No boiler service for 3 years, what to do now?

[Epictantrum]

Hi all, we had a new boiler fitted by a local plumber almost 3 years ago and it is working fine. However, my grand plans to service it every year (required by the guarantee with Worcester Bosch) have come to nothing and I realised it is now well overdue. What would you do:
a) Get it serviced now by a local plumber, keep it going annually and hope if I do have a problem WB won't notice the lack of services initially and cover any problems. Is a service actually useful for a young boiler or is it just to maintain the guarantee (which may be too late anyway)?
b) Get a service agreement/insurance which has an annual service included (some seem a bit too cheap, cheaper than than what you would expect a service to cost on its own, and some are £££, so no idea what level to go for.
c) Wing it. Put the money I would have spent on the above aside and use it to pay for any problems if they crop up.
d) Contact WB and beg forgiveness and see if there is a way to reinstate the guarantee??
Thanks!

Id get a local plumber to service it asap and keep your money. Ask plumber their opinion about it, if you trust them

How long would the guarantee with Worcester be for?

I’d get it serviced asap regardless

I’ve literally never ever had my boiler serviced. What am I missing out on?

If the guarantee requires it and you haven't done it, then you will probably have voided the guarantee. You can't go back in time and change the fact that you didn't get it serviced.

I get mine serviced every year, it usually requires a new hose, and it costs around £100. It is worth it to know that it is working properly.

In theory a boiler service should keep it running efficiently. It should also include important safety checks. Some friends of mine had their boiler serviced and the engineer discovered it was venting carbon monoxide into the house.

My plumber refused to offer me insurance for my new boiler, he said an annual service will keep it running fine for years. So get it serviced, see what they say.

Well, I hope that you have several carbon monoxide alarms in your house then

3 years is really not a big deal. Just get it done as soon as possible and it shouldn't be more than £100.

I’ve literally never ever had my boiler serviced. What am I missing out on?
If you ignore it for 10-20 years then something inside might break and flood your entire house. Usually requires a total replacement (3-6K) that's a lot pricier than getting it serviced annually.

Mine didn't get registered and then I buried my head in the sand (lots of other stuff to deal with).
Finally got round to dealing with it and gas engineer serviced it, rang manufacturer and I paid about £100 to reinstate the warranty.

mine last got service pre covid.

your warranty will be void now as youve not kept to their requirements for annual servicing, so it’s up to you how you proceed.

gas is far cleaner these days and as long as you have a working co2 monitor it would seem annual servicing isn’t always required.

i have plug in heaters for if anything goes wrong as you know it’ll happen when the shops are shut lol. I'm holding out til it makes weird noises or packs in.

My boiler had its first service at 20 years old and only because I was selling the house. Never even thought about it before, but it was a very expensive worcester bosch and behaved beautifully throughout its years with me.

I do know someone whose boiler broke and flooded the house foundations causing a lot of damage and they had to move out for a few months, and that boiler was serviced annually. I wouldn't worry too much - just get it serviced moving forwards.

Just get it done now and maybe put aside a small fund each month (£25 or so) for emergency repairs - you may already. We had a new Worcester put in 4 years ago and yes the warranty requirement needs annual service so you’ve lost that. However it’s really unlikely anything serious is going to
go wrong in that time so just put a bit aside and forget about it. There is a point to servicing just as with cars etc - it’s about preventing costly repairs rather than a need to tend to something right away. Cleaning limescale out, checking parameters and working bits etc.

I agree the guarantee will be void now. Get a local gas engineer to service it.

I've never serviced mine either. I have a CM alarm in the house (boiler is actually in the garage). I have home emergency cover free with my bank account and on the one occasion that I had a boiler issue a couple of years ago it was fixed under the policy for free.

Thanks all. The guarantee would have been 10 years 😪. It is so hard to be on top of all these things.

The thing is it would be pretty unlikely to go wrong in the first 10 years anyway.

So you are paying for services to keep a guarantee going that you most likely won't need.

I pay for a service every year on my boiler to keep the 5 year guarantee up and I think it is a waste of money for my system. I've watched them and talked to them and they hardly do anything.

That said, if you don't know how to do things like re-pressurise, or empty the magnetic traps then it probably is worth servicing more regularly. Plus if you want to keep the system in tip top shape you really need to empty and refill the inhibitor once every few years (this is not included in a service though).

It is worth checking your system is set up properly for optimised efficiency, but again they won't do this as part of a service, that is a separate issue.

It would be worth speaking to Worcester themselves as they used to do a one off service that reinstated your warranty . I know baxi still do this , You must keep up your yearly service after this to keep your warranty after this as they wouldn’t do another one .
It would be worth checking with them though .

I've been in my house for 14 years, the worcester boiler was old when I moved here, so old it's not digital and no thermostat, never touched it and still going strong (probably conk out this afternoon😂), I kept thinking I'm going to need to replace it soon but as still going I haven’t 🤷‍♀️ my bills are less than £30 a month so I'm afraid I'm continuing until it dies........I do have a carbon monoxide alarm above it.

Potentially a nice portion of carbon monoxide poisoning and an explosive surprise.

I know somebody who woke up to their boiler having spontaneously caught fire. I’d never skip a service, so get it serviced asap

you have blown the guarantee but for goodness sake get it serviced. There are safety implications as well as keeping it running

If you have a boiler that hasn’t been serviced for years, I’d strongly recommend you do it soon.

We bought a new house last Autumn. Boiler is only 7 years old, but never serviced. The sellers refused to do it so we had it done when we moved in. It has all sorts of issues, we’ve thrown several hundred at it already and it’s still not working properly. We are now needing to replace it completely, plus the radiators, for about £5k all because the previous owners couldn’t arsed to look after it all. Boiler is Worcester Bosch and looks great on the outside but is knackered due to lack of regular maintenance.

There was a similar thread a few weeks ago and several said that it could invalidate your home insurance by not getting it serviced! Along with the risk that something goes wrong with it or carbon monoxide leaks. 😬

For less than 100 quid a year you can make sure that something that could malfunction and maybe kill you is checked and any issues dealt with. Presumably you service your car? We'll, it's the same thing.
OP, I'd get it serviced, the guarantee might be void but it's still worthwhile.

If you live in a particularly hard water area, the service will include checking for limescale build up and cleaning of some vital points ( though not a full descale).