Please advise on approaches following substandard heating install

[Bengie]

And that is the way is should be, get reputations and recommendations before you commit.

 

[Deleted member 32524]

Who agreed the installation with you, sales person or engineer? Have you paid? If so why if you were not happy with it?

 

[centralheatking]

That job is a nightmare, by anybodies standards, the op is not an experienced fitter, tried to save some lolly got shafted but I dont
think its fit for purpose by any criteria. centralheatking

 

[Brambles]

Bengie,

Be careful. You are giving advice with a prediction to the outcome, based on one side of a story posted on an Internet forum. You (presumably) have no idea of the content of the offer from from the contractor.

Whilst I accept that you are trying to be helpful, it may possibly raise false hope to an individual who is probably facing a significant expense in rectifying the situation.

There is a process to follow in these situations and only when that is complete can a rational decision be made as to which route to follow and the likely outcome.

Contractors who undertake straightforward boiler swaps ( by pricing on what I think is an unprofessional manner) are rarely unprofessional in both specifying the extent of their scope and remedial works to decoration and openings et al.

Your comment with respect to the location of electrical sockets and isolation switches may or may not be true. However, they appear to be existing and are probably outside the scope of the contractors work.

Gas Safe, which I appreciate you have not raised will only survey the works with respect to the GS(IU)R. They won’t repair the problems, nor indeed give any advice to the customer. They will however raise any issues found with the individual who undertook the work and the individual / organisation who registered the installation. Whilst this is a useful exercise, it won’t encompass the external controls so does not move the customer very far forward in resolving his / her problem.

I think that this is a particularly sad case and I hope that it can be successfully resolved. In my experience it won’t be quick and will probably end in a cash settlement that closes the matter with both parties being dissatisfied with the outcome.

 

[centralheatking]

Bengie,

Be careful. You are giving advice with a prediction to the outcome, based on one side of a story posted on an Internet forum. You (presumably) have no idea of the content of the offer from from the contractor.

Whilst I accept that you are trying to be helpful, it may possibly raise false hope to an individual who is probably facing a significant expense in rectifying the situation.

There is a process to follow in these situations and only when that is complete can a rational decision be made as to which route to follow and the likely outcome.

Contractors who undertake straightforward boiler swaps ( by pricing on what I think is an unprofessional manner) are rarely unprofessional in both specifying the extent of their scope and remedial works to decoration and openings et al.

Your comment with respect to the location of electrical sockets and isolation switches may or may not be true. However, they appear to be existing and are probably outside the scope of the contractors work.

Gas Safe, which I appreciate you have not raised will only survey the works with respect to the GS(IU)R. They won’t repair the problems, nor indeed give any advice to the customer. They will however raise any issues found with the individual who undertook the work and the individual / organisation who registered the installation. Whilst this is a useful exercise, it won’t encompass the external controls so does not move the customer very far forward in resolving his / her problem.

I think that this is a particularly sad case and I hope that it can be successfully resolved. In my experience it won’t be quick and will probably end in a cash settlement that closes the matter with both parties being dissatisfied with the outcome.

My experience of the law and via my wife whom is a barrister is exactly
that Brambles states...everybody involved except the legal fraternity get left feeling ripped of and dirty even if you win a civil case or get vindicated in a criminal court its a mucky process and best avoided
....I suppose small claims ct and involving trading stds with a local
council is less mucky. hope it works out for you at least remember the odds at the start for you are 50/50 at best ...centralheatking

 

[firemant]

A number of issues have been raised from a boiler replacement.

Boiler not operating and with no pressure.
Tile damage
Sprawling pipe layout in kitchen
(Retrospective view of alternate option when it was found that promise of removing pipes from airing cupboard could not be fulfilled).
Battery operated thermostat
Wires left terminate but visibly hanging a little above eye level on an inside wall
Air space between external gas pipework and outside wall reaching 67mm
exterior holes made and widened including vent hole are not made good with brick and with colour mismatched concrete sometimes scraped over existing brick

I got in contact with an, I think, large boiler replacement company requesting a quote for boiler replacement which they based on my description of the house and them viewing the google image of the property. I looked up the proposed boiler according to the description and front view picture that I found of the boiler showing the flue going directly up. All boilers that I've previously had including my previous boiler here have had the flue pipe going directly out the back. While getting ready to write an email one of the sales guys phoned to politely phone. I said that I was concerned that the boiler proposed had a verticle flue which was unsuitable and I wanted a flue that could go straight out of the back.

