Go on, our central heating system is ready for a service. What do I ask the gas safe registered people?
how much it costs? (Obvious question ...)
(And what if it needs something replacing, I assume I'd need to compare how much their rates are for things)
Are they all much of a muchness or is it worth asking if they deal with our specific brand?
ta muchly.
Ask yourself if it needs servicing ..Is it doing anything it shouldn't be or not doing what it should .
I'd do my homework and find out what make & model of boiler I have and when it was last serviced, then call a few local installers and ask what they recommend you need done and how much it'd cost.
Personally when I get these sorts of calls I try to sort out the 'worried well' from the real problem cases. E.g. if the boiler is 5 years old and they've had it serviced meticulously ever since it was installed and are now worried that it might run a few days over the anniversary I'll politely decline as I'm up to my ears in repairing broken down systems and installing new boilers for folks whose ones have broken down.
OTOH if it's a 30-yo conventional flue boiler that hasn't been looked at in living memory that's different. And if they're getting headaches or funny smells then I'll probably say to call 0800 111 999 and the nice people there will deal with it for you, instantly and for free :-|
It's a little over two and a half years old and has never been serviced ... it's working fine - I just feel it should probably have a service. Does that make me a worried well? :)
I've had my Alpha almost 3 years and it's had one service and 2 leaks repaired (under warranty) .The only reason I got it serviced was because I believed mistakenly that this was required for the warranty but Alpha said it is not necessary . What the guy did for the service I could have done myself .
I was going to suggest to the o/p that he does an analysis of the flue gasses to see if it's burning ok. Proper analysers are not really available to the amateur of course but I've heard tell of chemical based test kits (a bit like a litmus test) to check the CO (or is it O) levels in the exhaust gas. Can't find refs for them anywhere now, have you come across them perhaps?
"What the guy did for the service I could have done myself "
he probably didn't service it correctly as the average man in the street (not meaning to be disrespectful) wouldn't have the equipment..
Vis., gas analyser is =A31500 plus knowing how to use it re correct the boiler - some boilers are "off the mark".
Most important service of all is to put =A3150/yr away towards future replacement. Then when it DOES crop up the problem is somewhat mitigated.
For a relative I put 20/month into a corporate bond fund - biggest drawdown was 25% in the ABS (CDO swaps) blowup, otherwise steady 4-6%+ a year growth. A better fund would be Cazenove Actively Managed Cautious (which despite its name can go gold, oil, hedge fund, derivatives and so on in a reasonably well risk averse manner - 12% drawdown in the same period yet delivered the return of typical aggressive global equity funds which dropped 48%, vis., very good risk adjusted return.). The paperwork sits in the bank so yes they have to pay =A315 to access it, so it DOES only get used to eliminate the not uncommon "boiler has blownup, put 2k on credit cards which never gets cleared so actually costs 4-5k".
How is flame color, what is the water level, have you oiled the pump. I check everything myself first, there is very little to go wrong or need yearly maintenance. Try to get someone recomended from a friend that knows boilers themselves, Ive been burned or they attempt to burn me maby times, but I know my system and can spot a crook. www.heatinghelp.c= om is a US group of just boiler pros where you can ask questions.
Unless there's something wrong or it's written into the warranty contract, I would leave it alone then
Mine costs £270 at todays prices (was less when I actually bought it about 6 years ago), plus about £200 every 2-3 years to change the gas cells and recalibrate it.
I've no idea if gas installers actually know how to use them. Most didn't have one when I bought mine (which was one reason I bought one). Someone posted the results here which their engineer left with them, and I interpreted them - I could see the flue analyser hadn't been used correctly from the results (boiler was cold).
There are two quite distinct uses with gas appliances.
The standard UK gas service check is that the CO/CO2 ratio in the flue gas is < 0.004. Otherwise, the boiler needs cleaning. If the ratio is > 0.008, then it's in a really dire state and regarded as dangerous. This is independant of boiler. The highest value I've ever seen on any boiler I've measured is 0.00078 on a Potterton Suprima which hadn't been serviced for 7 years (still
5 times better than the point at which British Gas would actually disassemble and clean the burners, combustion chamber, etc).The second is if you're actually commissioning or resetting the mixture. In this case, you need the figures from the manufacturer as they're model dependant, and as they often aren't even in the installation/service manual and neither are the instructions to adjust the mixture, I presume this is something gas fitters don't normally do.
You can also use them to measure CO level in a room, the amount of oxygen you breath out, and all sorts of other interesting things.
Mine (Anton Sprint V2) cost over £600 with the extra probes but no printer in March, and will cost a small fortune to keep calibrated and sensors replaced to schedule (but a slightly smaller fortune than the market alternatives, according to the folks I bought it from).
There's now a specific competency (CPA1 - Combustion Performance Analyser) which I chose to do as an extra along with my core gas safety + boilers + cookers + gas fires + water heaters when I had to renew my qualifications (which we have to do every 5 years) a year ago last summer. TBH it (CPA1) is pretty mickey mouse.
Incorrect: 0.004 is the trigger level at which you should service the boiler. If, after servicing the boiler, the ratio is under 0.008 it's OK to put back into service (sic).
On the boilers I install (Worcester-Bosch) I don't have to. I daresay if I dealt with Kestons I would, but life's too short and there's enough pain in it anyway ;-).
Though in the CPA1 training we are taught that we are not to do that: if we suspect a CO hazard we should call in the Gas Emergency Service Provider (was TRANSCO for natural gas) - who apparently are not trained in this stuff either :-(
If you're oiling your pumps I suspect you need a competent person's help, at least on this side of the pond!
Not required for warranty? Is this fairly standard? Mine is a WB32CDi with 5 year warranty, the installer said he'd service it every year for £60. He's supposed to be the bees-knees, weird how he'd never heard of the word hysteresis.
Frankly yes ... probably: are you having any issues with it?
OTOH one of the things I forgot to mention in my earlier post is that, if it's a combi and if you're in a hard water area, there should be a scale inhibitor fitted to the system. If you have a phosphor-dosing system such as a Combimate or a canister type
Is it now mandatory for you to have one?
I noticed my Kane calibration certificate is valid for 2 years. It was only one year when I first bought the unit (perhaps to allow for up to a year in stock). Oxygen cell died about 2 years 1 month after a recalibration, but I spun that one out to 3 years, and put up with using just the CO cell for the last year.
Rather annoyingly, last recalibration, it came back with a broken battery compartment, but I didn't use it or notice until too long afterwards to complain. It's still usable, and next time it should get fixed (it's a "fix everything wrong with it" service).
Does that centre on measuring safety, or measuring combustion efficiency, or both?
Well, I think that's basically what I said, not very well though.
Keston don't do mine (Celcius 25) anymore anyway. It does slowly drift from optimum, but you could probably leave it several years before it was really far enough out to worry about. The main problem was with the supposedly factory preset mixture being miles off in the first place. Once I'd properly set it for the first time, the CO/CO2 ratio has always been at least 10 times better than required. It's only fine tuning the mixture to Keston's optimum which drifts slightly.
Oh yes, every fitter has one of those - NOT
You just hit the flaw of the argument
In message , brass monkey writes
Where did you get that from ?
You mean water pressure
CH pumps run on a ceramic bearing lubricated by water
A friend who knows boilers ?
The problem with fitters is that they can be the one eyed man in the land of the blind. I often get "he was recommended to us by a neighbour".
Part of the problem is that people tend to be determined to be ignorant and it doesn't take much to sound like an expert to a hairdresser
From his own copper-monkeys so maybe a tad biased.
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