I had a leak on the boiler before renting my property. I paid a call out charge for this to be fixed. It reduced the leak but never fixed it. I also paid for a gas safety certificate. Shortly after the hot water stopped working, said company firstly replaced the divertor valve, which didn't solve the problem, and after some arguments replaced the heat exchanger.
Since then the leak has begun to get progressively worse. I have called an engineer round and they have said the o-ring seals and gaskets adjacent the heat exchanger are perished. He says these should have been replaced when the heat exchanger was replaced. I was never given the option. I will now have a bill of circa £200 for a boiler strip down whereas this work would have only added £10 or so to the previous cost of the work.
Do I have a right to seek recompense for not carrying out the heat exchanger works with due diligence requiring additional works at a later date? If so, how do I go about this?
Your story isn't entirely clear...did he fail to fix the leak when instructed to do so or when he was aware it was an issue?
I think that's what you'd need to establish in a small claim.
The initial contact was to repair a small leak and service the boiler.
The leak still occurred after, albeit to a slightly lesser extent.
I then employed them to replace the heat exchanger. This was done but they didn't replace the o-rings/gaskets adjacent the new heat exchanger, simply left the existing ones in place. My engineer has said this is bad practice and new ones would have cost £10. Its now needed to be down, new seals/gaskets added and rebuilt, circa £200.
I'm not happy with the initial callout charge or this new bill of £200 which could have been prevented.
Any more advice would be appreciated.
I had the same or very similar issue. I had the heat exchanger replaced first including the seals because according to the heating repair person (cant bring myself to call him an engineer) they have to be replaced every time they are removed. This reduced the leak but not altogether he then replaced the diverter valve fixing the leak completely. Total cost £370! Felt completely ripped off and wonder if the heat exchanger really needed replacing in the first place. Also I paid £100 each for the 2 parts and have seen them both on ebay for the half the price.
If he was aware of leak at second visit then it seems you may have a claim.
The test is...did he act in a way that no reasonably competent professional wpuld have in the circumstances.
Id threaten legal action. You'd ultimately need a report ftom another engineer to back up your claim. May not be worth taking too far but starting the process may be worth a go.
emma - sounds like you had similar problems to me. Feel free to message me to see if it's the same company. I believe we employ these people to identify the problem and then sort it, not keep replacing parts on the 'hope' it might sort the problem.