snozzer Posted January 6, 2011 Report Share Posted January 6, 2011 I put mine on a British Gas service plan for £13 a month including an annual service its a bit of a no brainer really Thats what i did and the speed with which they have sent someone around when there has been a problem is impressive. Ditto, can't think of any reason not to do this, cheap and the engineers are excellent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canis Posted January 6, 2011 Report Share Posted January 6, 2011 I am fairly practical person and in last two years have fixed two problems with our worscester boiler that so called qualfied gas safe plumber failed to fix or pinpoint the problem. I found a pin ***** in the diahpram causing water to over pressuixe the system . His recommend we bleed the rads ever day :o And the cold snap we had water gurgiling nosie from the flue plumber not a clue wanted to pull the boiler and fit new one. Guess what 10 mins later I had found the condensator pipe was frozen causing it backup into boiler. So I trust the average plumber no. But the regulations stae there the most qualifed person . Sorry spelling bad OTH OTH, Bear in mind that you commit an offence if you interfere with a domestic gas boiler (even your own) if you do not posess gas safe certifiation. As such im sure that with your post above, this being a public forum, you where describing the faultfinding you did in the presence of your gas safe engineer in each case above. the installation and maintenance instructions that have to be left with the occupier when a new boiler is installed give detailed fault finding instructions and usually also instructions on how to remove failed components (think like a mini haynes manual) These are freely available online if you have lost yours. This is a public forum and id like to make it clear pointing this out so that you can ensure that someone who is gas safe registered has all the relavent suporting information when attempting to fault find and repair your boiler gas fitters tend to fall into distinct camps - installers and maintainers, based on which type of work they do most of. Occaisionally uncommon faults will bewilder a fitter who does mostly installation work. Likewise a fitter who usually only does maintenance is likely to take longer to do an install. In theory they are all qualified to do either role, in practice most chaps tend to head to mainly install or mainly maintenance eventually Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
myzeneye Posted January 6, 2011 Report Share Posted January 6, 2011 flame picture,flue flow/spillage,thermostat,safety devices,co/co2 ratio of flue gas,case seals,condition of burner/fan/flue,correct gas pressure,correct gas rate through meter,soundness check,cleaning of condense trap,efficiency check,etc,etc a lot of these checks are carried out visually as well as with some very sophisticated equiptment as a gas safe engineer with 23 years experiance including 3 years of teaching i think you should leave it to the proffesionals if you are having spillage problems you should have the boiler attended to immediately although £90 is a bit much (i charge £55) is your families life not worth it? exacto mundo... Well, I was going to get stuck into this one but it seems some of the newer guys seem to have it under wraps. Good work guys and well answered I put mine on a British Gas service plan for £13 a month including an annual service its a bit of a no brainer really Thats what i did and the speed with which they have sent someone around when there has been a problem is impressive. bg's plan does not include a "service, they offer an anual "saftey check"...... not the same thing. its one thing for some one to tell you your cars running right, its another to never get it serviced..........if you know what i mean. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monster1971 Posted January 7, 2011 Report Share Posted January 7, 2011 british gas normally carry out a 4 point check on a gas appliances 1 flueing and ventilation check 2 safe operating 3 gas rate / analiser 4 soundness test for most modern boilers providing the co/co2 ration is below 0.002% then the appliance is satisfactory by taking the boiler apart you will do more harm than good as with most things these days a lot of the controls etc in a boiler ie fan / gas valve / aps /pcb are non serviceable .they either work or are replaced so the check they carry out is fine as an installer i often advise customers to take out bg contracts especially if their boilers are not the best quality but dont have them fit new boilers for you as they are very expensive and they often sub contract out to other companies. however if you have a new system fitted by a local installer they will still allow you to take out a service contract after the warranty has expired (or before if you are daft enough) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Holliday Posted January 7, 2011 Report Share Posted January 7, 2011 Ditto, can't think of any reason not to do this, cheap and the engineers are excellent. I wouldn't go so far as to say ALL their engineers are excellent. Like any company or profession you're gonna have your guys who know what they're on about and you're going to have your numpties. BG are no exception. To be honest, and not wanting to tar them all with the same brush, I think BG are quite possibly one of the worst as they have this big professional brand to hide behind. Just my own experience after going on some jobs after BG have been there & I've ended up wiping their backsides for them. But as I say, they do have their good guys. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
al4x Posted January 7, 2011 Report Share Posted January 7, 2011 I wouldn't go so far as to say ALL their engineers are excellent. Like any company or profession you're gonna have your guys who know what they're on about and you're going to have your numpties. BG are no exception. To be honest, and not wanting to tar them all with the same brush, I think BG are quite possibly one of the worst as they have this big professional brand to hide behind. Just my own experience after going on some jobs after BG have been there & I've ended up wiping their backsides for them. But as I say, they do have their good guys. there is that but what you don't get is charged every time they come out and then for parts that may or may not be faulty. Having had the local guy out to mine and had 3 attempts going through the boiler manual and changing this that and the other it was a very expensive mistake to make. As is quite evident from a few of the boiler guys its one hell of a threat to your living hence trying to claim they don't do anything to the boiler Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J@mes Posted January 7, 2011 Report Share Posted January 7, 2011 I have a contract with Domestic and General on my potterton boiler, and someone is coming out from Heat Team (who are owned by Baxi, who also own Potterton) to it today as it is broken - again. This is the third time they have been out, so my £13 a month contract has certainly paid for itself! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
