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Yep, all the decent experienced gas engineers would never post such info on youtube, its those that more incompetently minded that don't see an issue with it, so like that video you end up with the blind leading the blind, but when you've got explosive gas & deadly CO involved, its not good!!!
Oh Dereton33. Him again. Yes, argued with him on a few occasions.

He doesn't seem to know the right names for things, or have a proper awareness of the Water Regs. If he is a plumber himself, then he cannot be a very good one. His DIY plumbing advice is fairly bad.

And now he's a gas boilery person been doing this for years, it seems. And wanting to advice RGIs (because that video is allegedly for the benefit of Gas Safe installers).

So I will take his advice next time my boiler fails. I will call a RGI and insist s/he replace the thermocouple, the PCB and then the gas valve, in that order, and regardless of the symptoms. Pillock.
 
Oh Dereton33. Him again. Yes, argued with him on a few occasions.

He doesn't seem to know the right names for things, or have a proper awareness of the Water Regs. If he is a plumber himself, then he cannot be a very good one. His DIY plumbing advice is fairly bad.

And now he's a gas boilery person been doing this for years, it seems. And wanting to advice RGIs (because that video is allegedly for the benefit of Gas Safe installers).

So I will take his advice next time my boiler fails. I will call a RGI and insist s/he replace the thermocouple, the PCB and then the gas valve, in that order, and regardless of the symptoms. Pillock.


The next part will make you sick !!!!

He earns approx £25,000 per year from his YouTube channel !!!!
 
The next part will make you sick !!!!

He earns approx £25,000 per year from his YouTube channel !!!!


WTF! Urgh, there's so much spivery on social media, like all of the so called influencers doing paid for reviews, ultimately leading to disasters like Fyre festival. Youtube are never going to shut him down as they're making even more than £25k off his channel and this crap just keeps being perpetuated.
 
The next part will make you sick !!!!

He earns approx £25,000 per year from his YouTube channel !!!!
Oh well. A manager at a local wholesaler makes more than that I expect and generally his staff would be able to do a better job if he stayed at home to mow the lawn. In the scheme of things, Dereton33 probably does less harm than a lot of people on that salary.
 
I wouldn't be questioning the price, but more the time allocated.

10 hours total for seem to be very easy faults to diagnose.
Without being on the job I could be wrong yes, but most faults contained within the boiler can be diagnosed within 30 minutes, especially fan and pressure switch issues.

Let's say he took 30 mins to diagnose each fault, that's 2 hours. Then we add an hour and a half total for fitting which takes us to 3.5 hours. Include any travel etc to merchants and I still struggle to see how we get above 6 hours total which gives a total of £270 labour, not the £450 you were charged.

To give you an idea of duration, I recently on a job removed lead from a gas meter and replaced with a new union, ran a gas pipe to the new utility room which was 5 metres away, installed a new combi boiler, installed a magnaclean filter, hung 6 radiators, installed a hive thermostat, filled balanced and vented system, all within 10 hours which included trips to the plumbers merchants and a lunch.

I would see he has overcharged, but without seeing the work and knowing the faults, don't quote me.

If you done that yourself then your a liar as it takes 30 minutes just to clear shoes out to get to a meter
 
To me this is this highlights a classic problem in the industry - the hourly rate of the engineer doesn’t just cover hours on site, it’s travel time, ins, van, tools, and (hopefully) experience.
But with parts being expensive the cost of repair soon racks up. Two visits and you’re in new boiler territory. It’s true some folk ‘earning while they learning’ and costing the customer money for the privilege, but to me the manufacturers should pick up their game - boilers have computers in them these days, but most fault codes are woolly to say the least. Mechanics do charge £90 per hour, but their computer diagnoses which part is at fault. Let’s face it not many boiler parts are fixable - it’s about identifying which parts at fault and swapping it out. That’s my rant after England beat Ireland - imagine if they’d lost
 
My plumber looked at a boiler. Unsure wher the problem lay, pump would be £135 plus fitting ... he didn’t want to swap out parts hoping to fix it. He suggested Worcester Bosch. Cost of vist plus swapping some boiler parts, along with a year contract and a service. £300. The problem was a leak in the hot water system ... the 2l per minute leak. Not covered by the £300. WB had step by step trouble shooting on a computer to guide the engineer in diagnosis.

