Does it sound like the plumber is having us on?

[Fragola76]

A few months ago we had our boiler changed. Half the radiators in the house stopped working. We let the plumber know before he left and he said that he would sort it out and that it would only be air in the system. However he left and only came back months later (after being chased) to sort it out. He said that it was complicated to resolve as the dirt had calcified in the pipes and charged us £500. I'm wondering if it is a fair charge or if we are essentially paying for something that he had messed up in the first place and potentially made worse by failing to sort out immediately. Any similar experiences and can i have your thoughts?

thanks

Yes.

Look up the installation instructions for the boiler. I expect they will say that the system has to be cleaned before the boiler is fitted, and that the circulating water must have a corrosion inhibitor added to it.

Look up the quotation and invoice. Was this work included?

Was it actually done?

Was the extra £500 for a powerflush?

He says that he did all those things when he installed the boiler (cleaning and adding the inhibitor) but he believes that there was still some sludge in the system that moved around and got hard if i understand well. It's an old house and he seems to think that it affected the process.

No I don't think he tried to powerflush (although not 100% sure). The £500 was to isolate the location of the blockage and then go under the floor and change the pipe.

Thanks for your help Pigletjohn, much appreciated. If it's a fair charge fair enough but a bit upset by the feeling of being taken for a ride.

It sounds unconvincing to me.

It is unsatisfactory that the new system was installed and left with half the radiators not working.

As you have an old system, we should expect it to have a heavy load of sludge and sediment. So powerflushing until clean would have been required prior to fitting the new boiler.

Yes, in a hard water area, the black magnetite sludge can form a hard mass with limescale, but this usually occurs where the F&E pipe enters the system, or possibly near the boiler where the water is very hot.

It would be very worthwhile having a system filter fitted to capture remaining circulating particles before they can settle into a blockage. It will be about £100 plus fitting. If I were you I would ask around for recommendations of another local installer. Get them to show you how to empty out the dirt from the filter. I would suggest adding Sentinel X900 once the filter has been fitted.

Hi Pigletjohn

It's good to have the point of view of someone more knowledgeable than us! We were thinking about getting our bathrooms done by the same guy but I guess we'll just have to find someone else. I don't really want to work with people I don't feel i can trust and i just have too many doubts about the initial work.

Thanks for the tip about the system filter as well, i'm definitely going to look into it, sounds more than worthwhile.

Really appreciate you spending the time to help, many many thanks!