Plumbing emergencies!

derekgas

derekgas

Nori Brick
Tackler
Just noticed a google ad at the bottom of a thread for reactfast plumbing and heating emergencies, someone told me the other day (a plumber), he does work for these, (so they contract out a lot), the job took 40 minutes, reactfast told him he should have made it last another 20 minutes and charged another hour! Just thought it should be known!
 
derekgas said:
Just noticed a google ad at the bottom of a thread for reactfast plumbing and heating emergencies, someone told me the other day (a plumber), he does work for these, (so they contract out a lot), the job took 40 minutes, reactfast told him he should have made it last another 20 minutes and charged another hour! Just thought it should be known!
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Is that not how all traders work, think of a figure then double it :D
 
Not where I work, my boss is more fair than anybody I have worked for in the past, including big companies like British gas.
 
derekgas said:
Not where I work, my boss is more fair than anybody I have worked for in the past, including big companies like British gas.
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Your boss uses a lucky bag then :):)

British gas are one big joke. 2 weeks training and out on the road as a
qualified gas engineer :D:D:D


 
I work with a load of gas fitters/plumbers in my job so I am quite covered if anything goes wrong at home..parts at cost price and a pint as payment..and no call out charge !!
 
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park381 said:
Your boss uses a lucky bag then :):)

British gas are one big joke. 2 weeks training and out on the road as a
qualified gas engineer :D:D:D
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BG is not quite like that yet, they train qualified people for 2 weeks before they send them on the road, it used to be to bring them up to BG standards, now it is as much to teach them sales techniques as anything else, because they have shareholders and pay commission. BG is definately not what it used to be, it has been far too easy for people to become corgi registered for years, it is changing, but still not stringent enough.
 
derekgas said:
BG is not quite like that yet, they train qualified people for 2 weeks before they send them on the road
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BG used to send groups of new starters to stay for a week at the Swallow Hotel (Preston new road) they attended gas training courses at Blackburn College, the courses run by Stan the man. I don't know if they still do that, but all the BG new starteres were new to the trade and from every walk of life. :eek::eek:

 
park381 said:
BG used to send groups of new starters to stay for a week at the Swallow Hotel (Preston new road) they attended gas training courses at Blackburn College, the courses run by Stan the man. I don't know if they still do that, but all the BG new starteres were new to the trade and from every walk of life. :eek::eek:
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Wow! That's bad, and worse than I thought, that will be why BG has really gone down in some peoples estimation, another result of this is, we get a lot of calls from people willing to work cheap, or for free because they need experience to get corgi in thier own right, trouble is, no loyalty, why would you create your own competition?
 
derekgas said:
Wow! That's bad, and worse than I thought, that will be why BG has really gone down in some peoples estimation
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That is very true. I know several people that have signed up with BG for their "Central Heating/Boiler Maintenance" and there are some real tales of woe, I know not all problems can be resolved at the first attempt, but to order and replace parts, as in process of elimination, until they have nearly rebuilt the boiler in finding the fault. Not very good :rolleyes::rolleyes:
 
We have a customer who got £560 back off them because they told her her boiler was obsolete when it wasn't, on average, we take a breakdown cover a week off BG, people are obviously getting wise to them.
 
derekgas said:
We have a customer who got £560 back off them because they told her her boiler was obsolete when it wasn't, on average, we take a breakdown cover a week off BG, people are obviously getting wise to them.
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So what is your charge for breakdown cover, and what do you provide for that charge. Is all that subject to a site inspection of the boiler and system, the same as BG?
 
It's on the website, but standard boiler £129, guaranteed visit within 2 hours, inspection required unless already on cover with somebody, full system cover with exception to the flue. Combi is £149, fires etc can also be covered.
 
derekgas said:
It's on the website, but standard boiler £129, guaranteed visit within 2 hours, inspection required unless already on cover with somebody, full system cover with exception to the flue. Combi is £149, fires etc can also be covered.
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Not bad, a well designed website, one thing your website does not tell me is that the boiler is serviced to the manufacturers specification. Do you strip and clean the combustion chamber, and clean off the burner ass.?
 
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park381 said:
Not bad, a well designed website, one thing your website does not tell me is that the boiler is serviced to the manufacturers specification. Do you strip and clean the combustion chamber, and clean off the burner ass.?
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In respect of servicing, the conventional (non condensing) boilers are stripped and cleaned, condensing boilers are not to be touched inside the heat exchanger for 3 years, the way to check these is by testing the gas pressure (must be 18 millibar) and the flue gas/air ratio must be as per manufacturers instructions. Just as important is the water quality, we test each service to determine water quality, this is because poor system water = short lifespan of the boiler. As explained on the website, many engineers don't have the equipment or capability to service condensing boilers, I was recently told by 3 'engineers' that they service modern boilers, 'the old way', this is impossible.
 
derekgas said:
In respect of servicing, the conventional (non condensing) boilers are stripped and cleaned, condensing boilers are not to be touched inside the heat exchanger for 3 years, the way to check these is by testing the gas pressure (must be 18 millibar) and the flue gas/air ratio must be as per manufacturers instructions. Just as important is the water quality, we test each service to determine water quality, this is because poor system water = short lifespan of the boiler. As explained on the website, many engineers don't have the equipment or capability to service condensing boilers, I was recently told by 3 'engineers' that they service modern boilers, 'the old way', this is impossible.
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I would assume that a large %age of the boilers you work on are "the conventional type"
 
park381 said:
I would assume that a large %age of the boilers you work on are "the conventional type"
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It is fast becoming the other way around, we installed 45 last year, 37 year before and 32 year before, customer base is about 6,500 in total, half of them regular annual service customers, and currently 361 on breakdown cover, 25% on cover are condensing boilers.
 
derekgas said:
It is fast becoming the other way around, we installed 45 last year, 37 year before and 32 year before, customer base is about 6,500 in total, half of them regular annual service customers, and currently 361 on breakdown cover, 25% on cover are condensing boilers.
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25% sounds about right, what would be a normal charge for your company to

1. Flush out a system
2. Replace a conventional combi (say a potterton puma 80) with a condensing combi boiler of the same rating.
Would the customer be looking at say £1500 -£2000 or more

Are combi boilers the answer, are they energy efficient?
 
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