If you can’t fix it yourself , it’s not really professional to charge an hourly rate as you learn from your mistakes. Charging OTT will damage your reputation.
 
If I charged to swap a part and then realised that part was in fact not faulty, I would replace the original and keep the part and not charge to the customer.

But that wouldn't happen, as I know how to fault find properly.
 
Look this is a tricky issue ..when to write off a boiler. It is always open to abuse, and the badly informed . Which is why a genuine local engineer is often best, esp. one that is trusted. Others use BG there really is nobody inbetween in my opinion. Rob Foster ...centralheatking. Using a regular and trusted outfit also buys
peace of mind and a good nights sleep ....priceless in my opinion
 
The next part will make you sick !!!!

He earns approx £25,000 per year from his YouTube channel !!!!
Is it an offence under GSR to give advice when not qualified
probably not, but if there is proof online then he might find himself in trouble...internet law is a rapidly expanding area...i know I sleep with my barrister
Rob Foster ...centralheatking
 
Is it an offence under GSR to give advice when not qualified
probably not, but if there is proof online then he might find himself in trouble...internet law is a rapidly expanding area...i know I sleep with my barrister
Rob Foster ...centralheatking
He's covered his arse by stating the work has to be carried out by a Gas-Safe Registered Gas Installer, though.
 
He's covered his arse by stating the work has to be carried out by a Gas-Safe Registered Gas Installer, though.
I dont like that..I will have a think..he maybe might have a problem...Inwill ask my barrister later...if you get my drift ...Rob Foster ,,,chking
 
He won’t gas safe can only come in when someone charges for gas work and there not reg

If they do it for free gas safe don’t care
 
Is it an offence under GSR to give advice when not qualified
probably not, but if there is proof online then he might find himself in trouble...internet law is a rapidly expanding area...i know I sleep with my barrister
Rob Foster ...centralheatking
And how is he Rob?
He won’t gas safe can only come in when someone charges for gas work and there not reg

If they do it for free gas safe don’t care
unfortunately this is the case.
 
You cannot work on any gas appliance unless you are gas safe registered. This is and always has been the case. (Since we have had a regulating body)
 
You cannot work on any gas appliance unless you are gas safe registered. This is and always has been the case. (Since we have had a regulating body)
But ShaunCorbs said
"He won’t gas safe can only come in when someone charges for gas work and there not reg
If they do it for free gas safe don’t care"

I don't understand, please explain.
 
So presumably you can work on on your own boiler (as long as you don't pay yourself :confused:) and that's OK? We're often told otherwise on this and other forums.
Anybody whom carries out work to a gas appliance needs to be experienced and trained.
If it is for gain then they must be GSR, however if a numpty plays with their own device then they immediately invalidate their home insurance and leave themselves open to criminal proceedings by others. If you all want when my barrister wakes up I will find out from her how long the tariff for this offence might be
Rob Foster ...aka centralheatking
 
Anybody whom carries out work to a gas appliance needs to be experienced and trained.
If it is for gain then they must be GSR, however if a numpty plays with their own device then they immediately invalidate their home insurance and leave themselves open to criminal proceedings by others. If you all want when my barrister wakes up I will find out from her how long the tariff for this offence might be
Rob Foster ...aka centralheatking
I hope she charges you by the hour.
 
if a numpty plays with their own device then they immediately invalidate their home insurance and leave themselves open to criminal proceedings by others
If I play with my device and don't cause any damage to others, what are the legal procedings going to be for, and who will be pressing for them?
 