Following our conversation, I then felt comfortable to send this shorter than planned email in which I stated that I wanted to check "the compatibility of boilers to the existing layout of the bungalow" and I attached internal and external photos as shown.

View attachment 40409

I then got a phone call to, among other things, notify me of a plan to put a gas pipe on the (nine-meter horizontal length) of the front and entrance sides of our bungalow. I said that what I had agreed to was a replacement of the boiler and hadn't agreed to this and, in any case, there was a loft space immediately above ready for use and I was told that this was fine.

The following picture shows the current state of the installation and gives an idea of what went on previously.

View attachment 40412

Four rows of the mosaic tiles had been pulled from the wall which broke several of them, the boiler had been placed in a lower position so that its base was just above the electrical fittings, the sockets (which we use for things like the fridge) had been replaced with a blank plate, a network of pipes had been placed in front and down to the level of the countertop inhibiting cleaning and access to the electrical tittings and an additional hole had been drilled through the external wall for an unwanted external run of the gas supply.

The agreed boiler exchange was to swap a system boiler and (leaking) water tank for a combi boiler and the company had agreed to remove water pipes from the water tank containing cupboard and this was in line with our stated plan to knock out the wall between the cupboard and our bathroom to make one larger room. Without notification this plan was dropped by the engineer due to the house water supply entering the building at this point and, while some of our neat vertical pipework was certainly removed, some clearly off vertical and off horizontal pipework was added as well.

After the first day of installation I emailed the company specifying problems as mentioned

View attachment 40413

and I also phoned leaving a message, knowing that the engineer might better be able to work elsewhere rather than come down with inappropriate parts supplied, in hope that the message might be passed through in time.

Anyway, the engineer came, I explained the problem, I also showed him the neat installation of the boiler as fitted in the kitchen of my neighbour next door and then, told that the engineer would liaise with the company, we waited. Late in the day I was told that they offered to run the gas pipes in the above roof space as requested but that the boiler would stay and I was left needing to assert that this was not what I wanted. Even later on the idea was presented to send the flue up through the roof an idea to which I readily agreed. An alternate option, which came open since the linen cupboard pipes were not being removed, would have been to place the boiler in there, but this wasn't offered.

As per the below the boiler picture, pipes have been directed up through the countertop, not even in line with the boiler but to the right of it and these pipes. I asked for these pipes to be repositioned into the kitchen cupboard space that seems to have been allocated for pipe runs and plumbing. I was told along the lines of that there had already been enough difficulty installing the boiler system's magnetic water cleaner (dirty snowstorm device as I call it, slightly out of the following picture and installed at a diagonal) and that the pipes wouldn't be redirected as requested.

View attachment 40414

On review of the work, I'm also unhappy with the slanted installation of the plastic pipe and its unneccesary vertical joint and that the flexible metal mesh pipe system hadn't been installed below the countertop.

View attachment 40415

Ideally, all the pipework would be boxed in or

That's a lot of good advice and appreciated. I appreciated that the neighbour's install was neat but I was put off when told that the installer had been willing to not connect the condensation collector leaving all the moisture to be ejected with flue gas because the neighbour did not want to install an extra pipe. I know that this is due to customer requirement and you are right. I should have gone with them.


Appreciated, that's great advice. I've contacted gas safe and they'll get an engineer to make contact here. X

I don't know if pressure was falling at that time but it has certainly been falling consistently since then. It dropped even more quickly when I turned the thermostat down (as far as I can tell). I've not done extensive tests as I don't want to risk further damage to a system that I don't know would be safe.

You cannot leave off the condense pipe, and expect all the condense to be evacuated via the flue gases/flue. It just will not work. So some confusion there.

What gauge are you reading - on board the boiler or a separate one, normally near the filling loop?

 

[Danny1]

Basically sounds like nothing was set in stone what was going to be done throughout the installation, did they charge you for the gas pipe run from meter to boiler as you said you weren’t happy about it , but the truth is that might if only been 15mm pipe if you had a small conventional/ system boiler, so to be fair you had to have that 22mm/28mm gas run , the pipes can be hidden no big deal some MDf and a crooked condense pipe no big deal , workman ship sounds a bit ropey but as long as it’s safe and working i wouldn’t worry , if you are concerned contact gas safe they’ll check it out make sure it’s up to regs