Keston Celsius 25 "At Risk" - waiting for service from Brit. Gas

[Colin Brook]

Hello, Earlier this year we had problems with ignition on our Keston Celsius 25 and British Gas took an unsatisfactorily long time to solve the problem - the work was done on the maintenance contract and seemed to involve an awful lot of trial and error - we were without the boiler for about 10 days in all. BG seemed reluctant to get assistance from Keston.

Yesterday the BG engineer arrived to carry out the annual service and safety check and discovered too high levels of CO in the flue gases which he could not resolve. As a result the device was switched off and an "At Risk" notice attached. Today the replacement of burner and its gasket and a couple of other "troublesome" (BG's words) gaskets has not solved the problem and we are once again without the boiler for another

24 hours whilst other parts are collected and the trial and error diagnosis continues.

What's the status of this "at risk" notice and is there anything we can do to get the 'experts' called in to speed diagnosis and resolution - not looking forward to a Christmas without water and heating.

Look forward to comments etc.. Colin

[Andy]

BG have a very bad reputation on this newsgroup, specifically, for charging through the nose for work and for condemning boilers needlessly ( "can't get the parts anymore mate" etc ) . If you're on a maintenance contract with them I guess you're at their mercy, unless you bin them and get an independent in......

As for the "at risk" status, well, that's your call. There's nothing stopping you turning it on at your own risk. If the boiler is a balanced flue type, the CO will be vented outside anyway. Unless someone walks outside gets a stepladder and breathes the flue gasses in for several minutes what's the problem?

Understand I'm not suggesting you turn the boiler on, but because of the health and safety laws a lot of minor infringements result in a condemned system. My uncle had a gas fire but no specific air vent to bring air into the room. He had plenty of gaps in his floorboards into his vented cellar underneath, and a big gap under the living room door etc. One day a gasman came to do some work on the fire, and after he had finished he noticed there was no air vent and he slapped a condemned notice on the fire, with a dire warning to my uncle not to use the gas fire as it wasn't legal and was dangerous. My uncle knew that he had sufficient ventilation into the room from many sources to provide enough air and just screwed up the 'condemned' notice after the gasman had gone and lit the fire. He's still alive, needless to say, and that wasn't a balanced flue gas fire!

My uncle understood that although his ventilation didn't meet the letter of the law, nevertheless it was perfectly adequate in practise.

Andy.

[Colin Brook]

In message on Wed, 13 Dec 2006, Andy wrote

Details of earlier BG problem snipped

Hello Andy - I'm a BG cynic too but this Keston has been a lot of trouble and although I've used an independent and very good engineer before he wasn't prepared to offer an annual contact and I was keen to have one. Hence BG, who at the time (three years ago) were the only people I could find who would put the Keston onto a maintenance contract.

Thanks for that input - rather what I thought was probably the case.

Regards, Colin

[Andy Hall]

Some years ago, I went through a similar exercise of having a BG contract on the naive assumption that it would be fixed cost and hassle free in comparison to DIYing or using an independent fitter.

It did prove to be unwise for much the same reasons that you described

- basically incompetence and much titting around trying this and trying that.

One example of that was BG's positioning in their marketing of being a kind of 4th emergency service with implication of rapid response. The contract doesn't specify a time but reasonably, one might expect that to be next day,

At any rate, at about this time of year, in a rather colder winter, the heating broke down and a call was made. The offer was 7 days time (5 working days) with all the excuses of staff of sick etc. On pushing a bit harder, it was shortened by a day and there followed the excuses that they had to prioritise families with babies and old people first. While not wishing to be hard about this, I did point out to them that they are not a social service but a commercial organisation and not empowered to make such judgments. Really, they should staff accordingly and/or subcontract to local fitters if they do have temporary staffing problems.

This problem had also taken several visits for similar reasons to your experience.

I did also consider contacting the manufacturer but decided not to figuring that it would be a hiding to nothing.