1998 Gas Regulations cover most of the above. The largest fine a quick trawl uncovered was £1.2m plus sundry other fines and costs. 18 months in clink seems to be average incarceration. Plus the danger diy gas work puts the home owners family in. Its not just gas bangs but flue gas. solid fuel carries other dangers.
Rob Foster aka centralheatking
 
Why would a non GSR person work on a boiler?

Anyone with even half a brain knows that they are blxxdy dangerous ... and can explode
Because every year I have to straighten the fixing lugs on the decorative casing on the boiler at my mother's house after some numpty who happens to be a RGI bends them by removing the casing in a ham-fisted manner (next year I will supervise).

Because I had three RGIs look at my own boiler unable to work out why it was overheating 'perhaps it's supposed to do that'. Then I discovered the flow and return had been reversed.

Because I've watched (yet another) RGI work on my boiler, fit the functional casing and then wonder why the boiler wouldn't fire, then he realised he'd left one corner hanging off and had missed the fixing hook entirely. Lucky the boiler has pressure sensors able to recognise that the casing has been put on by an idiot. (The manufacturer's instructions say to check the condition of the seal and to check the casing has been fitted correctly. Ha ha.)

The one that said a heating system was full of air and it turned out he hadn't checked the ballcock on an open-vented system.

The one who serviced a boiler he had originally fitted for a customer of mine and then ignored her all weekend when she told him, in the middle of winter, that her heating wasn't working. He was eager enough to come and look when she sent a text saying 'don't worry - I'll call Baxi out'. Customer is in her 60s and has emphysema, but by then I was on my way (it was his shoddy wiring).

This, sadly, is the level of competence I find in local gas installers. People ask me for recommendations and I'm currently unable to give any. You can understand why I would feel safer in my own house if I had worked on my own boiler than allowed an unknown person with a Gas Safe card to work on it for me. So, yes, it would be interesting to see what the law says.
 
We are not all like that mate and people still shouldn’t mess with gas unless trained.
 
We are not all like that mate and people still shouldn’t mess with gas unless trained.
I know we aren't all like that, but you can well understand why the industry has such an awful reputation. I note that my thread in the Gas Installer required forum has received zero interest, so I can only assume all the good ones did the sensible thing and ran as far from Colchester as they could.

One guy I used to use and who had seemed quite good got struck off the register. I did know another guy who also seemed quite good, not that I actually met him myself (though he was at least reassuringly expensive), but he did make me wait a month for a repeat annual boiler service before finally telling me he simply wouldn't have the time (as he no longer does domestic).

Another guy I've heard of installed a boiler but hadn't had it it setting mode when he set it up, so it wasn't correctly commissioned. Luckily the manufacturer sorted this out and commented 'it happens often'.

So, just personally, I've been through 5 gas installers and found, perhaps, only one good one. Let's hope I'm just unlucky because, so far, 80% of the local ones are not very good. If I based solely on my own experience, I'd have to draw the conclusion that whatever training people do for their membership of Corgi and now Gas Safe does not give (or is not enough to give) a competent person.

You will well understand that, in my own home, with my relatively simple Potterton Profile, I would be more inclined to trust myself than a random technician/installer from the Yellow Pages when it came to the fan, pressure sensors (they only register a pressure or lack of: no proportionality involved), theromocouples, thermostats, solonoids, and the pcb, though I wouldn't be happy setting up a gas valve.

Quite honestly, I do know someone I would trust with it, but he hasn't been Gas Safe or Corgi since the 80s, so he wouldn't be allowed to touch it either! Obviously one of you horrible lot would be welcome.

In the meantime, I just don't have it serviced and keep it under observation. If I suddenly disappear, you'll know why.
 
All those parts are fitted dry (no wet work). Can't take more than 1 hour each to change a fan and pcb.

That's 2 out of the 10 hours. 8 hours to diagnose ?

£45/hr is cheap for my area.

A failed fan pressure switch is an easy test and hard to get wrong.

Pretty sure if you had called the technical helpdesk of the manufacturer and they had walked you through the process and found the fault with you, it would have taken less than 10 hours.
 

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