Boiler playing up again

[bunn]

Our Keston boiler, 2 years old in September, has once again decided that it doesn't want to fire up. For a 2 year old, it has not had a happy life so far.

It first decided it wasn't going to fire up last winter, while still under warranty. They came and fixed it. Then this spring the drain that takes away the condensate backed up, something inside got rusty, and it started dribbling water everywhere.

We got someone to come and fix that, but he didn't have the proper part to replace the rusted one, so he rigged something up. Which worked fine, until he came again to fit the proper part last week, after which it decided it was going to stop firing up altogether. And the condensate pipe, which the guy was supposed to be replacing at the same time, still isn't the proper one so it's probably still backing up and making the new part, whatever it is, rusty. Or it would be if the damn thing was actually working at all...

I think the moral of this story is, if you buy a new and expensive boiler, it is worth buying the extended warranty thing as well, and get it installed by the manufacturers recommended agent. Or just buy a cheap boiler and wait slightly longer for baths. Also, that it is a fine thing to own an electric shower.

The reason for putting this somewhat dull tale of woe here is that I can't remember the exact details of what went wrong and how and when. If I'd noted it here as it happened, I would know this stuff and be better equipped to make sure the local Keston agent, when I manage to get hold of him, knows all the details.

Comments

[chainmailmaiden]

That all sounds very annoying, I hope you manage to get it fixed soon.

Our boiler refused to fire in the late afternoon last Christmas Eve causing much swearing in our house, as we haven't got any sort of guarantee/repair contract for it. Fortunately Bacchus fiddled with the room thermostat control which appeared to be part of the problem and got it working again after a very tense 4 hours. We had resigned ourselves to a very cold Christmas as there was no way we were paying call out fees on Christmas Eve! This also reminds me we still haven't sorted out any cover for it...

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I've now spoken to our Keston guy, and he can't come till next week :-(((

But he did tell me that it had an electric immersion heater, which I'd forgotten, and told me how to turn it on. So we do have hot water again :-)))

Brrrrrr no heating at Christmas. We don't have any cover either, but out here in the sticks on LPG, I've always assumed that anywhere that ran a callout plan would probably not know how to fix the dratted thing when they got here, but perhaps I should investigate this! LPG seems to fox a lot of plumbers: when my mother had a gas hob put in they didn't adjust it properly for LPG, and it was like a roaring fountain of flame!

[tena524.livejournal.com]

Then again, maintenance contracts aren't always worth what you pay for them. We signed up for one on our propane-powered heating system a couple of years back. I specifically asked if the contract included the cost of replacement filters before signing up, only to find out when the gentleman arrived for annual servicing that ours were an extra-large size, and was NOT included. They charged us an extra $124 for the filters, when we've gotten them ourselves for $80. And that's on top of what we had already paid for the contract. Never again. We've gone back to doing annual maintenance ourselves, thank you very much...

And of course, the first winter we lived up here in the hinterlands, our water heater died - over a holiday weekend when my Mom was up for her first (and thus far, only) visit to the 'new' house. Strangely enough, the house actually has two water heaters, so we just switched the electric one on temporarily until the gas one got fixed. Still, the timing was downright diabolical.