To not pay this boiler repair bill

[Bunion8]

Context: I live in London and getting a good gas heating engineer is like hens teeth.

I asked our friendly but loosely reliable existing engineer to attend on the 12th October last year as heating upstairs wasn’t working. He had managed the system for years.
He arrived whilst I was out (kids let him in) and left, with no word, and the heating still not working.
After I chased him several times, he ordered a part that was then ready to be installed. He visited again on the 12th November, exactly the same as before, I wasn’t in, he left without fixing it.
I chased him a few more times and he avoided me, so eventually I got another company in to fix it. They charged me £180 and said basically the valves weren’t fully open. There was a separate problem with the hot water system that would need sorting though.
I contacted our existing engineer and explained the situation asking him to now fix the hot water.
He attended (12th December) and did so.

Fast Forward to today, he’s now sent me a bill of £300 made up of Boiler service and repair £190 and materials £125.

Because of his incompetence we were without heating upstairs for two months and I had to pay another company to fix his errors.

I feel that I shouldn’t pay his bill.

YABU - He carried out some work so should be paid
YANBU - He was incompetent, ignore abd find a new engineer

Of course you pay the bill. He did the work albeit not in a timeframe of your liking. If you had a problem with his initial work you decided it wasn’t so serious as to prevent you getting him back again. You decided to keep chasing him up. You state yourself he ignored you yet you got him back for future work. Pay him and find a new heating engineer

Did he service the boiler? If so, you need to pay.

Does the repair and materials relate to the stuff he did or didn't fix??

You didn’t pay another company to fix his errors though - you got another company in to troubleshoot after he attended twice (without charge) and didn’t fix the issue.

He then came back and fixed the unrelated issue that was identified but not fixed by the other engineers you had out. So he came in and diagnosed and fixed the problem identified by the other engineer and needs to be paid for that!

It’s your fault you were without heating for two months because you could’ve had someone else in or made sure to be home when he arrived the first two times!

If you are in SE London / North Kent, I can refer you to a good and reliable gas engineer.

Shoddy as his approach may have been, of course he should be paid for any work he did do.

But did he really service the boiler? If he did you should really have received a certificate from him.

Ask him for a detailed breakdown of dates, timings and what he did on each visit, plus what the parts were. Ask for the old parts to be returned. I think six months after the event he is pushing his luck.

Why do people always try to find ways of not paying tradesmen for work they’ve had done?

A boiler service would be around £100+. So for a service and a hot water repair £190 is reasonable.

I'd want to check he's only charging for the work he did and the parts to fix the hot water though as the other company did the first repair.

He does seem very late in billing you though. Did you not wonder why you hadn't paid anything for the hot water repair and contacted him to query the lack of invoice.

I think it was his error that the other company fixed. The problem with the heating was that the valves weren’t fully open, which would have been something he would have adjusted on a previous visit (not radiator valves, we have underfloor heating)

Thank you.

He’s charging £125 for a blending valve which he said “proved to be unsuccessful”

Sadly no, I’m North London, but thanks anyway

Yes, he did the work, so he gets paid. But I wouldn't ever use him again and I wouldn't have brought him in for the hot water issue after his previous lack of reliability. Expensive lesson to learn and I do sympathise, but you do have to pay.