Last week, I had a problem with 3 year old Vaillant EcoMax Pro 18E. It was dripping water from the bottom of the casing. It turns out the cause was related to the float in the condensate tank. Because of poor design, the tank and associated siphoning equipment is prone to malfunctioning because it gets gunged up and sticks, causing the condensate to back up and spill over into the casing. It then drips out the bottom of the casing.
The obvious way to treat this problem is to have someone come and inspect then clean up all the components and put them back together again. This of course leads to nice repeat business which the customer pays for.
It transpires that there is a modified design available as a free service exchange but unless you know about it and demand it, then its not likely that any non-Vaillant engineer will fit it - particularly if its a free lancer you have selected yourself or a sub-contractor to a sub-contractor that the manufacturer might provide.
But then that's another story that brings to mind words like cowboys, Rogue Traders and BBC Watchdog.
In my case the cowboy's first question was...'Is this a contact job or a one off? When you mention you have a drip problem then cowboy will say......' ' Oh, its a repair job then and parts will be extra. I havnt got a big stock of parts in the van so I will have to go and get them' '.
I wasnt going to stand for this nonesense so told him where to get off. HWMBO was most impressed.
Incidentally its the same condensate tank arrangement that is fitted to Glowworm 18 Hxi boilers.
Good luck!