic plug or spot that the filling loop is incorrectly installed . Am I missing something here ?

The agent’s response is that it assigned 2 different engineers for the services ( which in my opinion makes their standard of service even worse ) and that it would be useful to have more clarity around boiler services .

Can Property 118 not develop a quality service and resource it to stop this sort of thing happening ?
Which conducted a survey recently and confirmed 40% of boiler services are inadequate and miss basic but in some cases critical items.

Rant over but any suggestions would be gratefully appreciated.
And yes I am writing to the boiler manufacturer next.

Christopher


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Paul Shears

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11:48 AM, 3rd March 2018, About 7 years ago

Reply to the comment left by Martin S at 03/03/2018 - 11:38
Very well said! This whole engineering mess which, as far as I can see, applies to every boiler except the dutch product that you mention, was driven by yet another government body interfering in matters that, whilst quite simpole, were dumbed down below any sensible level.
The biggest technical nonsense was the reaction by the industry in order to achieve the government efficiency targets by narrowing the space between the heat exchangers. The dutch product that I think you refer to does not have this problem and neither do very old boilers.

Yvonne Francis

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14:48 PM, 4th March 2018, About 7 years ago

My advice is to find a family run plumber preferably specialising in the type of boiler you have. I have had the same family run plumber for 35 of my 40 years of being a landlord. He fits and supplies boilers down to repairing leaking taps and even replacing toilet seats! He is a key holder so I don't have to go any further than my phone to ensure any of my plumbing problems are solved. I'm into the grandson of the original plumber I first met and employed 35 years ago and a total delight they have all been to deal with. I'm a self managing landlord but have had experience of agents who I know will use work people you recommend.

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