I have 3 boilers and over the years have spent a small fortune on repairs and replacements - Ravenheat were the worse - I bought them because they were made in Yorkshire too

My Dad was a Heating Engineer until he retired a few years ago in his 70's - he swore by Worcester boilers but thought the quality had gone downhill towards the end

Over the last 5 years I have replaced all mine with Remeha Avante Plus on recommendation and so far I'm impressed with initial cost and reliability - my local merchant keeps spares on the shelf if they go wrong which is a bonus but I've had no need for any  Wanted a Series 2 LR since childhood but previously owned MY16 Disco Sport HSE TD4 Auto, MY13 RR Sport Black Edition TDV6 Auto, MY10 RR Sport HSE TDV6 Auto, 2007 Freelander 1 Freestyle TD4 Soft Top, 2009 Freelander 2 GS TD4 Auto, 2007 Freelander 2 GS TD4, 2004 Disco 2 Metropolis Auto, 2002 Disco 2 GS, 2000 Freelander 1 SE TD4 SW

Still hoping for a S2 one day!

Last edited by muddywheels on Fri Nov 07 2014 12:01pm. Edited 1 time in total

fkarim wrote:

RRSTDV8, do you have a hot water cylinder with an immersion heater? You can switch it on to get at least hot water until your boiler is fixed.

Not a fan of boilers myself (pun intended) and can't understand why they need to be so complicated - probably lack of knowledge on my part. I've had a couple of problems too but don't want to go into boring details. I have got CORGI "home plan" insurance since then. Costs me £22 a month but covers all heating, plumbing and electrics in the house plus annual boiler "service". Haven't had any major problems yet but they were fine with sending people out for smallish plumbing/boiler repairs. I could probably increase the cover on my home insurance policy to get the same sort of thing but this one doesn't have any excess, no increase in premium following a claim and AFAIK no claim limit.

How much
I pay £19.50 a month with British Gas, but i've just had the same cover offered to me by another company like for like cover on a special limited time offer for £9.98 per month.

i hope thats not Homeserve Ady, they are

No Nick, definately not.

CORGI provide the same cover cheaper in other parts of the country Ady. Current: Volvo XC90 T8 Inscription Pro PHEV with some optionals on top
Gone: MY16 RRS2 3.0 SDV6 Autobiography Dynamic, Carpathian Grey & Santorini Black Sliding Pano/Ebony & Ivory 2 Tone
Gone: MY13 RRS 3.0 SDV6 HSE Black Edition, Orkney Grey/Ivory
Gone: MY09 RRS 2.7 TDV6 HSE, Santorini Black/Almond

Worth a call.

http://www.homeenergyservices.co.uk/

Thanks. Had a quick look and they charge £18.98 for the same cover I pay £21.99 for (heating + plumbing + electric). Might take a look at the finer details later. Could help haggling current provider's price down and stick with the company I know  Current: Volvo XC90 T8 Inscription Pro PHEV with some optionals on top
Gone: MY16 RRS2 3.0 SDV6 Autobiography Dynamic, Carpathian Grey & Santorini Black Sliding Pano/Ebony & Ivory 2 Tone
Gone: MY13 RRS 3.0 SDV6 HSE Black Edition, Orkney Grey/Ivory
Gone: MY09 RRS 2.7 TDV6 HSE, Santorini Black/Almond

We don't have boilers here. But we do have gas hot water systems which are very similar. We have 2 hot water systems, a large one and a smaller one. The small one serves the master bath while the large one provides hot water to the other bathrooms and kitchen etc. They are located outside the house but still need replacing every 10 years or so.

Paddi wrote:

RRS Daz wrote:

Paddi wrote:

Another boiler hater here too!
Ever since it was first installed mine lights with a loud bang sometimes but not every time. I think it is called explosive ignition.
PCB changed - no difference. Seems nobody can fix it! Surely it is just something to do with the wrong gas/air mixture - not exactly rocket science?

On the upside when the fan got noisy I fixed it for a fiver with a new bearing (instead of £200 part plus another £75 for an 'engineer' to come and fit it in 5 minutes).

What's the make and model?

Explosive ignition can be something as simple as the spark gap, cracked burner, spark generator failure more than the wrong gas/air mixture as it's the build up of gas/air inside the heat exchanger before the spark lights it.

It is the ironically named 'Potterton Suprima 80'. When I've looked up the faults on plumbing forums it seems this model is pretty crap. Any recommendations on who might be able to fix it?

Thanks,
P.

IMO you can't buy a boiler breakdown policy on price.

There are company's that are cheap (and my mates work for them) they go and diagnose the fault, the office then orders the part and then the engineer returns to fit it. He says from start to finish it can be 8 weeks! If it's no heating or water that's a long wait.

I'm sure the policy won't stipulate a time frame that the repair will be done in.

What's the time frame from you calling to getting an engineer into your property?

How important are these things to you?

Quick turnaround time is very important to me. The first visit has always been within 24 hours as per their SLA. They say it should be quicker if the nature of the problem demands so i.e. an emergency, which luckily I haven't experienced since signing up 3.5 years ago. If any parts were needed, they were ordered/bought and engineer came back within a couple of days to fit. On one occasion there were some access issues which I had to get sorted on my own so they gave me a temporary solution until I managed to get that done. It took them 3-4 days to come back after that but it was summer and we had a workaround so perfectly acceptable. Current: Volvo XC90 T8 Inscription Pro PHEV with some optionals on top
Gone: MY16 RRS2 3.0 SDV6 Autobiography Dynamic, Carpathian Grey & Santorini Black Sliding Pano/Ebony & Ivory 2 Tone
Gone: MY13 RRS 3.0 SDV6 HSE Black Edition, Orkney Grey/Ivory
Gone: MY09 RRS 2.7 TDV6 HSE, Santorini Black/Almond

Got home to find that they'd been again as planned and had got it working. Apparently, the chap doesn't know why it's working again - which is refreshingly honest - so we're not sure how long it will keep going. At least it gives us some (warm) breathing space to decide what we do next. 2012 SDV6 - it's missing a couple of cylinders
2008 TDV8 - it was a labour of love and is much missed

Didn't last long. Now looking at boiler offers... 2012 SDV6 - it's missing a couple of cylinders
2008 TDV8 - it was a labour of love and is much missed

Only get a vaillant boiler.

+1 for the Vaillant boiler, I have 2 of them, 1st class. MY13.5 Autobiography, Santorini Black, Privacy Glass. Gone
Driving a milk float for now.