Does this sound right - boiler issues?

[Skvof]

Boiler started playing up a few weeks ago, it's about 8-10 years old.

Got a local heating engineer out (lots of good reviews, on the council's approved trader site etc) who fixed it - except a couple of days later it went wrong again. He came back, gave it a full service and said that the issue was with the gas valve. Everything else is working fine but that isn't - it's going in but nothing is coming out.

He said he can't replace it himself but advised me to contact the manufacturer.

Does this sound right? I've had this and previous boilers repaired a few times for minor issues but never been told to contact the manufacturer for a repair?

What boiler is it?

You might need British Gas, they train on tons of boilers. I wouldn’t buy a boiler from them, but they do train people well, and have good access to parts.

Worcester Bosch - condensing rather than a combi boiler.

What did the manufacturer say when you contacted them?

My gas man recommended I contact the boiler maker for a repair as they did a fixed fee call out including parts and it would be cheaper for me to get it fixed By them than him doing it (especially if there’s other things that go wrong during the repair/there were other faults). I’ve never had one say they can’t do the repair before though!

I've not been able to get through to the manufacturer yet.

From looking on their website, they charge a minimum of £300.

We paid an annual fee to Worcester Bosch. Their service engineers were brilliant.

I think once you get it sorted then you need boiler cover. If your boiler is that age it will start giving you regular issues which can get costly. At least boiler cover you pay a call out fee and that is it. I saved thousands thanks to my cover on my old boiler!

Maybe it’s because it’s a part he cannot source?

Have a look on the British Gas website as well and see if you can get a price for the repair through them. Try taking a contract out to include servicing.

I did try British Gas, unfortunately in my area they don't have an engineer available until the end of November!

have now booked it via the manufacturer, the cost of taking out a 1 year plan (including the repair) was only £70 more than the repair so I've done that. And apparently if they can't fix it then I get all that money refunded. Just got to wait a week for the next appt. More cold showers for us...

He may not be trained/registered for Worcester Bosch.

I think it may be more the fixed fee element, not wanting to charge too much etc. I suppose if he'd never replaced that particular part he may be understandably reluctant to undertake the work.

Our lovely local plumbing and heating people also recommended we get the manufacturer out for a problem with our Vaillant - it was great advice as, for the cost of the first visit, we eventually got several parts replaced as the engineer tried different solutions before being able to identify the issue. I think the local people know when it’s likely to need a really specialist engineer to sort.

Speak to the mfr. I was told that there are certain things that are cheaper to get fixed by them directly than by a repairer.