Boiler servicing: have you paid over the odds for cover?

It is worth looking at your house insurance. It more than likely only covers damage associated with a boiler problem if it is serviced annually. As it could cause extensive water damage or a fire, well worth doing but the main reason is for your own safety and convenience; do you want to be suddenly without heating?

I have mine serviced each year for around £66 by a local plumber. I’ve had two repairs need in the 9 years since it was installed. One was replacing the external pump and valves at a cost of £200, The other was to replace part of the condensate system at a cost of around £70.

For those who let houses remember you are required to have a gas safety check annually.

Boiler cover, drainage cover and so on provide peace of mind but can be very expensive. The first year’s cover may be reasonably priced but after that your loyalty may be rewarded with larger bills, or monthly payments that don’t look too bad but are even more expensive. Boiler cover may mean that you receive priority treatment if you have a breakdown. I don’t have boiler cover, so don’t know how this works.

My pump died without warning after Christmas and I could not find a local plumber. Fortunately I had fan heaters and could heat water with an immersion heater, and I replaced the pump myself the following day.

It might not be worth it financially, but it does bring peace of mind. We have British Gas cover.

The immersion heater rod has been replaced every few years, the pump has needed attention every year or so, at least one radiator valve gets replaced every year, when the boiler has stopped working almost yearly, it gets fixed within a couple of days with the minimum of fuss.

It is so difficult to find trustworthy plumbers these days. A previous partner got conned into a new immersion tank costing many hundreds of pounds when it was only a pipe/valve blockage outside the tank. You could feel a pipe was hot one side of a joint and cold the other.

At least with boiler cover, you don’t get conned into unnecessary work, you don’t get conned into paying extra for unsocial hours or being an emergency, getting charged extra for time and fuel to ‘get parts’ or get juggled between multiple jobs.

What you also get with boiler cover is a plumber you feel you can put your faith in to do the job properly, and you have a proper company to deal with if you are not happy with anything.

alfa, it is a very fair comment to balance the (in)convenience against the cost. One son’s partner has her electrical appliances all covered in her flat. Not cheap but she only has to pick up the phone if anything goes wrong. For the many people who have not a clue how do deal with a problem having professional help on tap that you can trust is worth the money.

You do seem to have more than your fair share of breakdowns though. Is it time for a new boiler?

British Gas do not come out too badly in the Which? survey – 59% approval.

The usual problem with drains is a blockage. Not pleasant when the toilet doesn’t empty quickly and you take off the manhole cover to discover the cause. I find this happens around once a year. Around Christmas. Many years ago I invested in a set of drain rods (I also swept the chimney with the brush attachment when we had a solid fuel boiler). They soon clear the obstruction and are well worth keeping in the shed.

I wouldn’t be without a set of drain rods. I quite enjoy doing an annual purge of the drainage just to keep everything flowing sweetly. I keep a set of overalls, boots and rubber gloves in a bag next to the rods, and I set the garden hose-pipe up and have some Jeyes fluid ready so that I can immediately flush and cleanse the chamber after lifting the inspection cover.

At our previous house we were at the end of a line of five houses and there was an occasional blockage caused by the wrong things being flushed down the toilet by a neighbour and the system would back up and prevent our toilets from emptying properly. I had bought some extra rods so had about sixty feet or more of rodding and by fitting the plunger tool to the end of the rods I was able to force the blockage all the way out to the main sewer under the highway. Withdrawing the rods and cleaning and disinfecting them was not the most pleasant occupation but had to be done. My wife meanwhile would go round the house emptying the bath and flushing the toilets to make sure all the outflows were clean. When using drain rods, make sure each one is screwed into the preceding one fully and keep turning in a clockwise direction as you push them forward; when withdrawing them it is essential to also keep turning them in a clockwise direction otherwise one might unscrew itself and become detached, remaining in the drain with expensive recovery consequences.

We haven’t had any blockage problems since leaving that house but a tip is to keep some Caustic Soda available for dealing with minor overloads. This is hazardous stuff and the instructions must be strictly complied with but it does work very effectively. Regular treatments of toilets with a small quantity at the recommended dilution rate will help maintain the system in good and hygienic condition. Obviously, keeping inappropriate articles out of the waste system in the first place is the surest way to achieve drainage delight.

Alfa – You are either very unlucky or there may be something wrong with your system. To avoid problems with thermostatic radiator valves, it’s worth turning them on and off periodically. It’s also worth turning the heating system on periodically in the summer months. Some systems do this automatically. The corrosion inhibitor in the heating system needs to be maintained at an adequate level to avoid future problems. If the system has been drained to replace a pump or valve, the inhibitor may not have been replaced. I have seen poorly designed systems, for example with the pump at a low point where it can be affected by debris in the system. Soon after buying my previous home I discovered that the pump was on too fast a setting causing ‘pumping over’ in the header tank, which can cause serious corrosion and leaking radiators.

You are absolutely right about avoiding being conned into paying for work that is not necessary. A main dealer told me that my rear shock absorbers on my car were leaking, but the garage that did the MOT said there was no problem and told me that some unscrupulous garages try to con customers into having unnecessary work done.

I’m planning to hold on to my existing boiler. I cannot be certain but believe it was fitted when the house was built, around 19 years ago. I asked a heating engineer to service it a couple of months ago and we had a discussion about boilers. He strongly advised me not to replace it because newer boilers may be more efficient but are less reliable. He is the third qualified person that has said the same thing. I do appreciate that the new rules mean that if my boiler fails I will have to have one that complies with the new rules.

Soon after moving in I replaced the old thermostat with a new electronic version that gives better control and displays the room temperature, like the one in my previous home. I don’t want a smart system that allows me to control the heating system from my phone. When I’m away in winter I leave the heating on to prevent freezing and if it was very cold, someone would go in and adjust the temperature and check that the system was still working.

Thanks for the link, Alex. The article gives excellent advice and all I would add is that carbon monoxide alarms need to be replaced periodically – five or seven years is typical. I’m happy with my old non-condensing boiler and the engineer who looked at it recently advised me to keep it.

One problem with old boilers is that spares may no longer be available. The main weakness the model I own seems to be the circuit board, but I’ve checked and spares were available when I last checked.