al4x Posted January 7, 2011 Report Share Posted January 7, 2011 Heat team sorted my one when he came through the front door without seeing it, local "expert" changed all and sundry £450 and wanted to start replacing bigger more expensive bits when it went wrong again Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dunkield Posted January 7, 2011 Author Report Share Posted January 7, 2011 Well according to the mrs our boiler is at least 10 years old and apart from whatever warranty we had with it we haven't paid for any maintenance, so I could tell myself if it's costs £100 to have it checked out I am still £1680 (£13x12x10-£100) better off - so, enough for the Leica Ultravids I keep promising myself B) I will get it looked at, and I will think about getting it on some sort of plan. In the meantime can one of the plumbers answer me this. The boiling sits in a cupboard with ample ventilation, but I have been tempted to put and air brick in the external wall behind it (there is already one opposite it in the other external wall) The external wall in question forms the boundary between us and next door, so I could see potentially from building regs point of view it wouldn't be ideal as they could lean something up against it and block it. What do you think? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Holliday Posted January 7, 2011 Report Share Posted January 7, 2011 The thing is, Al4x, BG have a big enough client database to be able to operate their service contract, which is basically an insurance policy. They rely on you NOT claining on it to make money. Therefore, all of those people who don't call them out are in fact paying over the odds for something they don't need. Ok, they don't charge for items that are covered and their engineers can throw whatever parts they like at your boiler/system to get it working but if you're not claiming then you're paying for that privelige. In that case, it's no different to paying your local guy to fit parts you don't need, you're just paying for it little and often. The thing is, they don't do what most independent guys would call a service. As one of the other guys on here said, they do a very basic safety check to see if the combustion is right. A BG service engineer is, I believe (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong) expected to do a minimum of 12 service calls a day. Now, to do a service properly takes 60 minutes (give or take 15 minutes). And I believe they get about £15 a service call. I don't know about you but ****** if I would work a minimum of a 12 hours a day for approx £180 and then have to take expenses out of that Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Holliday Posted January 7, 2011 Report Share Posted January 7, 2011 Dunk, what would be the purpose of the additional external air vent if the compartment already has sufficient ventilation, with an external air vent to the outside already?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dunkield Posted January 7, 2011 Author Report Share Posted January 7, 2011 It would be instead, as the one it has effectively draws freezing cold air (at this time of year) right accross the room it is in, although it is only a utility room, my thinking is to give it a more direct feed as it were? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Holliday Posted January 7, 2011 Report Share Posted January 7, 2011 (edited) Well, what you could do is have the compartment ventilation and combustion air ventilation both on the outside wall. You will have to calculate the vents as follows: High level vent @ 5CM2 per kW of max heat input of the appliance Low Level vents @ 10CM2 per kW of max heat input of the appliance Hope that helps. Doc. P.S. It usually means having air vents totalling 100cm2 installed, 1 high and 2 low, as a rule of thumb but it still needs to be calculated to ensure that would be sufficient. Edited January 7, 2011 by Doc Holliday Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dunkield Posted January 7, 2011 Author Report Share Posted January 7, 2011 (edited) So is that one brick or two? :unsure: Its a Potterton Kingfisher 2 CF60 if that helps Edit. just read your update, thanks Edited January 7, 2011 by Dunkield Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Holliday Posted January 7, 2011 Report Share Posted January 7, 2011 Have a look on the boiler, there will be a data badge with some info on it. Along with other stuff like burner pressure, etc, it will give the max heat input probably in Btu's but may have kW in brackets. Either way, let me know what the mMAX INPUT is and I'll work it out for you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snozzer Posted January 7, 2011 Report Share Posted January 7, 2011 The thing is, Al4x, BG have a big enough client database to be able to operate their service contract, which is basically an insurance policy. They rely on you NOT claining on it to make money. Therefore, all of those people who don't call them out are in fact paying over the odds for something they don't need. Ok, they don't charge for items that are covered and their engineers can throw whatever parts they like at your boiler/system to get it working but if you're not claiming then you're paying for that privelige. In that case, it's no different to paying your local guy to fit parts you don't need, you're just paying for it little and often. The thing is, they don't do what most independent guys would call a service. As one of the other guys on here said, they do a very basic safety check to see if the combustion is right. A BG service engineer is, I believe (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong) expected to do a minimum of 12 service calls a day. Now, to do a service properly takes 60 minutes (give or take 15 minutes). And I believe they get about £15 a service call. I don't know about you but ****** if I would work a minimum of a 12 hours a day for approx £180 and then have to take expenses out of that They do 8 calls a day Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dunkield Posted January 7, 2011 Author Report Share Posted January 7, 2011 Have a look on the boiler, there will be a data badge with some info on it. Along with other stuff like burner pressure, etc, it will give the max heat input probably in Btu's but may have kW in brackets. Either way, let me know what the mMAX INPUT is and I'll work it out for you. There is a badge with 3 sets of figures and a space above that says "put arrow here" I noticed there is a red arrow stuck to the piece of paper wired to another part of the boiler, so I am guesssing whoever installed it missed that bit... But it goes from 62,000 to 80,000 presuamby it is safest work on the max? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Holliday Posted January 7, 2011 Report Share Posted January 7, 2011 (edited) Top vent will require one vent with a minimum free air space of 117.25cm2. Lower vent will need to be a minimum of 234.5cm2 (or 2 of the same size as the top vent). You will be able to lose the vents in the door if you have all your ventilation on the outside. If you just go for one lower vent then you will still need compartment ventilation in the door (one high and one low) and thus still have the wretched cold draught coming in to the room. Hope this helps. Doc. P.S. I worked it out on the heat input being 80,000 Btu's which works out at 23.45 kW. Edited January 7, 2011 by Doc Holliday Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
al4x Posted January 7, 2011 Report Share Posted January 7, 2011 that'll be one brick then at 229mm x 76mm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dunkield Posted January 8, 2011 Author Report Share Posted January 8, 2011 Just catching up on this thread, thanks gents :thumbs: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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