In the end, I spent half a day escalating it in BG's organisation, basically by making phone calls, getting the name of the next senior person, speaking to them and so on. There were the usual excuses of "so and so doesn't take calls' (speak to secretary, ask them to get person on phone). Persistence resulted in reaching one down from director level. Promise was made and kept to send a senior engineer that afternoon with all conceivable spares.

So the short version is not to let them get away with it or be fobbed off.

Longer term, I changed strategy and now put a sum of money into a domestic appliance (includes boiler) high interest account. Against the boiler, that is proportionally higher and covers servicing. Overall it seems to be a better strategy than lending BG money.

[Jim Alexander]

Agree up to a point but £13/month or so is not bad for a housebound householder with no practical ability, but for a working household the inconvenince of repeat visits is a PITA which has to be costed. That said the cost of spares is worrying and its not always straightforward to faultfind without access to spares, just one of the reasons why the typical repair man is so crap. Just done an excercise which shows the four or so most expensive spares together cost about the same as the same boiler bought discount. Maybe buying a boiler to canabalise is an option.

Jim A

[Dave Fawthrop]

|> Longer term, I changed strategy and now put a sum of money into a domestic |> appliance (includes boiler) high interest account. Against the boiler, |> that is proportionally higher and covers servicing. |> Overall it seems to be a better strategy than lending BG money. |>

|Agree up to a point but ?13/month or so is not bad for a housebound |householder with no practical ability, but for a working household the |inconvenince of repeat visits is a PITA which has to be costed. That said |the cost of spares is worrying and its not always straightforward to |faultfind without access to spares, just one of the reasons why the typical |repair man is so crap. Just done an excercise which shows the four or so |most expensive spares together cost about the same as the same boiler bought |discount. Maybe buying a boiler to canabalise is an option.

I refuse all *appliance* breakdown insurance. IMO the cost of paying for repairs or an new item, if problems occur, is always less than the cost of the insurance which includes a massive profit for the insurance company.

[Tony Bryer]

There was a fault on my mum's Celsius which I should have been able to spot, but didn't. I was hoping to organise a callout from one of Keston's own engineers but they referred me to a local specialist who turned up and sorted it first time, all the spares he needed on the van. Not cheap but convenient. In the past I have had similar good experience of someone who was a Vaillant specialist rather than a generalist.

[Ed Sirett]

Of the ones I have fitted a couple have needed new gas valves. This seems to be the stock fault for this model. I have one in my own home and it has been very reliable.

If the CO readings are high then I would ask what the CO2 reading are. The gas valve or it's setup would be in the centre of the frame.

[Andrew Gabriel]

I was thinking about this, and my guess was that the internal flue might be split, resulting in recirculating combustion products through the burner and reducing the available oxygen, which would produce excess CO.

Measurements of CO from my Keston flue are about 40ppm at max load. That level in air is perfectly safe for a healthy to breath for many hours, and less than you are likely to be exposed to whilst operating a gas grill in your kitchen for 20 minutes.

[Ed Sirett]

I beleive that 50 ppm is maximum level that is considered safe.

[Colin Brook]

In message on Wed, 13 Dec 2006, Ed Sirett wrote

Well thanks for all the input; the problem was the gas valve which had been replaced back in May (and may never have been set up properly then

- which would help explain the most recent fuel usage being so much higher than normal).

The input from this group helped me convince BG to get on to Keston themselves (I'd already been in touch with them) and bring in a more experienced engineer who recognised the need to adjust CO2 levels via valve and then gas valve fault was discovered. New gas valve resulted, after 'calibration?, in the CO levels reducing radically to acceptable levels.

Now I need to get onto BG to get them to come back and sort out the assortment of nuts and bolts lying on the floor beneath the boiler - never a confidence boosting factor. I'll be happy to fit the case securing screw which has been left out causing the case to boom terribly on ignition.

Thanks for all inputs;

Colin Currently considering who to move the service responsibility to now.